Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
Hey.
Dr Emily Parke:
Hi everyone. This is Dr. Emily Parke, and I have a super special guest today that we’re going to be talking to. It’s Dr. Michelle Jeffries. Some of you may know her as a practitioner at my office. She’s been working with us for quite some time now, but we haven’t had a chance to formally get on and chat about her history, why she got into functional medicine, her training, and all of the really cool offerings that she has at Arizona Wellness Medicine. So welcome, Michelle.
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
Oh, well thank you so much. Thank you for the beautiful introduction. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Dr Emily Park:
Awesome. So, well, let’s get the biggest question out of the way. How did you get into functional medicine? Why are you doing it? Why do you like it?
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
Oh my gosh, Emily, I think I remember this day like it was yesterday. It was a period of time in my life when I was at a culmination of a lot of different things. I was all dressed up and ready to go on stage and the lights were dimmed and my name was announced, and all I could do was stare at these stairs that I had to cross to get on stage. And what was across that stage was where I got my graduation certificates for dermatology residency and my pediatric dermatology fellowship and the culmination of all the years of training and all of the beginnings of a beautiful career in medicine and I couldn’t even walk on stage.
And I felt like I’d worked so hard for this moment, I made so many sacrifices, I survived so many things. I survived a divorce, I dealt with medical school, internship, residency, fellowship, and I had dreamt of this moment for so long, and it kept me so made motivated to finish my training and I was so close. But these two steps were standing in the way. And the reason why was I was in a knee scooter because I fractured my heel and I had to hobble on stage with the help of other people. I couldn’t do it myself.
Dr Emily Parke:
Got it.
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
And that was just a profound moment in my life. And I was diagnosed with osteopenia, meaning thin bones, and I honestly didn’t even know how I got there or how the heck I was going to get out of it.
Dr Emily Parke:
At such a young age too, by the way, you guys. So she’s talking about probably late twenties, early thirties, that is really young to have osteopenia.
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
Yeah, I was in actually my late thirties. I went to med school a little late and I feared of like, oh my gosh, how could a young woman in her thirties who’s a physician, should know how to do this and take care of herself, how could I have thin bones? And so I started researching, what did we learn about this? What can I do? And everything was about postmenopausal women and there was a bunch of medications you could take, but there was nothing about a woman in their thirties. I was terrified, what are my bones going to look like when I’m in menopause if I don’t get this together?
Dr Emily Parke:
Right. Yeah, it was kind of an eyeopener, I’m sure, a call to action, so to speak. Right?
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
Mm-hmm.
Dr Emily Parke:
So was that the moment that made you start thinking about, “Hey, how can I make this better? What else does medicine have to offer?”
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
Yeah, it was just knowing that I had all of this training, all of this knowledge and I couldn’t heal myself, and I didn’t even have the right resources to do it. And so I did some lab testing to explore, well, what is it about my body that’s different? And I found out I was vitamin D deficient and I thought, oh yeah, of course. I spent all these years indoors studying and working and training in hospitals. I didn’t get done for many years, so of course that was a piece of the picture.
Dr Emily Parke:
Yeah. Got it. So you started investigating your own health and then eventually, in your career, in your training, you decided to get more formal education in integrative and functional medicine. And so tell us about your first advanced educational experience.
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
Yeah, so the reason I did that is during my search, I tried to figure out, okay, if I can’t find this in regular medicine, I’m going to have to find it somewhere else. So I started researching supplements and meditations and stress and holistic healing. And I got a trainer and nutrition, and I started this whole journey of unwinding the process for myself. And I was able to find ways to eat healthy and my bones healed and my stress was better.
I was able to really integrate a lot of holistic things into my life, and I felt amazing and strong, but I did a lot of experimenting with this supplement or this nutrition and different things, and I realized it’s okay to experiment on myself and find these different things and try them out, but I didn’t want to do that for my patients. And I had such success in helping myself get through that I wanted to find a formal training of like, “Well, how do I do this for patients?” And bone health is one piece, but I was a dermatologist. I wanted to find how do I do this for other things?
Dr Emily Parke:
Of course, yeah. What can you do in your own specialized career path? Absolutely.
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
So I thought, okay, I’ll just go to naturopathic school. I’ll bite the bullet, I’ll do it, but you have to take off work. I had just started my career. I had just started working. And so to take a couple of years off to go back to an naturopathic school wasn’t what I really wanted to do. And so I researched and I found that fellowship, the Integrated Medicine Fellowship at University of Arizona with Dr. Andrew Weil and I started that in 2013, and you could do most of it online. That was pretty innovated for 10 years ago.
Dr Emily Parke:
Absolutely.
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
And you just had to do a couple of weeks in person, which were amazing intensives that we did. And I ended up finishing that in 2015.
Dr Emily Parke:
Great. So that integrative medicine fellowship was your first introduction to, quote, the other side of medicine, other types of medicine, and then obviously eventually you did become an Institute for Functional Medicine certified practitioner. So what led you to go down that pathway and get that certification?
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
A lot of us are really close in the integrative medicine fellowship, and we’d attend a lot of “fringe” health conferences together. And one of them was in Scottsdale where I live, it was right down the street and it was the introductory functional medicine course. And so I was like, “Oh, isn’t that kind of different” And we all just decided to go. And it was one of the lectures on the first days of that conference, it was a week long, and they were talking about leaky gut, which in 2014 ish, that was very out there.
And what they were talking about was the cells of the gut aren’t sticking together, and there’s a lot of things where they’re not sticking together and things are sneaking through and creating inflammation throughout the body. And I sat there and every single picture they put up was exactly what eczema is. And so instead of having gut cells, it’s skin cells and the skin cells in eczema don’t stick together and creates this cascade of inflammation. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, leaky gut is really like leaky skin, but on the inside of the body.”
Dr Emily Parke:
Amazing.
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
And then I was like, “Okay, this totally makes sense. That totally makes sense.”
Dr Emily Parke:
It was your big light bulb aha moment.
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
Yeah, it was like, “Oh, this is it and this is how it works.” And then, you think of the skin and if you follow it and you go up to the mouth, then you go inside the mouth, then that’s your gut. And so it is, it’s your inner skin. And so that was just a profound realization and I was sold. That was it. And then to know that they could link to all the other body systems, that was amazing as well. So I finished all that training in 2017. And I think I met you before all of that.
Dr Emily Parke:
We did. We did. Yeah.
Yeah, we met in 2016 at a meeting. It was just a small meeting where Dr. Bob Rountree was talking, and that was the first time we met, and then we just stayed connected over the years. And that’s how you started working at the practice, which is awesome.
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
Yeah, it was amazing. It was such a gift to meet you at that time. It was like we resonated right away and just couldn’t stop talking about everything. And it’s been that way for seven years.
Dr Emily Parke:
It has been, I know. You guys, we are always, every time we plan to talk, I’m like, “We always talk longer than we think. Let’s make sure we have plenty of time.” Because we do, we always have so much to say to each other. And we’re so on the same page. So let’s dive into what your perspective is on skin health because you obviously have traditional dermatology training and board certification. You’ve got an integrative medicine fellowship, you’ve got certified functional medicine training. So taking all of those trainings and combining everything together, how are you thinking about skin problems now? What’s your perspective on skin health?
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
Yeah, so I really feel that the skin is a complete reflection of our overall health, and the skin does not exist by itself.
Dr Emily Parke:
It’s so true.
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
It’s intimately connected with the rest of our body. So if you just treat skin issues with skin creams or different things, you’re missing the boat on a lot of things. So it’s all interconnected and so much so that for any of you listening to this that have skin issues, you know very, very well and very intimately how skin issues can impact your mental health and your self-esteem and your confidence. So it’s not just the body systems of the gut and the skin, it’s the mind and your confidence. And sometimes these issues with confidence and skin health can run very deep and they’re intermingled with all of the skin issues. So it’s not just the skin, there’s so much more to it.
Dr Emily Parke:
Absolutely, obviously you’re still doing some traditional dermatology. And so the prescribing topicals for skin treatments is traditional dermatology 101, and those topicals, they’re obviously helpful. They treat the symptom, they’re a band-aid though for the symptom. And what we do in functional medicine is finding and treating the root causes of whatever symptoms are going on. It’s that deep detective work of getting to the usually multiple reasons why you’re having, in your case, that skin condition.
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
Yeah, the skin, like I said, it doesn’t operate by itself. It’s linked to your gut. It’s linked to maybe your toxic load of what things you’ve been exposed to over the years and your cardiovascular health. I mean, we get blood flow to the skin and how that blood flows to the skin. That also is your metabolic health too. So if you have diabetes, your blood flow is maybe a little sticky and not getting so much flow. So we do see a lot of dermatologic issues with that. And not to mention mitochondria health, like your energy, your cells and how they’re operating and your hormones too. How many times you hear about hormonal acne and breakouts and it’s just all reflected in the skin.
Dr Emily Parke:
Absolutely, absolutely. And so what you guys are hearing her say is what’s going on the inside of your body is obviously reflected on the outside. And so even though you can do some things maybe to improve the appearance of skin topically, if you don’t really get to the bottom of why it’s happening, it’s going to keep happening and the problem’s still kind of smoldering underneath.
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
It’s really interesting because how fit our skin is really how healthy we are, and it’s literally out there for everybody to see. So it can be a little nerve-wracking at time when you have a skin issue. Everybody can see it, but I also think of this as a good thing. It’s a fantastic motivator. If you have a skin issue that someone can see, including yourself, it’s a motivator to make changes, to make health changes for you inside and out. And then the other cool part about this is that when you make the changes, you can actually see it on your skin. So sometimes if you make another health change, “Okay, I got my cholesterol down.” You may not feel that, but with the skin issues, you can actually see it. And so just how fit your skin is, it’s right there for everyone to see. And so there’s such beautiful things about that.
Dr Emily Parke:
No, it’s a great barometer. So you can see the results relatively quickly too, in some cases. And then even just how your skin appears, there’s some actual really good research studies, I’m sure about these. And when you look at how old someone is, the aging tests, for example, the true diagnostics, true age pace tests, they look at how fast are you aging, how long are your telomeres? And they actually did some studies looking at facial age, and it does really correlate with your actual biological age on the inside. So what you said is spot on, even if you’re not talking about a skin condition like eczema or psoriasis, for example, if you’re just talking about how you look, how old do you look? There’s some really good studies to back up that if you look old, your insides are probably not doing so great either.
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
Right.
Dr Emily Parke:
For sure. Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about what kind of services you’re offering at Arizona Wellness Medicine, because you guys, there are two ways, and I’m going to let Dr. Jeffries talk about them, but just so you guys know, there are two ways that you can enter the practice to see Dr. Jeffries. If you are already a patient of Arizona Wellness Medicine, meaning you’ve seen myself or one of the other certified functional medicine practitioners at the office, you can actually book a holistic skin fitness consult with Dr. Jeffries. Or if you’ve never done functional medicine at all in the past, you can enter the practice as a brand new patient. And she has a really cool program, I’ll let her tell you exactly what it is.
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
Yeah. So one of the really cool offerings for everyone who’s kind of out there health conscious, and having some skin issues is a deep dive into your skin fitness. And it does a deep dive, especially into your skin health and talks about that. But it also rounds it out with your gut health and your cardiovascular health and things like oxidative stress and how you might be repairing mistakes that some of your cells make in your skin and in your body.
It also looks at your micronutrient deficiencies and possibly toxic load and your mitochondrial health. Also, the links between your skin and your hormones. And then circling back to the concept of fitness, and some of the reasons that got me into functional medicine is how is your body moving? How are you exercising? What is your overall fitness? And then also just touching on how are you restoring your body and resting and the role of beauty sleep.
And so it’s all of those things plus just a comprehensive look at your skincare. What are you putting on your skin? Is it right for you? A lot of times you hear different things where, “Gosh, my friend uses this product and it’s amazing and it’s magical and she’s getting great results.” And then you try it and it’s terrible and it’s-
Dr Emily Parke:
Not so much.
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
… Not a good fit. So definitely personalizing what’s best for you. And then there’s actually a cadence and a timing to when you should use certain products. And a lot of people don’t know about that. And then for those of you that are interested in cosmetic procedures, there’s a different sequence of when to do which type of cosmetic things from things you do at home to things you can do in an office to things you can do with a cosmetic dermatologist or a plastic surgeon.
And so just demystifying that sequence, if you have questions about that, that can be part of it as well. So that’s definitely the holistic skin fitness piece of it. And then for those of you that are really struggling with rosacea, acne, eczema, psoriasis, other issues that are really impacting your skin. We could do a complete functional medicine dermatology visit where we find out exactly how you got to where you are with your skin issue, and then what do we need to do to unwind that process and really personalizing that for you. So that’s a whole nother pathway as well.
Dr Emily Parke:
Heal the body from the inside out. True to functional medicine, right?
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
Inside and out.
Dr Emily Parke:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
So you guys, Dr. Michelle Jeffries is available to see new patient consultations at Arizona Wellness Medicine. So if you’re interested, call to get your Holistic Skin Fitness Comprehensive Care plan. We are doing a special offer for those of you that are hearing this video interview, the first 10 people that call, mention Code “Skin Fit 10”, and you’ll receive a 10% discount on your first holistic Skin fitness consultation with Dr. Jeffries. Again, call Arizona Wellness Medicine and mention “Skin Fit 10”. So our phone number is 602 892 4727. You can also reach us via the website. You can get more information at az-wellness.com. We do have a great contact page on there where you can email us if you want to interact with our office staff on if this might be a good fit for you or not, and get you scheduled for your skin fitness consultation with Dr. Jeffries.
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
Awesome. Thank you so much. I look forward to seeing you all in the office. And don’t forget to mention the code Skin Fit 10 and you’ll get 10% off your visit. And that’s only for the first 10 people though.
Dr Emily Parke:
Yep. Nice. Call right away after this interview. It’s going to get booked up. Everyone wants to see Dr. Jeffries, she’s already in high demand. Well, thank you so much for joining me to talk about this and we will talk again soon.
Dr. Michelle Jeffries:
Thank you so much, Emily. Bye.
Dr Emily Parke:
Take care. Bye.