The Future of Medicine Starts With You
In today's episode, Haylie Pomroy is with Denise Kruszynski, a board-certified functional medicine nurse practitioner at the Institute for Neuro Immune Medicine, to talk about what is broken in modern healthcare, why complex chronic illness patients keep falling through the cracks, and what can actually be done about it.
Denise brings 25 years of clinical experience, including a decade in a level one trauma ICU, to a conversation that is both practical and urgent. She walks through why 15-minute primary care visits make root cause medicine structurally impossible, why specialist appointments offer more time but still only look at one system in a body where everything is connected, and why functional medicine, what she calls primary care 3.0, is the tier of care most patients with chronic illness have never had access to.
She also gives our community something concrete: if you feel stuck and don't know where to start, write your life down. The answers are often already in your story. You just need space and someone who will ask the right questions.
If you have been dismissed, rushed, or told your labs are fine when something clearly is not, this episode of Fast Metabolism Matters is your permission slip to expect more.
If your body feels like it's running on empty, overburdened, or just not responding the way it used to, Haylie's latest book, Toxic Overload, tells you exactly what to do. Download your free digital copy today and start understanding what your body is trying to tell you.
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Denise Kruszynski, MSN, APRN, FNP-BC is a board certified Family Nurse Practitioner at the Institute for Neuro-Immune Medicine at Nova Southeastern University (NSU). She has been marked by review & application of research for the promotion of healing and wellness through nutrition, fitness, and education. She has extensive experience in the care of critically ill and traumatically injured patients and their families working at Memorial Regional Hospital’s Level 1 Trauma Center as a trauma and Critical-Care Certified Registered Nurse for over 25 years. During, Denise's over 25 years as a registered nurse, she has participated in the hospital policy and procedure committee, kept practice and current research in alignment, mediated an ethics committee on death and dying, taught clinical courses, and mentored nursing students.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denise-pryor-kruszynski-56488429/
Haylie Pomroy, Founder and CEO of The Haylie Pomroy Group, is a leading health strategist specializing in metabolism, weight loss, and integrative wellness. With over 25 years of experience, she has worked with top medical institutions and high-profile clients, developing targeted programs and supplements rooted in the "Food is Medicine" philosophy. Inspired by her own autoimmune journey, she combines expertise in nutrition, biochemistry, and patient advocacy to help others reclaim their health. She is a New York Times bestselling author of The Fast Metabolism Diet.
Learn more about Haylie Pomroy's approach to wellness through her website: https://hayliepomroy.com
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Transcript
Denise Kruszynski: You need to do your own research. Medicine traditionally has been patients going in, doctors spoon-feeding, don't ask any questions. The patients just basically say, because of the hierarchy of authority, okay, what is this medicine for? I don't know. But the doctor said I have to take it. That's not good self-advocacy. You need to know what is going on in your body because nobody cares as much as you do.
Haylie Pomroy: Welcome to the Hope and Help podcast, where we talk about science and science-based tools for fatigue and chronic illness. I'm your host, Haylie Pomroy, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fast Metabolism Diet. I am back in school, guys, finishing my PhD in neuroimmunology at the Institute here. And I will always be a fierce advocate for those of you that feel you need a little bit of help and a whole lot of hope.
Today we have a really exciting topic. I want to tackle the current state of medicine, how we see the different aspects of medicine, and what we use as an institute to really kind of unravel these complex diseases.
I always try to bring you the top of the top, guys, and this time I feel like I really hit it out of the park. I have one of our esteemed practitioners, Denise Kruszynski. Her area of focus is people with complex disease, post-acute COVID-19, environmental toxicity, and what we call stealth illness.
Denise, thank you so much for being here today. I am fascinated by what you do, super fascinated by your background, and I know our community is just going to get so much from your help today.
Thank you. It's good to be here.
Haylie Pomroy: I love that you started out in urgent care or emergency care. Am I correct with that?
Denise Kruszynski: Yes. I worked for more than 25 years in a level one trauma center.
Haylie Pomroy: And so you saw patients that were in a total state of crisis.
Denise Kruszynski: Completely dependent upon the healthcare system.
Haylie Pomroy: So how did that prepare you for what we're seeing in clinic today?
Denise Kruszynski: Working in the ICU made me realize that people needed care before they ended up in an acute care setting. And that really is what prompted me to go out of the ICU to get more education and to get experience in different areas of primary care. Providentially, I ended up in a complex chronic illness situation, which was so much like the ICU, except that people are walking around terribly ill, but they're walking around. Whereas in the ICU, they're pretty much not interactive many times.
Haylie Pomroy: That's an interesting analogy between the two. So many people that are dealing with chronic disease and chronic illness are just pushing through every day, not getting answers and not getting solutions.
Before we started, you and I had this conversation about, there were some actual really good things that came out of the pandemic. And I try to focus on that. I know that it was a horrific time for many, but you distilled it down for me in a way that was, I was like, okay, we got to turn the cameras on because I want everybody to hear this.
So what do you feel came out of it that was so positive?
Denise Kruszynski: I think that what happened during the pandemic, it came into sharp focus how our metabolic wellness impacts our health. There are people who went into the pandemic living their usual lives, but didn't realize that it just took one little hit, and they were in a very bad situation. So what happened is that we began to understand how the different parts of the body are integrated. The gut, the lungs, the heart, the brain, it really came into sharp focus during the pandemic, how much that our bodies are really integrated and how dependent we were really on good nutrition to prepare us for situations like this.
So a lot of things came into focus, nutrition, toxins in our environment, what other things, why did some people get very sick, and other people just pretty much sailed through it? There's a reason.
Haylie Pomroy: Yeah, there's a reason. Same virus, different body and different stressors. I mean, that was what was really fascinating to me. I love that people became savvy with more medical nomenclature. There's always been kind of this divide of your doctor understands science, and you are within your three to seven minute appointment typically, you are subject to what they feel like you should be exposed to from a science perspective.
And what I loved during COVID was that the community started talking, I mean, people talking about cytokine storms and their immune system and how they adapt to stress and their adrenals and the lungs. And all of that was a good thing. I think it brought everybody to the table. One of the things that I think forced that though, was, in my opinion, how tragic the functionality of our current healthcare is. And I would love you to walk us through the different maybe facets of healthcare.
Denise Kruszynski: Thanks. I'd love to do that. I really wanted people to understand that there's different places for us to go to in different parts of our healthcare. If we're in a terrible situation, the acute care, the tertiary care setting is for those situations that need immediate, urgent care, whether you're in the ICU, whether you go to an emergency room, if you really need intervention, you go to an acute care, if you need antibiotics, but that's the setting for immediate care.
Haylie Pomroy: But a lot of people are going there for their primary care visits because they can't get into their doctors.
Denise Kruszynski: And then they leave disappointed because they didn't help them. They leave disappointed, but that's not the setting for maintenance. That's not the setting for everyday wellness.
Haylie Pomroy: Really, treatment or cure either. It's just crisis intervention.
Denise Kruszynski: It's crisis intervention. It's a quick Band-Aid, and you move on and they'll send you back to your primary care doctor, which is really where you should be. Unfortunately, at the primary care level, primary care doctors are not equipped. They don't have the time to give you extensive root cause care. So what they'll do is they treat that immediate care, and they try to keep you healthy in a general way, as long as you're not in terrible condition.
But then, if there are undermining factors that they don't have time to get to, you're still going to become ill.
Haylie Pomroy: It was interesting. I have so many people in our community ask me all the time why didn't my doctor talk to me about nutrition? Why didn't my doctor talk to me about stress management? First of all, they don't have the time. And from what I understand, there's a lot of restrictions also on, I mean, I got a massive debate. I have a lovely doctor that I adore. Somebody was stepping in.
I got a massive debate. I actually fired him with the doctor that had stepped in because he wouldn't run a lab for me. And I'm like we didn't even get to have the conversation. He said, I don't find it medically necessary. I said, well, I don't know you. I've talked to you for three minutes. Let me give you the opportunity to tell you how it is medically necessary. So I said, you don't work for me anymore. I emailed my doctor and she ran everything. And it came back positive. I'm just so grateful that I had somebody that was an advocate for me. But people are really struggling right now.
So we have urgent or emergency care. Then we have our primary care. What role should they play in our health and wellness? Like what's the ideal and how was it set up originally?
Hi, it's Haylie Pomroy, your host. I’ve written 6 New York Times bestselling books on metabolic pathways, and my latest book, Toxic Overload, tell you exactly what to do when your body’s overburdened. If you go to hayliepomroy.com/book, for a limited time, you can download a digital copy of this book completely free. That’s hayliepomroy.com/book. Grab your free copy while supplies last. Now, back to our show.
Denise Kruszynski: I think that one very important thing is just what you brought up. Primary care physicians need to know you. Don't be jumping around. Find yourself a good primary care that you like, that you trust, that you can talk with and stick with that person.
If you're going to a pharmacy, stick with one pharmacy. That pharmacist will get to know your medications and you have all your medications in one place. They'll be able to tell you, are there interactions? But when we're hopping around for care to different places, when we're going to urgent care, when we're going to the emergency room care, sometimes then our care becomes very fragmented.
Haylie Pomroy: I was talking to a client the other day and I said, a lot of people think about where their kids should go to school or where their kids go to elementary school or child care or college. And I said, put at least, at the very least, that kind of effort in figuring out your health care strategy well before you need a doctor.
My mom just had a situation where she called — she's at Loma Linda. She's at a great place. She called to get an appointment. She had a few things going on.
And they said, we'll call you in three months to schedule an appointment. And I got on the phone because I said, no, there's no way, mom. And in three months, they would call to schedule an appointment. And they said it would be three to four months after that three months to get her in to see the doctor. And I was just so discouraged. She's 83 years old. She's doing great, but had some things go on. And I thought, what am I going to do? Send her to emergency care. I'm lucky I get to call you guys. And we got her in. They ran everything. There was something going on. We're addressing it. But what if she had waited seven months? How are people supposed to navigate? What are we going to do with the fact that's the reality right now? Almost impossible to get into your doc. And if you do, you've got seven minutes average.
Denise Kruszynski: So that's the thing. You mentioned two really important things. You're her advocate. You need to have close people, whether you're family, whether you're friends, you need an advocate when you go in. People are less likely to get brushed off when they have an advocate.
But the second thing that you mentioned is very important. You go into a primary care doctor, maximum 15 minutes. Now, 15 minutes for that for you to tell the doctor what's wrong, for the doctor to assess you, for the doctor to come up with a plan of care and for the doctor to document. Impossible.
It is not doable. So why do what do people do? So people go into specialty fields thinking they're going to have more time. So now they don't have 15 minutes. They have 20 to 30 minutes. But then they focus on one system.
Haylie Pomroy: That's what I was going to say. Then they focus on one part of your body. And again, what we learned during the pandemic is that everything works together. Otherwise, we could have just given an antiviral and moved on. We wouldn't have had this neuro inflammatory long response or the cardiovascular inflammatory response or the immune suppression, all the things that holistically happened in the body with one virus. I agree with you.
I think it was we learned that the body is this complex system that totally works together.
I love that you said, advocate, and be an advocacy, advocate for yourself. I grew up in the generation where I had a very passive relationship with my physician. I was grateful that they were taking their time to see me. I was happy that that they would prescribe or whatever. And I had to get feisty or ornery when I got really sick. I didn't have a choice. I had to say is this the path? Is this a protocol for progress? Is this the path for my wellness? I couldn't tolerate the medication that I was on. I didn't really have the choice. But I think it's shifted. I think that that it has to be a partnership. And if it doesn't feel like a partnership, I don't really see how you can get well with that person being on your team.
Denise Kruszynski: You have to be your own advocate. You're absolutely right. You need to do your own research. Medicine traditionally has been patients going in, doctors spoon feeding. Don't ask any questions. Really, they don't have time for questions. And the patients just basically say because of the hierarchy of authority, the patients just say, OK, it was essentially it's been a patriarch kind of a system. You come in, you listen to the doctor. The doctor says this. The doctor said, what is this medicine for? I don't know. But the doctor said I have to take it. That's not good self-advocacy. You need to know what is going on in your body because nobody cares as much as you do. You think that everybody cares and we do care, but nobody cares as much as I care about me.
Haylie Pomroy: And you're with yourself 24-7. A funny situation we had in our community. We work through anti-inflammatory foods, weight loss working on adaptability, the adrenals, all of that stuff. We had someone that had posted that they just recently ate great foods, lost 28 pounds. What happened was their inflammatory markers came down and their cholesterol came down significantly.
And we said, hey, reach out to your doc. Make sure you talk to him about lowering your cholesterol medication. And the response back was I can't go down until I ask my doctor. I said, awesome, let's get your doctor on board. Literally seven months took to be able to see that doctor. So had an individual that was on a medication that was not medically necessary could potentially be detrimental because they couldn't. Would you recommend that that person, could they get advice in the emergency room? What do they do? How do they navigate?
Denise Kruszynski: It's tough. You don't go to the emergency room for that kind of care. They will not give you any answers. It's a wasted visit. So what do you do? You advocate for yourself and you make decisions that you need to make. And then you tell your doctor, hopefully you have an ability to communicate through a portal with your physician. So you communicate. If you can't get an appointment, communicate through your portal with your physician and say, this is what I found. This is my cholesterol. This is what I'm going to do. If you have any input, please let me know. Love me. That's me.
Haylie Pomroy: No, I love that. I think people are kind of, I think people are kind of looking, trying to look for solutions. I'm going to break for a second for the direct to camera commercial. If we can help you guys in any way, please let us do that. You can go to hayliepomroy.com/member and jump into our community support group. I would love to have you there for free for 30 days. Check it out, ask questions. We help you prepare a request for care so you can get ready for your doctor's appointment and communicate health and wellness and nutrition in a positive way.
Denise, I just wanted to make sure that people know that we are here past the podcast if they need help and need support. And I am always bringing questions in clinical about our community. And so I appreciate it.
As part of the Institute for Neuroimmune Medicine, what type of patient are you seeing? And does it work to have success with those patients in a 15 to 20 minute visit? I don't think I could get very much accomplished in a 15, 20 minute visit because I need to know about more than just why they're tired. I need to know more than that. I need to know how are they eating? I need to go, how are their bowels working? I need to know, are they sleeping? I need to know how their social relationships are, how their work is. I mean, there's a lot of things that go into, I'm fatigued. There's a lot of things that go into why people have diabetes. There's a lot of things that go into everything. It's your whole system is integrated. So every system impacts every other system. So by the time I ask why four or five times and they've answered me, we've already spent maybe half an hour.
Haylie Pomroy: What's the average that you spend with a patient at the Institute?
Denise Kruszynski: My first visit is, without exception, at least two hours. It takes a long time to really get down because there are a lot of things that people will not even think it's important. And then after we talk a little bit, they'll say, like, I just recently had somebody, and I won't go into detail because it was very recent, that there was something going on. And after talking for a while, she told me that she had had a toxic exposure, but 20 years ago, had no idea that this made any difference at all until I specifically asked about this period of time. And then we could move forward and say, oh, maybe that's what the problem is. But before that, we could have no idea. And I have many stories. We all do. As we dig in, we find out, oh, do you have family that has this? So maybe it's a genetic component.
So it takes time to unearth things that people don't really realize. When people are used to coming in, they're like a machine gun, telling me as much as they can tell me at once because they think that I'm going to cut them off.
Haylie Pomroy: That totally hurts my heart. People come in, and I love when I love when they've Googled. I love when they've done research. I think it's awesome. I love when they have lists. And to your point, I feel like they've been so conditioned to not have enough time or not have a voice, that they start to just go, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, we got this. I've got plenty of time set aside for you. It's me and you. We're going to talk through this. And if you think of more later, we're going to go there.
I want to just take a moment and say, I think that there's been people outside of medicine, the patient, that have said, there's something wrong. It's not possible for me to get care in a short period of time. I think it's profound that we're having people like yourself and a lot of the practitioners in our institute, many institutes right now that are finally saying, we can't practice effective medicine this way.
Denise Kruszynski: We can't. And really, that really brings us to what are we going to do? What are we going to do about it? We need to do something different about health care. We need to have educated patients as well.
We need to educate children, even from the time that they're young. How do you eat well? So that they understand they need to be fed well in cafeterias. They need to have medical education, nutritional education. If you were to ask me, I think if I were to redo, if I could make my own world of education, I would say we need to bring back music and arts into schools because these children, they have a lot of stress, a lot of inner angst. There's no way for them to express it. There's no avenues in our current system.
Haylie Pomroy: With testing, that's not stress-reducing? Standardized testing?
Denise Kruszynski: Standardized testing. Our school system has been set up to bring children into compliance with how to work in factories. It was really set up a long time ago. There was this model in Russia that we adopted in the United States in the 80s with the bells and the times. That all came because we were trying, they were trying to get children to get trained to work in factories.
Haylie Pomroy: Kind of fall in line, if you will.
Denise Kruszynski: That's not the kind of education that brings people a relief of stress. That's the kind of things that makes crazy mice.
Haylie Pomroy: Yes. We see that in science. And bringing life sciences back into the kids' school. In Grayson's kindergarten class, we lost our science teacher, and through the school at the time, and they couldn't get, I don't know, another one hired or funding or something. So I came in and did life sciences, and we planted a garden. We did the ladybugs and the earthworms. I love that. And then we cultivated or we grew the food, we cooked the food. Those kids know about different oils to cook in. I think about it now, she's 22. And I thought, she learned about seed oils and olive oil and all of that through the life science classes. And you're right, kids need that.
You just gave all of us listening, though, permission to research what's going on with them. Again, I'm dating myself, but there's been a lot of gaslighting that's happened when people come in. And I've been in meetings where I say, oh, I hate when my client goes to Google Doctor before they go to me. And it just breaks my heart because I think we are like, bring us articles, bring us data, bring us information, bring us collaboration. I always say, at the end goals to get you well, I will literally tie chicken bones around my neck on a full moon to get you well. I don't care. Let's just get the job done. I will. Perfect timing.
Okay, we're going to take a deep breath and a beat for a second. Let's hit on a couple hot topics that you want to hit on.
Denise Kruszynski: Well, one of the things that I had mentioned before is we really need to re-envision healthcare. We need to re-envision healthcare so that people are prepared when they go into their doctor. We do live in a world with limited resources. That's the reality.
Haylie Pomroy: Okay, so I agree with you. We need to start from the ground up. Our babies, I teach classes, and one of the women has a brand new baby.
And sometimes she nurses during class, and sometimes the baby just snuggles on her chest. And I was teaching classes when I was pregnant with both my kids. And I think I keep telling her she cannot start attending these classes too young. She's our like fast metabolism baby. We talk about it. I love that they're exposing. She's having that experience. What are we going to do about our current healthcare now? And then I want to talk to you a little bit about what does it mean to be a functional medicine doctor and what is functional medicine? But how do you envision healthcare changing? It has to change. I mean, people are doing all kinds of home remedies, which I love, things at home because they can't get into their doctor. We've got home labs now. I mean, in almost every state you can get all the labs you want run. People are taking medicine into their own hands right now. And I'm kind of watching it going, this is interesting. What do you think needs to happen?
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Denise Kruszynski: I think we're always going to have to start with education. I think that a lot of how Dr. Klimas envisions the role of Institute for Neuro-Immune Medicine (INIM) is that we educate the physicians, we educate the patients so that they are armed. For the physicians, so they're more aware that there are toxic exposures. These are the things that you can do for chronic fatigue. These are the things that you can do for mold toxicity. There are actions that we can take. And then for the patients, also information for them. What can you do? How do you speak with your doctor? How do you prepare? How do you protect yourself? How do you not absorb more toxins from the environment in your food, in your water, in the vicinity that you live in? I think it starts with education. First of all, we need to educate doctors, as Dr. Klimas has envisioned. We need to educate the patients. How do you take care of yourself?
Haylie Pomroy: Absolutely. It's interesting because at the Institute, so we're under the umbrella of KPCOM, of a medical school, osteopathic medical school. And as part of my PhD right now, I'm taking an integrative nutrition class focusing on immunology and the endocrine system. I have a bunch of second and third-year osteopathic docs in my class. I know. So the instructor is a doctor of functional medicine, IFM, like yourself. And the eyeballs of some of the medical students just really deep dive into these cases that they're doing from the immune system and from the endocrine, the hormone systems. They're like, why have we worked second, third year, and we've never been exposed to this? I'm so excited that they're taking those classes. It's elective.
I'll say that I think it should be mandatory. But it's really cool to see these young, up-and-coming docs being at least exposed to this.
Denise Kruszynski: I think that that's great. And I agree. That needs to be incorporated into a regular education. I think that the traditional old-time physicians really look at functional medicine as not really validated medicine.
And that's absolutely not true because Dr. Jeffrey Bland, who was one of the originators of IFM, he was a founder. He's a biochemist. So we're talking about medicine that is, it's not superficial medicine. It's not anecdotal.
Haylie Pomroy: It's a deep dive.
Denise Kruszynski: It is a deep dive into cellular metabolism. I can tell you when I went through those courses that he and a bunch of other brilliant physicians put together, it is a deep dive into cellular metabolics. It's just like, it's deep.
Haylie Pomroy: So you brought up Dr. Klimas. Dr. Klimas, I always ask her obviously extremely well accomplished in HIV and ME/CFS and Gulf War injury, immunology. Incredible. And I said, why in the world do you take these integrative medicine and functional medicine classes? Like, are you just bored? What's going on? And one day she said to me, like, I can't help patients without it. It's now a love. But when it, but at first it was a necessity. So why in the world, you are booked beyond belief, you're super successful. Why in the world did you decide to get board-certified in functional medicine?
Denise Kruszynski: My patients needed it. Dr. Klimas told me a long time ago why she had integrated functional medicine into her practice. And she said, the patients with traditional care were not getting better. And that's the thing.
I can treat them with traditional care, and I'm going to be frustrated and burned out like a huge majority of physicians. And I'm going to go home frustrated and feeling like I didn't do a good job. And that's exactly how it was.
I did work in a traditional practice before, and it was very frustrating. It was about giving medicine for heartburn, medicine for blood pressure, medicine for the lungs, and medicine for this and medicine for that. But I never did have time to help them at the, how could I help them help themselves? And this is what functional medicine does for you.
It's primary care, but it's primary care 3.0. It helps you to help yourself because a functional medicine practitioner is going to integrate the best of conventional medicine, the best of functional medicine, and bringing those two together, you have a higher level of care and wellness.
Haylie Pomroy: And wellness. Yes. Because there's few medications or surgeries that will necessarily heal you. The healing has to come from within, and we're dynamic. We're not reductionist.
Denise Kruszynski: They help. In the meantime, until something terrible doesn't happen. It helps, but that's where you shouldn't stop with your medicine for your heartburn. You need to move on and fix yourself so you don't end up with 25 medications that you're taking every day.
Haylie Pomroy: And why do you have heartburn? It's not because you're deficient in that medication. I mean, the medication might quell the symptom, but why is this happening in the body? And I love that we focus on that as an institute. And I love watching you focus on that with your patients.
Denise Kruszynski: And their side effects. The other thing is to mention you're taking all those medications. It has side effects.
Haylie Pomroy: And also, all the studies that have been done, haven't been done with those medications taken in combination. That's what always blows my mind. We had this medical ethics class, Dr. Speth, and we were talking with this big pharmacist that sits in the pharmacology department. And I said, wait a minute, I can see what are the side effects of drug A, drug B, drug C. We had someone that we looked at a case with 13 medications. There was not one single study ever done that showed what the complex side effects were with combining those drugs. And they are chemistry. It's like saying, we're going to go back to elementary school. If I put yellow and blue, it makes green. You can't say if I put Prozac and cholesterol medication, it makes Prozac and cholesterol medication. There is a synergistic effect and a chemistry that happens within the body that we need to account for. And you can't do that in 15 minutes. You just can't.
Denise Kruszynski: You can't.
Haylie Pomroy: So I want to just button this up with what can people out there do? What can we do today? I love the advocacy. I love we do this in our community, we do this request for care. We take you through like totally getting prepped for your doctor's visit. It's invaluable. My kids use it. I used it when I fired the doctor the other day. I said, really? Well, here's my request for care. Actually, this is what deems it medically necessary in my mind. And let's have a conversation. He said, I don't have time. Sorry, I got to go. I can't sign off on your labs. Didn't even read the paper. I was very upset, but I solved it. But what can we do? How can we change this situation? If a person's out there right now, they're struggling. They don't feel well. We would love to see them at the clinic, first and foremost. You're welcome. But what if they can't? What should they do?
Denise Kruszynski: I would say the first thing that they should do is just sit down and write and think about their life. Think about the foods that they eat.
Think about the relationships that they have. Think about their activity. Think about their sleep. Think about their work stresses. Just try to put all of those things together and write them down, and try to look at patterns. They may not be able to pull those patterns out like a functional practitioner. However, it helps when you write everything down, and you think about the timeline, even from the time that you were born, what's been going on all of those, all that. And then when did you start feeling bad? Try to become self-aware. When did you start feeling bad, and what happened just before that?
Haylie Pomroy: I love that. I love categorizing. And I think this is a great way to prepare. Like, what's my nutrition like? What are my relationships like? What's my sleep like? What is my what are my top stressors? What is my work? Is it fulfilling? Is it gratifying? That's why I'm back in school. That's why you went back to school. I mean, we didn't have to. We didn't need to. It's just that fulfillment in knowing that you can actually truly help a human being is just rewarding beyond anything. Isn't that great? Like we're maybe it's not a fit.
And so, whether it's functional medicine or us we it's why we have a multitude of practitioners and why we collaborate on Fridays, and we move clients around. Sometimes it's not the right fit or the right knowledge base.
Denise Kruszynski: And if you don't feel comfortable, that is exactly what was going to be my next point. If you don't feel comfortable, if you can't speak with your practitioner, if you can't speak with his nurse practitioner, you might have a nurse practitioner, a doctor. Be sure that you can actually have a conversation with them if you request things that they respect you. They respect your requests.
They may not necessarily do everything that you want them to do, but they need to show you do respect and listen and take into consideration what you're saying. And if you don't feel like you have a good rapport with that doctor or that nurse practitioner, I would just move on. And I actually did the same thing. I just I had one interview. I saw this doctor and his nurse practitioner once, and then I didn't go back because they were completely disregarded.
And you think as a health care provider, like you say with your mom, you think that they would give them a little bit more leeway, but they don't.
Haylie Pomroy: No, no, no, no. I appreciate that. Denise, I can't thank you enough for being here today. It just means everything to give all the people out there that are struggling right now permission to advocate for themselves. And also some real solid direction on taking kind of what maybe feels like an out-of-control situation and just getting it organized. I think people get better care when they walk in with that and also having an advocate. If you have a friend or a best friend or a girlfriend.
Denise Kruszynski: Very important.
Haylie Pomroy: Yes, to have somebody help you. We even had somebody that used first year medical students to help them get organized for doctor's visits and stuff. There's a lot of things you can kind of kind of funny.
Denise Kruszynski: But but like for the medical students, good for them.
Haylie Pomroy: Good for both of them. And eye opening on both ends, too. Absolutely. Well, I know everybody's going to want you back. Thank you so much for being here. And it's really cool for us to understand kind of where and how to navigate the health care system. I will share with you. It's stressful out there. And I know that that you appreciate that and you listen to your patients. And so I know you embody it as well. So thank you.
Denise Kruszynski: Thank you. It's good to be here.
In today's episode, Haylie Pomroy is with Denise Kruszynski, a board-certified functional medicine nurse practitioner at the Institute for Neuro Immune Medicine, to talk about what is broken in modern healthcare, why complex chronic illness patients keep falling through the cracks, and what can actually be done about it.
Denise brings 25 years of clinical experience, including a decade in a level one trauma ICU, to a conversation that is both practical and urgent. She walks through why 15-minute primary care visits make root cause medicine structurally impossible, why specialist appointments offer more time but still only look at one system in a body where everything is connected, and why functional medicine, what she calls primary care 3.0, is the tier of care most patients with chronic illness have never had access to.
She also gives our community something concrete: if you feel stuck and don't know where to start, write your life down. The answers are often already in your story. You just need space and someone who will ask the right questions.
If you have been dismissed, rushed, or told your labs are fine when something clearly is not, this episode of Fast Metabolism Matters is your permission slip to expect more.
If your body feels like it's running on empty, overburdened, or just not responding the way it used to, Haylie's latest book, Toxic Overload, tells you exactly what to do. Download your free digital copy today and start understanding what your body is trying to tell you.
Free Download: Get Your Copy of Toxic Overload 👉 https://hayliepomroy.com/pages/toxic-overload
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Join the Fast Metabolism Membership — First 30 Days Free 👉 https://hayliepomroy.com/pages/fast-metabolism-membership
Denise Kruszynski, MSN, APRN, FNP-BC is a board certified Family Nurse Practitioner at the Institute for Neuro-Immune Medicine at Nova Southeastern University (NSU). She has been marked by review & application of research for the promotion of healing and wellness through nutrition, fitness, and education. She has extensive experience in the care of critically ill and traumatically injured patients and their families working at Memorial Regional Hospital’s Level 1 Trauma Center as a trauma and Critical-Care Certified Registered Nurse for over 25 years. During, Denise's over 25 years as a registered nurse, she has participated in the hospital policy and procedure committee, kept practice and current research in alignment, mediated an ethics committee on death and dying, taught clinical courses, and mentored nursing students.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denise-pryor-kruszynski-56488429/
Haylie Pomroy, Founder and CEO of The Haylie Pomroy Group, is a leading health strategist specializing in metabolism, weight loss, and integrative wellness. With over 25 years of experience, she has worked with top medical institutions and high-profile clients, developing targeted programs and supplements rooted in the "Food is Medicine" philosophy. Inspired by her own autoimmune journey, she combines expertise in nutrition, biochemistry, and patient advocacy to help others reclaim their health. She is a New York Times bestselling author of The Fast Metabolism Diet.
Learn more about Haylie Pomroy's approach to wellness through her website: https://hayliepomroy.com
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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@hayliepomroy/videos
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Transcript
Denise Kruszynski: You need to do your own research. Medicine traditionally has been patients going in, doctors spoon-feeding, don't ask any questions. The patients just basically say, because of the hierarchy of authority, okay, what is this medicine for? I don't know. But the doctor said I have to take it. That's not good self-advocacy. You need to know what is going on in your body because nobody cares as much as you do.
Haylie Pomroy: Welcome to the Hope and Help podcast, where we talk about science and science-based tools for fatigue and chronic illness. I'm your host, Haylie Pomroy, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fast Metabolism Diet. I am back in school, guys, finishing my PhD in neuroimmunology at the Institute here. And I will always be a fierce advocate for those of you that feel you need a little bit of help and a whole lot of hope.
Today we have a really exciting topic. I want to tackle the current state of medicine, how we see the different aspects of medicine, and what we use as an institute to really kind of unravel these complex diseases.
I always try to bring you the top of the top, guys, and this time I feel like I really hit it out of the park. I have one of our esteemed practitioners, Denise Kruszynski. Her area of focus is people with complex disease, post-acute COVID-19, environmental toxicity, and what we call stealth illness.
Denise, thank you so much for being here today. I am fascinated by what you do, super fascinated by your background, and I know our community is just going to get so much from your help today.
Thank you. It's good to be here.
Haylie Pomroy: I love that you started out in urgent care or emergency care. Am I correct with that?
Denise Kruszynski: Yes. I worked for more than 25 years in a level one trauma center.
Haylie Pomroy: And so you saw patients that were in a total state of crisis.
Denise Kruszynski: Completely dependent upon the healthcare system.
Haylie Pomroy: So how did that prepare you for what we're seeing in clinic today?
Denise Kruszynski: Working in the ICU made me realize that people needed care before they ended up in an acute care setting. And that really is what prompted me to go out of the ICU to get more education and to get experience in different areas of primary care. Providentially, I ended up in a complex chronic illness situation, which was so much like the ICU, except that people are walking around terribly ill, but they're walking around. Whereas in the ICU, they're pretty much not interactive many times.
Haylie Pomroy: That's an interesting analogy between the two. So many people that are dealing with chronic disease and chronic illness are just pushing through every day, not getting answers and not getting solutions.
Before we started, you and I had this conversation about, there were some actual really good things that came out of the pandemic. And I try to focus on that. I know that it was a horrific time for many, but you distilled it down for me in a way that was, I was like, okay, we got to turn the cameras on because I want everybody to hear this.
So what do you feel came out of it that was so positive?
Denise Kruszynski: I think that what happened during the pandemic, it came into sharp focus how our metabolic wellness impacts our health. There are people who went into the pandemic living their usual lives, but didn't realize that it just took one little hit, and they were in a very bad situation. So what happened is that we began to understand how the different parts of the body are integrated. The gut, the lungs, the heart, the brain, it really came into sharp focus during the pandemic, how much that our bodies are really integrated and how dependent we were really on good nutrition to prepare us for situations like this.
So a lot of things came into focus, nutrition, toxins in our environment, what other things, why did some people get very sick, and other people just pretty much sailed through it? There's a reason.
Haylie Pomroy: Yeah, there's a reason. Same virus, different body and different stressors. I mean, that was what was really fascinating to me. I love that people became savvy with more medical nomenclature. There's always been kind of this divide of your doctor understands science, and you are within your three to seven minute appointment typically, you are subject to what they feel like you should be exposed to from a science perspective.
And what I loved during COVID was that the community started talking, I mean, people talking about cytokine storms and their immune system and how they adapt to stress and their adrenals and the lungs. And all of that was a good thing. I think it brought everybody to the table. One of the things that I think forced that though, was, in my opinion, how tragic the functionality of our current healthcare is. And I would love you to walk us through the different maybe facets of healthcare.
Denise Kruszynski: Thanks. I'd love to do that. I really wanted people to understand that there's different places for us to go to in different parts of our healthcare. If we're in a terrible situation, the acute care, the tertiary care setting is for those situations that need immediate, urgent care, whether you're in the ICU, whether you go to an emergency room, if you really need intervention, you go to an acute care, if you need antibiotics, but that's the setting for immediate care.
Haylie Pomroy: But a lot of people are going there for their primary care visits because they can't get into their doctors.
Denise Kruszynski: And then they leave disappointed because they didn't help them. They leave disappointed, but that's not the setting for maintenance. That's not the setting for everyday wellness.
Haylie Pomroy: Really, treatment or cure either. It's just crisis intervention.
Denise Kruszynski: It's crisis intervention. It's a quick Band-Aid, and you move on and they'll send you back to your primary care doctor, which is really where you should be. Unfortunately, at the primary care level, primary care doctors are not equipped. They don't have the time to give you extensive root cause care. So what they'll do is they treat that immediate care, and they try to keep you healthy in a general way, as long as you're not in terrible condition.
But then, if there are undermining factors that they don't have time to get to, you're still going to become ill.
Haylie Pomroy: It was interesting. I have so many people in our community ask me all the time why didn't my doctor talk to me about nutrition? Why didn't my doctor talk to me about stress management? First of all, they don't have the time. And from what I understand, there's a lot of restrictions also on, I mean, I got a massive debate. I have a lovely doctor that I adore. Somebody was stepping in.
I got a massive debate. I actually fired him with the doctor that had stepped in because he wouldn't run a lab for me. And I'm like we didn't even get to have the conversation. He said, I don't find it medically necessary. I said, well, I don't know you. I've talked to you for three minutes. Let me give you the opportunity to tell you how it is medically necessary. So I said, you don't work for me anymore. I emailed my doctor and she ran everything. And it came back positive. I'm just so grateful that I had somebody that was an advocate for me. But people are really struggling right now.
So we have urgent or emergency care. Then we have our primary care. What role should they play in our health and wellness? Like what's the ideal and how was it set up originally?
Hi, it's Haylie Pomroy, your host. I’ve written 6 New York Times bestselling books on metabolic pathways, and my latest book, Toxic Overload, tell you exactly what to do when your body’s overburdened. If you go to hayliepomroy.com/book, for a limited time, you can download a digital copy of this book completely free. That’s hayliepomroy.com/book. Grab your free copy while supplies last. Now, back to our show.
Denise Kruszynski: I think that one very important thing is just what you brought up. Primary care physicians need to know you. Don't be jumping around. Find yourself a good primary care that you like, that you trust, that you can talk with and stick with that person.
If you're going to a pharmacy, stick with one pharmacy. That pharmacist will get to know your medications and you have all your medications in one place. They'll be able to tell you, are there interactions? But when we're hopping around for care to different places, when we're going to urgent care, when we're going to the emergency room care, sometimes then our care becomes very fragmented.
Haylie Pomroy: I was talking to a client the other day and I said, a lot of people think about where their kids should go to school or where their kids go to elementary school or child care or college. And I said, put at least, at the very least, that kind of effort in figuring out your health care strategy well before you need a doctor.
My mom just had a situation where she called — she's at Loma Linda. She's at a great place. She called to get an appointment. She had a few things going on.
And they said, we'll call you in three months to schedule an appointment. And I got on the phone because I said, no, there's no way, mom. And in three months, they would call to schedule an appointment. And they said it would be three to four months after that three months to get her in to see the doctor. And I was just so discouraged. She's 83 years old. She's doing great, but had some things go on. And I thought, what am I going to do? Send her to emergency care. I'm lucky I get to call you guys. And we got her in. They ran everything. There was something going on. We're addressing it. But what if she had waited seven months? How are people supposed to navigate? What are we going to do with the fact that's the reality right now? Almost impossible to get into your doc. And if you do, you've got seven minutes average.
Denise Kruszynski: So that's the thing. You mentioned two really important things. You're her advocate. You need to have close people, whether you're family, whether you're friends, you need an advocate when you go in. People are less likely to get brushed off when they have an advocate.
But the second thing that you mentioned is very important. You go into a primary care doctor, maximum 15 minutes. Now, 15 minutes for that for you to tell the doctor what's wrong, for the doctor to assess you, for the doctor to come up with a plan of care and for the doctor to document. Impossible.
It is not doable. So why do what do people do? So people go into specialty fields thinking they're going to have more time. So now they don't have 15 minutes. They have 20 to 30 minutes. But then they focus on one system.
Haylie Pomroy: That's what I was going to say. Then they focus on one part of your body. And again, what we learned during the pandemic is that everything works together. Otherwise, we could have just given an antiviral and moved on. We wouldn't have had this neuro inflammatory long response or the cardiovascular inflammatory response or the immune suppression, all the things that holistically happened in the body with one virus. I agree with you.
I think it was we learned that the body is this complex system that totally works together.
I love that you said, advocate, and be an advocacy, advocate for yourself. I grew up in the generation where I had a very passive relationship with my physician. I was grateful that they were taking their time to see me. I was happy that that they would prescribe or whatever. And I had to get feisty or ornery when I got really sick. I didn't have a choice. I had to say is this the path? Is this a protocol for progress? Is this the path for my wellness? I couldn't tolerate the medication that I was on. I didn't really have the choice. But I think it's shifted. I think that that it has to be a partnership. And if it doesn't feel like a partnership, I don't really see how you can get well with that person being on your team.
Denise Kruszynski: You have to be your own advocate. You're absolutely right. You need to do your own research. Medicine traditionally has been patients going in, doctors spoon feeding. Don't ask any questions. Really, they don't have time for questions. And the patients just basically say because of the hierarchy of authority, the patients just say, OK, it was essentially it's been a patriarch kind of a system. You come in, you listen to the doctor. The doctor says this. The doctor said, what is this medicine for? I don't know. But the doctor said I have to take it. That's not good self-advocacy. You need to know what is going on in your body because nobody cares as much as you do. You think that everybody cares and we do care, but nobody cares as much as I care about me.
Haylie Pomroy: And you're with yourself 24-7. A funny situation we had in our community. We work through anti-inflammatory foods, weight loss working on adaptability, the adrenals, all of that stuff. We had someone that had posted that they just recently ate great foods, lost 28 pounds. What happened was their inflammatory markers came down and their cholesterol came down significantly.
And we said, hey, reach out to your doc. Make sure you talk to him about lowering your cholesterol medication. And the response back was I can't go down until I ask my doctor. I said, awesome, let's get your doctor on board. Literally seven months took to be able to see that doctor. So had an individual that was on a medication that was not medically necessary could potentially be detrimental because they couldn't. Would you recommend that that person, could they get advice in the emergency room? What do they do? How do they navigate?
Denise Kruszynski: It's tough. You don't go to the emergency room for that kind of care. They will not give you any answers. It's a wasted visit. So what do you do? You advocate for yourself and you make decisions that you need to make. And then you tell your doctor, hopefully you have an ability to communicate through a portal with your physician. So you communicate. If you can't get an appointment, communicate through your portal with your physician and say, this is what I found. This is my cholesterol. This is what I'm going to do. If you have any input, please let me know. Love me. That's me.
Haylie Pomroy: No, I love that. I think people are kind of, I think people are kind of looking, trying to look for solutions. I'm going to break for a second for the direct to camera commercial. If we can help you guys in any way, please let us do that. You can go to hayliepomroy.com/member and jump into our community support group. I would love to have you there for free for 30 days. Check it out, ask questions. We help you prepare a request for care so you can get ready for your doctor's appointment and communicate health and wellness and nutrition in a positive way.
Denise, I just wanted to make sure that people know that we are here past the podcast if they need help and need support. And I am always bringing questions in clinical about our community. And so I appreciate it.
As part of the Institute for Neuroimmune Medicine, what type of patient are you seeing? And does it work to have success with those patients in a 15 to 20 minute visit? I don't think I could get very much accomplished in a 15, 20 minute visit because I need to know about more than just why they're tired. I need to know more than that. I need to know how are they eating? I need to go, how are their bowels working? I need to know, are they sleeping? I need to know how their social relationships are, how their work is. I mean, there's a lot of things that go into, I'm fatigued. There's a lot of things that go into why people have diabetes. There's a lot of things that go into everything. It's your whole system is integrated. So every system impacts every other system. So by the time I ask why four or five times and they've answered me, we've already spent maybe half an hour.
Haylie Pomroy: What's the average that you spend with a patient at the Institute?
Denise Kruszynski: My first visit is, without exception, at least two hours. It takes a long time to really get down because there are a lot of things that people will not even think it's important. And then after we talk a little bit, they'll say, like, I just recently had somebody, and I won't go into detail because it was very recent, that there was something going on. And after talking for a while, she told me that she had had a toxic exposure, but 20 years ago, had no idea that this made any difference at all until I specifically asked about this period of time. And then we could move forward and say, oh, maybe that's what the problem is. But before that, we could have no idea. And I have many stories. We all do. As we dig in, we find out, oh, do you have family that has this? So maybe it's a genetic component.
So it takes time to unearth things that people don't really realize. When people are used to coming in, they're like a machine gun, telling me as much as they can tell me at once because they think that I'm going to cut them off.
Haylie Pomroy: That totally hurts my heart. People come in, and I love when I love when they've Googled. I love when they've done research. I think it's awesome. I love when they have lists. And to your point, I feel like they've been so conditioned to not have enough time or not have a voice, that they start to just go, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, we got this. I've got plenty of time set aside for you. It's me and you. We're going to talk through this. And if you think of more later, we're going to go there.
I want to just take a moment and say, I think that there's been people outside of medicine, the patient, that have said, there's something wrong. It's not possible for me to get care in a short period of time. I think it's profound that we're having people like yourself and a lot of the practitioners in our institute, many institutes right now that are finally saying, we can't practice effective medicine this way.
Denise Kruszynski: We can't. And really, that really brings us to what are we going to do? What are we going to do about it? We need to do something different about health care. We need to have educated patients as well.
We need to educate children, even from the time that they're young. How do you eat well? So that they understand they need to be fed well in cafeterias. They need to have medical education, nutritional education. If you were to ask me, I think if I were to redo, if I could make my own world of education, I would say we need to bring back music and arts into schools because these children, they have a lot of stress, a lot of inner angst. There's no way for them to express it. There's no avenues in our current system.
Haylie Pomroy: With testing, that's not stress-reducing? Standardized testing?
Denise Kruszynski: Standardized testing. Our school system has been set up to bring children into compliance with how to work in factories. It was really set up a long time ago. There was this model in Russia that we adopted in the United States in the 80s with the bells and the times. That all came because we were trying, they were trying to get children to get trained to work in factories.
Haylie Pomroy: Kind of fall in line, if you will.
Denise Kruszynski: That's not the kind of education that brings people a relief of stress. That's the kind of things that makes crazy mice.
Haylie Pomroy: Yes. We see that in science. And bringing life sciences back into the kids' school. In Grayson's kindergarten class, we lost our science teacher, and through the school at the time, and they couldn't get, I don't know, another one hired or funding or something. So I came in and did life sciences, and we planted a garden. We did the ladybugs and the earthworms. I love that. And then we cultivated or we grew the food, we cooked the food. Those kids know about different oils to cook in. I think about it now, she's 22. And I thought, she learned about seed oils and olive oil and all of that through the life science classes. And you're right, kids need that.
You just gave all of us listening, though, permission to research what's going on with them. Again, I'm dating myself, but there's been a lot of gaslighting that's happened when people come in. And I've been in meetings where I say, oh, I hate when my client goes to Google Doctor before they go to me. And it just breaks my heart because I think we are like, bring us articles, bring us data, bring us information, bring us collaboration. I always say, at the end goals to get you well, I will literally tie chicken bones around my neck on a full moon to get you well. I don't care. Let's just get the job done. I will. Perfect timing.
Okay, we're going to take a deep breath and a beat for a second. Let's hit on a couple hot topics that you want to hit on.
Denise Kruszynski: Well, one of the things that I had mentioned before is we really need to re-envision healthcare. We need to re-envision healthcare so that people are prepared when they go into their doctor. We do live in a world with limited resources. That's the reality.
Haylie Pomroy: Okay, so I agree with you. We need to start from the ground up. Our babies, I teach classes, and one of the women has a brand new baby.
And sometimes she nurses during class, and sometimes the baby just snuggles on her chest. And I was teaching classes when I was pregnant with both my kids. And I think I keep telling her she cannot start attending these classes too young. She's our like fast metabolism baby. We talk about it. I love that they're exposing. She's having that experience. What are we going to do about our current healthcare now? And then I want to talk to you a little bit about what does it mean to be a functional medicine doctor and what is functional medicine? But how do you envision healthcare changing? It has to change. I mean, people are doing all kinds of home remedies, which I love, things at home because they can't get into their doctor. We've got home labs now. I mean, in almost every state you can get all the labs you want run. People are taking medicine into their own hands right now. And I'm kind of watching it going, this is interesting. What do you think needs to happen?
Hi, it's Haylie Pomroy, your host. When I was going through my health crisis, the worst part of it was feeling lost and alone. And I decided that I didn't want anybody else to feel as desperate as I did. That's why we set up a private membership group where you can come in, ask questions, get support, be connected with people that can actually help you on your health journey. If you go to hayliepomroy.com/member, you can join me for 30 days for free. I'll see you there. We can jump in and we can start to organize the path for your wellness. That's hayliepomroy.com/member. I will see you there. Now back to our show.
Denise Kruszynski: I think we're always going to have to start with education. I think that a lot of how Dr. Klimas envisions the role of Institute for Neuro-Immune Medicine (INIM) is that we educate the physicians, we educate the patients so that they are armed. For the physicians, so they're more aware that there are toxic exposures. These are the things that you can do for chronic fatigue. These are the things that you can do for mold toxicity. There are actions that we can take. And then for the patients, also information for them. What can you do? How do you speak with your doctor? How do you prepare? How do you protect yourself? How do you not absorb more toxins from the environment in your food, in your water, in the vicinity that you live in? I think it starts with education. First of all, we need to educate doctors, as Dr. Klimas has envisioned. We need to educate the patients. How do you take care of yourself?
Haylie Pomroy: Absolutely. It's interesting because at the Institute, so we're under the umbrella of KPCOM, of a medical school, osteopathic medical school. And as part of my PhD right now, I'm taking an integrative nutrition class focusing on immunology and the endocrine system. I have a bunch of second and third-year osteopathic docs in my class. I know. So the instructor is a doctor of functional medicine, IFM, like yourself. And the eyeballs of some of the medical students just really deep dive into these cases that they're doing from the immune system and from the endocrine, the hormone systems. They're like, why have we worked second, third year, and we've never been exposed to this? I'm so excited that they're taking those classes. It's elective.
I'll say that I think it should be mandatory. But it's really cool to see these young, up-and-coming docs being at least exposed to this.
Denise Kruszynski: I think that that's great. And I agree. That needs to be incorporated into a regular education. I think that the traditional old-time physicians really look at functional medicine as not really validated medicine.
And that's absolutely not true because Dr. Jeffrey Bland, who was one of the originators of IFM, he was a founder. He's a biochemist. So we're talking about medicine that is, it's not superficial medicine. It's not anecdotal.
Haylie Pomroy: It's a deep dive.
Denise Kruszynski: It is a deep dive into cellular metabolism. I can tell you when I went through those courses that he and a bunch of other brilliant physicians put together, it is a deep dive into cellular metabolics. It's just like, it's deep.
Haylie Pomroy: So you brought up Dr. Klimas. Dr. Klimas, I always ask her obviously extremely well accomplished in HIV and ME/CFS and Gulf War injury, immunology. Incredible. And I said, why in the world do you take these integrative medicine and functional medicine classes? Like, are you just bored? What's going on? And one day she said to me, like, I can't help patients without it. It's now a love. But when it, but at first it was a necessity. So why in the world, you are booked beyond belief, you're super successful. Why in the world did you decide to get board-certified in functional medicine?
Denise Kruszynski: My patients needed it. Dr. Klimas told me a long time ago why she had integrated functional medicine into her practice. And she said, the patients with traditional care were not getting better. And that's the thing.
I can treat them with traditional care, and I'm going to be frustrated and burned out like a huge majority of physicians. And I'm going to go home frustrated and feeling like I didn't do a good job. And that's exactly how it was.
I did work in a traditional practice before, and it was very frustrating. It was about giving medicine for heartburn, medicine for blood pressure, medicine for the lungs, and medicine for this and medicine for that. But I never did have time to help them at the, how could I help them help themselves? And this is what functional medicine does for you.
It's primary care, but it's primary care 3.0. It helps you to help yourself because a functional medicine practitioner is going to integrate the best of conventional medicine, the best of functional medicine, and bringing those two together, you have a higher level of care and wellness.
Haylie Pomroy: And wellness. Yes. Because there's few medications or surgeries that will necessarily heal you. The healing has to come from within, and we're dynamic. We're not reductionist.
Denise Kruszynski: They help. In the meantime, until something terrible doesn't happen. It helps, but that's where you shouldn't stop with your medicine for your heartburn. You need to move on and fix yourself so you don't end up with 25 medications that you're taking every day.
Haylie Pomroy: And why do you have heartburn? It's not because you're deficient in that medication. I mean, the medication might quell the symptom, but why is this happening in the body? And I love that we focus on that as an institute. And I love watching you focus on that with your patients.
Denise Kruszynski: And their side effects. The other thing is to mention you're taking all those medications. It has side effects.
Haylie Pomroy: And also, all the studies that have been done, haven't been done with those medications taken in combination. That's what always blows my mind. We had this medical ethics class, Dr. Speth, and we were talking with this big pharmacist that sits in the pharmacology department. And I said, wait a minute, I can see what are the side effects of drug A, drug B, drug C. We had someone that we looked at a case with 13 medications. There was not one single study ever done that showed what the complex side effects were with combining those drugs. And they are chemistry. It's like saying, we're going to go back to elementary school. If I put yellow and blue, it makes green. You can't say if I put Prozac and cholesterol medication, it makes Prozac and cholesterol medication. There is a synergistic effect and a chemistry that happens within the body that we need to account for. And you can't do that in 15 minutes. You just can't.
Denise Kruszynski: You can't.
Haylie Pomroy: So I want to just button this up with what can people out there do? What can we do today? I love the advocacy. I love we do this in our community, we do this request for care. We take you through like totally getting prepped for your doctor's visit. It's invaluable. My kids use it. I used it when I fired the doctor the other day. I said, really? Well, here's my request for care. Actually, this is what deems it medically necessary in my mind. And let's have a conversation. He said, I don't have time. Sorry, I got to go. I can't sign off on your labs. Didn't even read the paper. I was very upset, but I solved it. But what can we do? How can we change this situation? If a person's out there right now, they're struggling. They don't feel well. We would love to see them at the clinic, first and foremost. You're welcome. But what if they can't? What should they do?
Denise Kruszynski: I would say the first thing that they should do is just sit down and write and think about their life. Think about the foods that they eat.
Think about the relationships that they have. Think about their activity. Think about their sleep. Think about their work stresses. Just try to put all of those things together and write them down, and try to look at patterns. They may not be able to pull those patterns out like a functional practitioner. However, it helps when you write everything down, and you think about the timeline, even from the time that you were born, what's been going on all of those, all that. And then when did you start feeling bad? Try to become self-aware. When did you start feeling bad, and what happened just before that?
Haylie Pomroy: I love that. I love categorizing. And I think this is a great way to prepare. Like, what's my nutrition like? What are my relationships like? What's my sleep like? What is my what are my top stressors? What is my work? Is it fulfilling? Is it gratifying? That's why I'm back in school. That's why you went back to school. I mean, we didn't have to. We didn't need to. It's just that fulfillment in knowing that you can actually truly help a human being is just rewarding beyond anything. Isn't that great? Like we're maybe it's not a fit.
And so, whether it's functional medicine or us we it's why we have a multitude of practitioners and why we collaborate on Fridays, and we move clients around. Sometimes it's not the right fit or the right knowledge base.
Denise Kruszynski: And if you don't feel comfortable, that is exactly what was going to be my next point. If you don't feel comfortable, if you can't speak with your practitioner, if you can't speak with his nurse practitioner, you might have a nurse practitioner, a doctor. Be sure that you can actually have a conversation with them if you request things that they respect you. They respect your requests.
They may not necessarily do everything that you want them to do, but they need to show you do respect and listen and take into consideration what you're saying. And if you don't feel like you have a good rapport with that doctor or that nurse practitioner, I would just move on. And I actually did the same thing. I just I had one interview. I saw this doctor and his nurse practitioner once, and then I didn't go back because they were completely disregarded.
And you think as a health care provider, like you say with your mom, you think that they would give them a little bit more leeway, but they don't.
Haylie Pomroy: No, no, no, no. I appreciate that. Denise, I can't thank you enough for being here today. It just means everything to give all the people out there that are struggling right now permission to advocate for themselves. And also some real solid direction on taking kind of what maybe feels like an out-of-control situation and just getting it organized. I think people get better care when they walk in with that and also having an advocate. If you have a friend or a best friend or a girlfriend.
Denise Kruszynski: Very important.
Haylie Pomroy: Yes, to have somebody help you. We even had somebody that used first year medical students to help them get organized for doctor's visits and stuff. There's a lot of things you can kind of kind of funny.
Denise Kruszynski: But but like for the medical students, good for them.
Haylie Pomroy: Good for both of them. And eye opening on both ends, too. Absolutely. Well, I know everybody's going to want you back. Thank you so much for being here. And it's really cool for us to understand kind of where and how to navigate the health care system. I will share with you. It's stressful out there. And I know that that you appreciate that and you listen to your patients. And so I know you embody it as well. So thank you.
Denise Kruszynski: Thank you. It's good to be here.
