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I want to welcome doctor Karen Hotchkiss
a pediatric ear nose and throat surgeon
and mother extraordinaire.
Also a good friend of ours. Is it ok if call you Karen?
Absolutely! Karen how did you first hear about the Young Health Shake?
I actually heard about the Young Shake
through Doctor Young. We came as a patient family.
My daughter who is now 9 was diagnosed with
a very severe form of juvenile arthritis when she was 2.
We went to the best the best and were at one of the local
major university centers in an academic program being treated by a pediatric
rheumatologist.
Had spent six years basically on injectable medications all the things
you see the
infomercial commercials for the Embroil. What I didn't realize as a mom is that
after four to five years and you can burn out on those medications they stop
working.
We were in a full-blown pain crisis.
The Embroil had stopped working and had been a great ride for us for about
four years
other than we were on shots twice a week and here having to put it
as six or seven year old three shots was not a lot of fun but she was a trooper
and we got through that.
Her quality of life is pretty good but we didn't realize that
at some point you can hit a wall and she hit that wall and her pain number and
this is a kid who's had arthritis pretty much our whole life
who would tell us that on a day when she felt a 9 out of 10 with still getting
out of bed and trumping through school
that her pain was 27 out of 10 and we were we're at a loss.
We were making trips every week to get eight-hour infusions of
a new medication called Remicade which is a different class
used to treat arthritis and it wasn't working and we were desperate.
As a mom not only as a doctor but as a mom you'll do anything for your
children.
My husband came home one day and said I've heard about this guy
name Doctor Young and he's got a different approach to arthritis. I said
great I will do anything I will stand on my head in the corner
and wave my hands around if you tell me I'll make my child better.
I said just show me that there's some science behind it, let's go. So the next
day
luckily a friend of a friend was able to pull some strings and heard about
our story and out desperate situation and was able to get us into the clinic.
Doctor Young introduced us to the shake. As I sat there and listened to
Doctor Young
telling us about the shake and the biology behind it and the science behind it
everything from my first and second year of medical school came back to
play and said
this really make sense. This is everything that we learned
early on of what the body needs to function properly
at the cellular level. Then as we started to look at
Joy's diet realized everything we were putting into her body was not what she needed
to be having
for arthritis. So that day we learned about the shake
and we got started, cold turkey we went to the shake. We had nothing
else.
There was not an option to try and convince a nine-year-old take a shake. It
was happening, period.
We also made some diet changes right then too. Taking
a lot of the carbs out. That was really hard to get all carbohydrates, potato chips
Dr. Young sat down with us and asked us what her diet consisted of
it was
mac and cheese for breakfast pizza for lunch and pasta for dinner. You know
as parents and a child who is chronically hurting we we were desperate
anything she wanted to you we were happy to because at that point any nutrition at
all was a struggle.
Within two to three weeks starting her on the shakes we saw a huge
improvement.
Her pain improved her joints swelling resolved and
before long we knew we had our are happy healthy
child back. We were amazed that off medications
that she was doing so well simply by changing her diet
and incorporating shake daily.
Was it hard to get her to take the shake? I mean
it's protein an oil
it doesn't sound appetizing. The other thing that from a mother's stand point that is great about
the shake is that they are very low sugar
and I think our children in today's society are very used to that very sweet
sweet taste.
At first it was a little difficult. The thing I loved about Dr. Young is
he said to us
get the good stuff in
the number one priority is to get the good stuff in and we'll worry about the bad
stuff
later but but we really focus on getting the stuff in. So that meant we could
expand our possibilities with the shake so if we want but bananas in it are we needed two
put
chocolate syrup cocoa powder or anything else to
make the shake kid-friendly and palatable. The next two to three weeks we
started experimenting
in the kitchen and were able to come up with some great recipes.
Now it to not only provides variety but a nice
meal for her. We make it custom for her whether it's chocolate or
vanilla or fruit flavored
She does a great job.
Has she gone back? I know the University was involved care a lot of
doctors.
What have they said? Their thoughts?
I guess I'm a little hesitant to say what their thoughts are because
we actually haven't gone back. I have seen some other specialists, that are
colleagues and told them what we're doing and they have said,
well you know sooner or later it will be back or
this may just be a temporary phase. Not really appreciating
what a valuable point nutrition can play. I will tell you when we were
at our last visit getting our last infusion
my husband did ask if diet played a role in arthritis
and one other providers toll is absolutely not, don't even
explore diet therapy because there's there's no roll for that in this disease
process.
I think at this point now we are six months healthy
and six months off all medications can say absolutely this has been the best six
months of our life.