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Integrative & Functional Autism Care with Melissa Teel, MS, RD, LDN

Episode Summary

In this episode, Erin Skinner interviews Melissa Teel, a functional dietician and autism parent, about the impact of diet on autism. They dive into a recent autism reversal study showing the benefits of gluten-free, dairy-free, and low-processed food diets on children’s behavior, communication, and cognitive function. Melissa shares her personal journey with these dietary changes and offers practical advice for other families.

Episode Highlights

  • Autism Reversal Study: A study found that eliminating gluten, dairy, and processed foods led to significant improvements in autism symptoms. Read the full study here.
  • Implementing Dietary Changes: Tips include meal prepping, using gluten-free and dairy-free alternatives, and gradually introducing new foods. Melissa also discusses the GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) diet, which focuses on gut health.
  • Professional Support: Collaborating with dietitians, occupational therapists, and other specialists can enhance the effectiveness of dietary interventions and support the transition.
  • Lifestyle Adjustments: Reducing screen time, increasing physical activity, and incorporating sports are beneficial. Recommended supplements include Omega-3s, vitamin D, multivitamins, and probiotics.
  • Challenges and Barriers: Financial constraints, lack of support, and the need for gradual dietary adjustments are significant challenges. Melissa stresses the importance of balancing dietary changes with professional guidance.

Resources Mentioned

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Ready to dive in? Listen here.

SUBTITLES:

Hello and welcome back to the Empower Nutrition Podcast, Erin Skinner here. And this episode was with registered dietician on our team Melissa Teal. She is an integrative and functional trained practitioner who works with us here at Thrive, and she has an actual personal story around autism that she talks about in this episode that one of her three sons has been diagnosed with autism and she also works professionally in our clinic with a lot of families with who experience autism. And so in this episode, we had a really great talk about the current state of autism care, the, the prevalence of autism and its increase. We talked about traditional autism care and then also what an integrative and functional approach to autism adds. And then we talked a lot about a newly published case report in which twins with autism experienced really profound reversal of their autism using an integrative and functional approach. We get into some specifics about what specific dietary interventions, what tests, what supplements, and what therapies were used in this case report and what can be used for patients with autism and when, when they can be used and how they can work together. We talked about some of the barriers when it comes to autism care, and then we also share some next steps for people that are looking to get support with helping their child with autism. So I hope you enjoy this episode and it’s helpful. Take care.
Hi, Melissa Teal, welcome to the podcast. And how are you?
Hi, Erin. I’m wonderful.
Great. I’m so looking forward to this episode with you. I’ve been looking forward to a long time discussing autism on the podcast with you. So tell me a little bit about how you became interested in autism and a little bit about your story of how that became a focus for you.
Yeah, that became a focus after I had my third child and after his 18 month shots, normal developing kid, walking, talking, interacting, a light shutoff. And that was around Covid, so we had to delay getting him tested for autism. But at the end of the day, I knew exactly what it was. The non interacting with peers, the repetitive behaviors, the uninterest in like food or you know, very small interests.
Yeah, yeah. Limited diet. I can’t imagine what that must have been like to go through.
Yeah, it was, it was interesting because I don’t, I didn’t know any other child with autism until I had my first experience with it. And so this is, this is a whole brand new territory.
Yeah, yeah. And then obviously you’ve since become an integrative and functional dietician and you’ve been expanding your, your sort of research and your knowledge in, in the integrative space around autism. So I’m really excited to talk with you about that today. And maybe to kick it off, you could kind of tell me a little bit about autism in general in terms of, I think most people kind of know, oh, it seems like it’s getting more common. Like is that true and is it, is it really that true that that’s happening? And maybe give us a little details about that.
Yeah, so right now the current rate for autism is about one in 36 children. Wow. Which is like 300% of an increase compared to like the year 2000. And it’s so interesting that now in California the rates are one in 22, so it is so prevalent and it’s just going to keep increasing if we don’t find some way to slow it down.
Yeah, yeah. And I know I’ve seen some people kind of say, oh, you know, like it’s the same amount of autism that always was around, it’s just that we’re diagnosing it more, maybe we’re measuring it differently or like changing the standards. Like what do you, what do you think about that? Like do you think it’s a true increase or do you think there’s just a difference in like how much we’re identifying it?
I think a little bit of both, but also the diagnostics haven’t changed since the year 2000. I’m not in the diagnosing space, so I honestly, that’s a whole nother realm for me.
Yeah. I’ve had the chance to speak with some sort of like worldwide experts on this and they all feel like it, it absolutely there sh there could be some amount of just like increasing how much it’s caught and diagnosed, but to, it seemed like in their opinion, that’s not, that’s just a minority of the issue. It’s, it truly is an actual like rapid increase in true incidents of autism
And so multifaceted.
Yeah. So maybe tell me a little bit about that in terms of what, you know, in terms of like some of the different facets of this. ’cause I think that’s part of the challenge is that it’s not like as simple as some things where it’s like, we know that, you know, X causes Y. So what are some of the different factors involved
For like the triggers? It would absolutely be environmental. There’s, you know, potential exposure to molds, potential exposures to multiple toxins, diet. If your diet is a normal child in the US where it’s 70% consumed by ultra processed foods, that’s also going to be a problem. The mitochondrial dysfunction, the, not to mention the potential genetic factors.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are all the ones I’ve heard. And then just the related to the diet, the impacts it has on the microbiome in terms of not enough fermentable carbohydrate to feed a healthy microbiome. And then you have this resulting loss of gut barrier integrity and that whole pathway around intestinal permeability and translocation of peptides through the gut. And that causing being a contributor as well.
Absolutely. And not to mention it’s so hard to bring variety into a diet Yeah. With such limited interest.
Right? Yeah. It’s almost like a self perpetuating thing where it’s like if a child has autism, they are limited on their diet and then their limited diet impairs their microbiome and their nutritional status even further.
At the end of the day, it’s not just a make your child sit there and eat their dinner. It’s like true sensory issues.
There’s
Just so much to uncover with that.
Yeah, exactly. Well, tell me a little bit about autism care in terms of what’s sort of like the conventional approach to care for a child with autism, and then maybe tell me a little bit about how that contrasts with personalized medicine.
So depending on how early you notice those symptoms, you might start off with speech therapy. You might start off with occupational therapy in one aspect to it, but at the end of the day, you need a developmental pediatrician or a psychologist to help diagnose. And that process takes about six months. It was so interesting when my son got diagnosed and we were in the developmental pediatrician office and the doctor looked at me and said, oh, you need to go vegan.
No.
Yeah, yeah. Oh my
Gosh.
And by then I was already a, i, I was in my first year of grad school studying to be a dietician, so I knew I can take some of your like increasing plant variety advice, but I can’t not feed my child animal protein.
Can you imagine if we as dieticians decided we were just gonna start like assigning mental health diagnoses to people? I feel like that’s what keeps happening in situations like this where everybody seems to think nutrition is in their scope, but it’s it’s actually its own career field.
No. And
Wow,
Definitely vegan to anybody is so arbitrary ’cause wow. To a normal person who hasn’t invested $70,000 into a master’s degree for nutrition is just going to be like, okay, I’m going to buy all the impossible chicken nuggets and the Fritos and they’re vegan.
Oh, that is such a nightmare. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And there’s really, there’s, there’s, just to be clear, there’s no research supporting that recommendation.
No. There is research for a, BA. So we, the applied behavioral analysis, so usually the route after diagnosis is long-term A BA, which for my son was wonderful. He had a wonderful support team to help shape the societal cues that he’s going to absolutely need going into adulthood.
So a BA is like behavioral therapy, right?
Yes. Yeah. So they start very young and I, his therapists were just godsends. Wow. Taught him how to interact and, you know, societal cues and it, it was amazing. So that is probably the only standard treatment for autism, but again, it doesn’t work for everybody. Not every tech is in it a hundred percent. You know, it really does depend on like the tech and how interested and, and, and the therapist and how willing they are to shape your kid. Not everybody has that same a BA experience either. It’s very,
Yeah.
Very controversial for other people too.
Yeah, it sounds like it. I’ve heard the same that for some children it’s great and for some children it’s just not effective or it, or even it can be sometimes like almost dramatic for them. So it’s just so individual. Yeah. But I mean certainly it sounds like it’s part of the standard of care to at least give that a try. Yeah. Yes. Okay, so go ahead.
Oh, the, the speech therapy and then the occupational therapy and all the therapies that revolve around that, that really is the insurance based approach for autism. So yeah, anything with nutrition is so far in left field and I think that was the benefit of my son having a dietician as a mom is yeah. Having the nutrition approach taught by my, yeah.
Yeah. I feel like I’ve feel seen a lot where families are almost even discouraged from focusing on nutrition almost like, that’s quackery you’re gonna, it’s even, it’s just adding stress unnecessarily. But it sounds like you think nutrition plays an important role.
Absolutely.
Yeah. Tell me some of the, well maybe let me ask it this way. So we definitely wanna make sure we talk about, there’s been a newly published case study about twins with autism that had autism reversal. Do you mind sharing a little bit more about what that study looked like and what they found?
Listen, Erin, when I saw that study, I, we were on the road to a family vacation and I remember emailing you so excitedly in the car and I hadn’t slept the night before because I was just so
Yeah.
Excited and intrigued. And so pretty much the, the reversal case study was done on a set of fraternal twins and they were both diagnosed level three, which is severe.
Yeah.
And what was interesting is they used functional medicine approaches and individualized their protocols, but they still did the basic, you know, insurance-based approaches too, like the aba, the speech therapy,
Love it.
But they also did the functional approaches where they did the gut testing. They did the standard gluten-free, casin free diet and they did the vitamin and mineral testing, the mold testing, the, let’s see, they did the food sensitivities, they did the hair analysis for heavy metals. And it was such a shock because we do this in our practice every day, but to actually have it be seen on this study was just a such a light bulb in my head.
Yeah.
Why am I not doing this for my son if I do this every day in the clinic?
It’s classic for healthcare providers.
But I was so excited when I saw the study and I can’t wait to just discuss it and develop a protocol for it and
Yeah,
So excited.
Yeah. Okay. So it sounds like they looked at the gut microbiome, nutritional status, mold, heavy metals, food sensitivities. Did I miss any of ’em?
Yes, there is some homeopathic interventions in in this study that doesn’t actually go into details about that, so I’m not sure what that entails. But for the most part, for the large chunk of this, it’s the A BA, it’s the speech therapy, it’s the OT and it’s the functional medicine testing.
And then, and then the diet. Was gluten-free, casing free or were there, were there there elements to it or was that the, the whole nutrition plan?
Yeah, so they started out with eliminating glutamate in the children’s diet and then they were put on the gluten-free, cain free diet, which is pretty much the gold standard for children with autism and A DHD and et cetera. Because when your digestive system is compromised, you can leave those gluten and dairy products undigested and create like an opioid like substance in your brain and that contributes to neural inflammation. Yeah. Et cetera. Right. Yeah. So that was their gold standard. And then obviously removing anything ultra processed. So no artificial colors, dyes,
Love it.
Food predominantly cooked from home, locally sourced organic if at all possible. And I understand that that is truly
That bubbles,
Yeah. Not everybody has that opportunity.
So it sounds like they did like, kind of like the fail safe diet is a classic for this where you do take out, like you’re saying like it sounds like the, the dyes, the processed food and then the glutamate. Did they do salicylates as well or just glutamate?
Nope, just glutamate. It started with that and then, and then did the strictly gluten-free casing free.
Got it. Okay. For people that don’t know, do you mind just saying a few like high glutamate foods? I think that’s something that’s like less well known by people.
So I think starting off it’s like the MSG.
Yeah.
Ramen very ultra processed, ultra processed foods. There’s also high glutamate foods are nuts, tomatoes, processed juices.
Yeah.
And it’s funny because in that high glutamate diet is also gluten and dairy, so
Right.
I think it was easy for them to transition to a gluten-free dairy-free diet after that.
Yeah. Okay. So they put this protocol in place and I’m assuming they had some kind of skilled practitioner that knew what to do with all these functional labs of like, okay, we got all this data, like here’s what do we do about the mold, the gut, et
Cetera, et cetera. Yeah. They ended up hiring a dietician and then they also had an autism coach, which I don’t know where they are. I’ve never even,
I know, I’ve never heard of that.
I’ve never heard of that either. But, so I think that autism coach helped led them to like the functional testing and they also had a functional medicine provider and osteopathic care embedded in there.
Okay. And then how, and then what were the results of the, of the, of the case?
So one of the twins went from level three severe to undetectable.
What
The other twin who was more severe than the previous twin, she went down to mild to moderate.
Wow, that’s amazing.
So even if it is not possible to reverse this just through environmental factors, you can lessen the diagnosis severely.
Yeah. And do you remember off the top of your head, like what approximately the timescale was? Like how long did they run these interventions?
Yeah, it was about two years.
Okay. Yeah. I’m sure it was kind of like gradual over time. I feel like when I get that many tests on somebody too, it’s often gonna be like phased, a phased approach where it’s like I’m not, I am not gonna run all the protocols at the same time. It would be too overwhelming.
Oh, absolutely. And why would you do that? Yeah. That’s so expensive. Yeah. Focus one area at a time. Yeah. And then move on.
Yeah. Okay. Wow. Amazing. So they, it sounds like they followed this diet and I, I, I think the question some people might have in their mind when they hear that diet is like, wow, like what is left for these kids to eat? Do you mind kind of like sharing of what that, what that might look like in terms of like maybe just a day-to-day diet of like how do you, how do you implement a diet like that for, for a child with autism and what does their diet look like?
I think it all comes down to prepping, working with an expert who knows how to manage your barriers. But it’s all gonna come down to prepping. I think, you know, for my son it’s sausage, eggs, berries, breakfast, you know, he’s not going to the school breakfast line anymore, but I am allowed to have him bring breakfast to school so he could eat it with his friends. Amazing. There’s so many gluten-free dairy-free alternatives in this day and age too. So I think that’s easier to work around. And it’s so funny that prior to this behind the screen as a dietician, you know, you’re a cheerleader like oh you can do this, you can go gluten-free dairy-free, let’s give you some support. But actually implementing it at home
Is, yeah,
So much harder. Yeah. So I actually got to see both sides and it is a little bit of trial and error for, for a few weeks and then you get into the routine and once you know what to buy and once you find something that your kid likes, it’s, it makes it so much easier.
Yeah. I think it probably takes some experimenting around what they’ll accept and eat and maybe you don’t get to a hundred percent overnight, you kind of work your way into it.
Absolutely.
Okay. So it sounds like you have been incorporating this at home in, in your own family, is that right?
Yes. When I saw this study it was the next day. Yeah. I got literature for the GAPS diet and that, that’s an on topic. Yeah. But got a, got a gut zoomer, we’re fully doing this protocol and I’m so excited.
Yeah. Tell me about the GAPS Diet. Did they, was that in the published study that they used the GAPS Diet?
They referenced it in the GAPS Diet. And going into this, I didn’t just wanna be like an ultra process gluten-free dairy-free. I wanted to figure out the kinds of diets that have had success previously with autism. And something about the gaps diet is, is wonderful ’cause you’re healing the gut from the inside out. And same thing with a specific carbohydrate diet. So I figured that if I kind of taped all approaches and it was, it was a lot of difficult decisions. But yeah, we’re working on our diet that is pretty like gluten-free, dairy free semi gaps diet.
Yeah. ’cause I think some elements of that, like I would, I would start with that too and then consider a higher tier to be those more maybe challenging foods. Like if they’ll accept the fermented foods and the bone broth and tolerate all that.
Yeah. Okay. I like how you are tying together that like, okay, if you, this is, you know, kind of an integrative and functional approach to autism, but it’s, it’s not that people should turn away from their conventional care. ’cause as you’re describing to me the implementation of this diet, I’m imagining that like having a occupational therapist, having a speech therapist, having a dietician, all those things could be really helpful with helping your child to transition their diet in this way. So I like how you’re, you’re, it sounds like that’s the way you’re kind of describing this is that you have your, your sort of like more traditional team and then you just bring in mostly this, this nutritional element but also maybe some other environmental elements as well.
Yeah, our occupational therapist was amazing with helping integrate new foods too. So once I had a plan to introduce like broccoli, which honestly took me five years to successfully introduce that, she was wonderful with that. And she’s got her conventional tools to help integrate food with him. And I mean it all comes down to like it, she was just so successful at helping mold him into a functioning 6-year-old child.
Yeah. It’s amazing what these people are worth their weight in gold. That’s so amazing.
Absolutely.
What are some of the other things that you’ve been, is there anything else aside from the diet that you’ve been doing at home
Screen time? Eliminating it just for the excess dopamine. Yeah. Getting him outside a little bit more quality sunshine time.
Love
That sports, my husband who is, has his master’s in exercise physiology has, has all kids on the treadmill in the afternoon.
Yeah.
So exercise. Yeah. And then just peer interaction karate. That’s great.
I love it. What about supplements? Like in this study did they use any supplements or discuss at all what they’re using?
They did, but for them it was so individualized. So they used the nutri eval and went off of like what they were deficient in. But bare minimum, you’re gonna wanna give them an Omega-3, make sure their vitamin D status is adequate and then a really good multivitamin. And then after the gut zoomer or your stool test, good quality probiotics.
Yeah. Yeah. On point. I’m, I completely agree with that. I mean it’s really shocking In our clinic, the Omega-3 levels come back usually like almost always it’s like four, four and a half percent. It should be eight.
I never meet anybody who has fish consumption bare minimum once a week. So Yeah, I see that too.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, I’ve had cases where, you know, maybe the child with autism, like the family’s not really positioned to get all these tests. They usually are pretty high cost out of pocket. And so that’s, that really matches what I’ll typically do as like an initial protocol without testing. It’s like, let’s do a good quality multivitamin, Omega-3, vitamin D, probiotic. That’s pretty much exactly I think what the research has shown, like as you’re saying,
Love that it’s so needed. Yeah. And it’s such a challenge and a barrier to families who literally cannot afford
Yeah. All these tests
Or bare minimum groceries. Like I don’t how you tell Yeah. A family who has a child with autism to eat, you know, organic process free when
Right.
There might not even be a fridge.
I’m so glad you brought this up. ’cause I think that’s a challenge with something like this. It’s like, wow, this is, these results are incredible, but it, it is obviously so privileged to be able to afford the tests, all the practitioners, the special supplements, and even just the high quality food that, and not everybody has all that privilege. So that can be really challenging.
That’s exactly what it is. It’s, at the end of the day, it’s a privilege to be able to do this.
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I guess just over the, you know, practicing, I’m sure you too have come to the place of like, you know, we even take Medicaid, it’s like we, I, my mindset is always, I, unlike maybe what I feel like this vibe on social media is more like a hundred percent all in all or nothing. But in clinical practice what you learn is that there’s a whole spectrum between like nothing and perfect. And the goal is always just to get, to figure out what steps are realistic to get and to improve and not to have the standard be that it’s like perfect or fail. You know what I mean?
Exactly. Like even if you are home cooking your meals the majority of the week, that’s okay. That’s progress.
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that’s a great example. I mean we both have three boys. So I mean, when I go to like, we’ll visit grandparents and they’ll, they’ll have like all organic food in their household of like two adults who have low appetites. I’m like, well that’s great for you. But feeding two like athletic adults and three boys is a different story. We are not gonna buy our four gallons of milk each week as organic. And that’s just gonna be the way it is for now.
Oh, there’s a give and a take. Absolutely. Totally.
Totally. Exactly. Awesome. Well, tell me, I mean we already are segue into this, but what are some other challenges and barriers when it comes to like, you know, some, someone has a child with autism, they’re hearing about the study, they want to sort of start to implement more of this. Like what are some of the biggest challenges you see other than obviously cost
Support. Yeah, support with the parents. I mean, not all parents are on board, not all parents understand the importance of this, of the diet changes. And it’s again, really hard to change a diet in the home unless everybody is on board practitioners. You might come across a, a physician who is so conventionally based that the functional medicine seems like such a quack realm for them. Yeah. And so you’re gonna have it dismissed. Really, it’s just support, yeah. Financial barriers. I mean I think those are probably the greatest challenges. And then also, you’re also changing everything for this child. And you’re gonna have pushback with a child too.
Yeah, of course. And the time investment, I mean, I feel like you would, you tell me, but I, I know it’s not easy to come with up with all the extra time that it takes to home, cook all your food, take your child all these special appointments. I mean that, that’s something that I think is a barrier for a lot of families as well.
As a parent, I think you would do anything to make your child feel better. So it doesn’t seem like this in the mix, but probably in like 10 years when I look back, I’m gonna wonder how
You did it.
We did all of this. Yeah,
Same. Yeah. People probably say it to you, like, how are you doing all this? You’re like, I, I don’t, I don’t have time to think about how I’m just kinda doing it.
Right.
Yeah. Yeah. And I like how you highlighted how there can be this sort of friction between like pr like for the patient. I’ve seen that a lot where they feel kind of torn because they’ll have like maybe a conventional provider that they should have that’s great that they trust. But then unfortunately sometimes that practitioner’s close-minded and they’ll discredit any like thing that they perceive as, you know, the wild west of quackery. Which could even be, I mean I’ve seen it be as simple as like a probiotic. Like they’ll like, they’ll like criticize the practitioner, they’ll, they’ll discredit the whole thing and that can cause a lot of confusion for the patients.
Exactly. I’ve seen that too.
But then I don’t know about how you feel, but I think there’s also some like risk in terms of like, there there are actual quack people that prey on UTI families with autism.
Right.
So
It’s such a spectrum. There’s such a spectrum. Yeah. And I think you see that in functional medicine too. There’s the, there’s the way, way quacky side and then there is, you know, the happy medium. Yeah,
Yeah, yeah. I think that’s, you know, why I like to keep nutrition as the central part of the way we do functional medicine because it’s not even really, it’s not anything weird or extreme, it’s just acknowledging that nutrition should be more central to healthcare and autism is an exception to that. It’s, I feel like it’s hard to argue that and nutri and food is so powerful.
I think you and I could write an entire dissertation and change us policies with our passion. Yes. But until,
Until then, yes. Well tell me maybe just kind of some last words for, I mean say somebody is listening that is a family with autism and they’re really fascinated by this study and they’re interested to learn more and maybe implement something in their own home. What would you recommend that they do as next steps?
Definitely get a dietician, get nutrition optimized if you can, you know, with any, with most insurance companies, your dietician is free. You can get a peace of mind in like an hour appointment. Optimizing diet starting there. Yeah. Continuing to do like the traditional steps of, you know, the earlier you get diagnosed, the greater opportunity you have for therapies and interventions. Utilize all of that. ’cause it’s all helpful.
Yeah. Yeah. And with finding a dietician, any suggestions for, I mean obviously people have access to our clinic, they can get it covered by insurance and you especially have an expertise in this, but if people don’t have access to our clinic, do you have any ideas of like where they can find a dietician who’s more autism aware and trained?
There is a great dietician on Instagram. She’s Bri Coleman, the autism dietician. She is a wonderful resource to just start integrating quality food into your kids’ diet. She also stands by the gluten-free dairy-free traditional diet. She’s a wonderful resource. She also has a great podcast. And then even it can be as simple as Googling functional dietician who takes insurance near me. Yeah,
That’s a great idea. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I like, one thing that I think is important about getting with a practitioner who’s a licensed professional is they’re gonna be able to identify the other, the, they’re gonna be able to balance out the risks here of over restriction. I think if you kind of just try to self-treat and go online, you’ll, you’re gonna always find what to take out, what to eliminate, what to avoid, what to restrict. But I think what often gets missed is that the nutritional risk of like inadequacy, if it’s not successful or the other risk is that you continue on with something that’s not helping just because you read about it online and Right. I think as professionals that’s for me become even more of my focus than what to cut out. ’cause we usually get people that have already cut a lot out. They’ve, they’ve already got that part down. What they need is adequate nutritional status and to be, and to be able to figure out what eliminations are actually doing something for them versus not. And that’s, I think, harder to do on your own. But I way you think
It takes the overwhelming part out a little bit when you are researching it, you know, in the middle of the night because your child is just recently diagnosed and confused about what to feed your child. And it just takes the overwhelming part out if you see somebody who specializes in this.
Yeah. Love it. Well, this is amazing Melissa. And I hope it’s exciting for people listening that have an interest in this topic. I find these case studies to be incredible and I like how they individualize the plan. ’cause that’s really the essence of personalized medicine is to individualize it based off the data we have. So thanks for sharing about this and also sharing your personal experience. Thank you
So much. Of
Course. All right, well guys, if you wanna get in touch with Melissa, just email us here at the podcast. You’ll see the details in the show notes and we can pass on messages and questions to her. And if you are interested in getting help through our clinic, you’re welcome to check us out. What you can find our link in the show notes. It’s thrive clinics.com. We do take most major insurance plans and we can do telehealth in about half of US states and then in person as well in North Carolina. So Melissa, thank you. This has been amazing. Thank you, Erin. All right girl, I’ll let you go ’cause we both have patience to see. So we’ll talk to you later. Okay. Bye bye.
Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to the Empower Nutrition podcast. We love offering insight to help you optimize your wellness. If you enjoy this episode, feel free to leave us a rating on whichever platform you stream from and consider subscribing. Also, you can learn more about our practice at www dot Empower Nutrition Health and that link is also in your show notes. Take care and talk to you soon.

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