Functional Medicine Reality Podcast

You've cleaned up your diet, started the sauna, cleared the toxins out of your cabinets, and taken every supplement on the list, and you're still only about halfway back to the person you used to be. That's where Amy is.

Five years ago she was a nurse practitioner juggling two phones and a pager on hospital floors and training for triathlons. Today she's managing lupus, mold in her home, a past Lyme infection, mast cell symptoms, POTS, and brain fog that still won't lift.

Why this episode matters

When you're carrying this many diagnoses, the hardest part often isn't finding something to try. It's knowing where to start. In this unscripted patient consult, Dr. Su works through Amy's case in real time and shows how he thinks when someone has several root causes at once. He explains why the order you address them in changes how quickly you feel better, and why fatigue and brain fog are so often the last symptoms to go.

What you'll learn

• Why the sickest patients almost never have a single root cause, and why the words "root cause" can quietly send you looking for one
• Whether mold treatment can start before your home remediation is finished, and what to expect if it does
• How drainage differs from detox, and why the sicker you are, the longer drainage tends to matter
• Which to address first when you're dealing with both mold illness and Lyme disease
• Why fatigue and brain fog are usually the last two symptoms standing, even after major progress
• What rising brain markers like p-tau can mean, and why Dr. Su sees real reason for hope

Key moments

• Amy describes taking patient calls from a closed basement room because background noise made her lose her words
• The common transplant medication that turns out to be the same mycotoxin measured on urine mold tests
• Dr. Su's "dodgeball" analogy for why addressing mycotoxins can be a two-for-one
• A candid look at peptides, immune modulation, and why spending on them instead of fixing a moldy environment is a hard no for him
• Why Dr. Su supports using every tool available, conventional medicine included, to help you feel better while the root causes are being addressed

Dr. Su's perspective

Most of us hear "root cause" so often that we start hunting for the one thing that will turn it all around. For someone as sick as Amy, there are several, and you can't address them all at once. You don't have to wait until you're completely out of a moldy home to start getting better, but as long as the exposure continues there's a ceiling on how far you can go. Mold toxins suppress the immune system, which is why, if I have to pick a starting point, I lean toward mold. That said, no two cases follow the same sequence, and the goal is always the same: help you get better, faster, and keep you feeling as well as possible along the way.

Have a question for Dr. Su?
Once a month, Dr. Su opens one hour to five people only. Real questions, real answers, real direction.
Book your spot: https://go.rootseekhealth.com/askdrmark

Get your free Lab Results Guide:
Download at https://labsoptin.rootseekhealth.com/labs/

Connect with Dr. Su:
rootseekhealth.com | @rootseekhealth

About our guest

"Amy" (name changed for privacy) is a 50-year-old nurse practitioner and single mom with more than 20 years in hospital medicine. A former triathlete, she has been out of work for three and a half years while working to recover from autoimmune disease, mold exposure, and a cluster of related conditions. She joined the show to share her story so others in the same place know they aren't alone.

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only.  Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner. This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.

Your ring gives you one biological age, your watch gives you another, and the lab panel you ordered last spring lands somewhere else. It's hard to know which number to believe, or whether any of it is worth the money you're spending on it.

In this episode, Dr. Su talks with Ryan Smith, founder of TruDiagnostic, about how to sort signal from noise. Ryan explains that the most important thing to check in a biological age test is how well it predicts real health outcomes later in life. A clock that simply gets better at guessing your birthday tells you very little. DNA methylation clocks trained on long-term outcomes have the strongest research behind them so far, and they respond to the things we already know improve healthspan.

They also cover what early research is showing on GLP-1s and longevity, including a placebo-controlled trial where biological age markers improved in people who were overweight but not diabetic, and why there's still very little data on microdosing. Dr. Su raises one of the harder parts of longevity work, which is that the changes that matter most at the cellular level may be ones you never feel. Ryan shares a simple filter for the next supplement or device that shows up in your feed: look at who is investing in the data to prove it works.

Find out more at www.trudiagnostic.com

IG: trudiagnosticofficial

Have a question for Dr. Su?
Once a month, Dr. Su opens one hour to five people only. Real questions, real answers, real direction.
Book your spot: https://go.rootseekhealth.com/askdrmark

Get your free Lab Results Guide:
Download at https://labsoptin.rootseekhealth.com/labs/

Connect with Dr. Su:
rootseekhealth.com | @rootseekhealth

Subscribe and Leave a Review:

If Functional Medicine Reality has been valuable to you, please subscribe and leave a review. It helps more patients find the answers they have been searching for.

If you're focused on optimizing your health long-term, we have something coming for you. Stay connected at rootseekhealth.com.

Instagram: @rootseekhealth

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only.  Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner. This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.

You've read the posts, watched the reels, maybe dropped your lab results into ChatGPT late at night, and you still don't know what to do next. When three doctors give you three different answers and your feed offers a new diagnosis every morning, the hardest part becomes knowing who to trust.

Why this episode matters

MaryJo Anderson saw 50 doctors over four years before she found answers for chronic Lyme disease. Nine months after sharing her story on this podcast, she's back with Dr. Su to talk about what happened next, including the flood of messages from women sorting through hormones, hysterectomy decisions, and conflicting medical advice. After ten years of building a community on Instagram, she has a clear view of how health advice on social media shapes the decisions people make, and Dr. Su sees the other side of it every week in his practice.

What you'll learn

• Why more health information hasn't made decisions easier, and what MaryJo does before she acts on anything she reads
• What Dr. Su notices when patients arrive with AI-interpreted labs or a diagnosis they've already settled on
• How online awareness can keep one person stuck while finally getting another person the help they needed
• The practical difference between discernment and judgment, and how to use it with your feed, your supplements, and your doctors

Key themes

• Self-advocacy takes time: reading first, interviewing two or three providers, and turning down the noise
• Three doctors, three answers: what to do when the experts disagree
• How algorithms feed you more of whatever you searched last, including symptoms
• The pressure on women (and now young men) to buy what they're told they need

About MaryJo Anderson

MaryJo Anderson is a mom of three and a content creator who has spent ten years building a close community of women on Instagram. After years of unexplained symptoms and 50 doctors, she was diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease and shared her full story on the Functional Medicine Reality Podcast earlier this year. She returns as a recurring co-host to talk about patient advocacy, women's health, and staying discerning online.

Dr. Su's perspective

"More information saying the same thing doesn't mean it's accurate, or the best answer for you. There are shades of gray, and sorting through it takes time and effort." Dr. Su has spent 23 years helping patients who arrive overwhelmed by conflicting input. His goal is never to talk someone out of their research. It's to help them keep an open mind long enough to find what's driving their symptoms, so they can get better, faster.

MaryJo and Dr. Su also agreed this conversation needs a Part Two on social media and mental health, so stay tuned.

Have a question for Dr. Su?
Once a month, Dr. Su opens one hour to five people only. Real questions, real answers, real direction.
Book your spot: https://go.rootseekhealth.com/askdrmark

Get your free Lab Results Guide:
Download at https://labsoptin.rootseekhealth.com/labs/

Connect with Dr. Su:
rootseekhealth.com | @rootseekhealth

Subscribe and Leave a Review:

If Functional Medicine Reality has been valuable to you, please subscribe and leave a review. It helps more patients find the answers they have been searching for.

If you're focused on optimizing your health long-term, we have something coming for you. Stay connected at rootseekhealth.com.

Instagram: @rootseekhealth

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only.  Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner. This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.

You've asked a doctor about a supplement, an herb, or a therapy like hyperbaric oxygen or ozone, and gotten a flat "that doesn't work" in return, with no real explanation and no room for follow up questions.

Why this episode matters:
Dr. Su has watched this happen to his own patients for years. In this episode he names exactly what's going on and gives it a term, ontological humility, the simple idea that we don't know what we don't know. He applies it to both sides of the exam room, and by the end you'll understand not just why doctors dismiss what they don't know, but why patients need to ask the same honest questions about the herbs and supplements they trust.

What you will learn:

Why conventional doctors often say "it doesn't work" when the honest answer is "I don't know enough to say"

Why "natural" doesn't automatically mean "safe," and what's actually missing from the research on herbs and supplements

How to think about the real risk of what you're taking, instead of assuming risk is zero because it came from a health food store

Key themes:

Ontological humility as a framework for honest practice

The time crunch behind conventional medicine's dismissiveness

The unregulated gray zone of supplement and herbal research

 Dr. Su doesn't let either side off the hook here. He's direct that dismissing a therapy just because you're unfamiliar with it is unfair and unjust, and he's equally direct that assuming a supplement is safe just because it's not a pharmaceutical is its own kind of unearned confidence. His answer isn't to pick a side, it's to be honest about what's actually known and unknown, and to weigh real risk before making a decision.

 Get your free Lab Results Guide: https://labsoptin.rootseekhealth.com/labs/

Have a question for Dr. Su? Once a month, Dr. Su opens one hour to five people only. Real questions, real answers, real direction. Book your spot: https://go.rootseekhealth.com/askdrmark

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only.  Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner. This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.

Most of us will get our teeth cleaned twice this year and never think once about our brain. That's the gap Dr. Mark sits down with Dr. Trevor Berry to close in this episode.

Why this episode matters:

Dr. Berry is a board-certified chiropractic neurologist and co-founder of Brain Restore Centers, a fast-growing national network built around a hard fact, the changes behind conditions like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's can start twenty to thirty years before anyone notices a symptom. By the time memory loss or brain fog shows up, the process is already well underway, and waiting for symptoms means waiting too long.

What you will learn:

• The four foundational pillars Dr. Berry uses to protect and rebuild brain function, movement, low-level laser therapy and photobiomodulation, oxygen therapies, and nutrition
• Why brain fog and fatigue deserve the same root-cause investigation as any other chronic symptom, instead of getting dismissed as normal aging or stress
• What objective testing for brain health actually looks like, from cognitive assessments to balance and blood flow markers
• Why prevention has to start decades before symptoms, and what "prevention" actually looks like day to day

Key themes:

• Root-cause thinking applied to the brain
• Movement, light, oxygen, and nutrition as the real foundations of brain health
• Chronic stress and its long-term effect on the brain
• Why one modality alone rarely gets the full result

Dr. Su's perspective:

Dr. Mark has known Dr. Berry for a couple of years, and this conversation grew out of watching his approach up close. What stood out most was the objective side of it, the idea that brain health doesn't have to stay subjective or vague. There are real markers you can track and real progress you can measure, and that's the same root-cause philosophy RootSeek applies to every other system in the body.

If you're focused on optimizing your health long term, the Longevity program is coming. Stay connected at rootseekhealth.com. And if brain fog or fatigue has you wondering what your labs aren't telling you, our free Lab Results Guide is a good place to start.

Links:

• rootseekhealth.com
• Free Lab Results Guide: https://labsoptin.rootseekhealth.com/opt-in-page-landing-page-for-lab-results-without-answers
• Brain Restore Centers: brainrestorecenters.com

Guest bio:

Dr. Trevor Berry, DC, DACNB, is a board-certified chiropractic neurologist, published researcher, and international lecturer specializing in brain health. He founded the Arizona Chiropractic Neurology Center and now serves as Chief Clinical Officer and co-founder of Brain Restore Centers, a nationwide network of clinics focused on neurodegeneration, traumatic brain injury, and neurodevelopmental care.

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only.  Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner. This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.

If you've ever wondered what you're actually getting when you walk through the door of a functional medicine practice, you're not alone. It's a crowded field, and there's no easy way to know what a given practitioner will actually be like until you've experienced it firsthand.

Why this episode matters:

In this episode, Dr. Mark Su steps back from the usual format of the show to explain exactly why the Functional Medicine Reality Podcast exists. This isn't a sales pitch and it never has been. Dr. Su built it to give people considering root-cause medicine, and specifically considering RootSeek Health, a transparent look at who they'd be trusting with their care before they ever book a visit.

What listeners will learn:

• Why Dr. Su started this podcast, and why it was never meant to build audience or revenue
• How the show is structured, rotating between professional interviews and unscripted patient consultations
• Why Mike Schrantz and Mary Jo Anderson return as recurring co-hosts, and what each brings to the show
• Why the patient interviews are real, unscripted consultations, not scripted content
• How to get a free consultation with Dr. Su by sharing your story on the podcast

Key moments or themes:

• The show's rotating format: two out of every four episodes are professional interviews, two are patient conversations
• Mike Schrantz as the recurring "doctor of homes," covering the intersection of environmental illness and clinical care
• Mary Jo Anderson's ongoing story, from chronic Lyme disease to longevity optimization
• The invitation for listeners to be interviewed as patients in exchange for a free consultation

Dr. Su's perspective:

At the six-month mark, Dr. Su reflects on the feedback the show has received and reaffirms its singular goal: helping people who've been dismissed by conventional medicine feel confident that someone finally believes them and has a plan.

Connect with RootSeek:

Get your free Lab Results Guide: Download at rootseekhealth.com/labs/

Have a question for Dr. Su? Once a month, Dr. Su opens one hour to five people only. Real questions, real answers, real direction.

Book your spot: rootseekhealth.com/askdrmark

Subscribe and Leave a Review:

If Functional Medicine Reality has been valuable to you, please subscribe and leave a review. It helps more patients find the answers they have been searching for.

If you're focused on optimizing your health long-term, we have something coming for you. Stay connected at rootseekhealth.com.

Instagram: @rootseekhealth

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only.  Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner. This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.

You've probably been told your labs look fine while you're barely functioning. That gap, between what a lab report says and what your body is actually telling you, is exactly where this episode lives.

Christine has been a patient of Dr. Su's for over fifteen years, and this conversation traces her whole arc, from years of unexplained symptoms that finally led to a Lyme disease diagnosis, through a mold reaction, and into the last five months, where three specific changes stacked together and took her vitality from a self-rated three out of ten to a consistent eight or nine.

What you will learn:

• Why a body composition scan gave Christine real numbers instead of vague impressions, and how tracking muscle mass percentile (not just weight) became a starting point she could actually work from
• How hormone replacement therapy changed her ability to follow through on things, not just how she felt day to day
• Why properly managed ADHD medication, paired with better sleep and exercise, gave her the executive function to organize her whole routine around the other changes

Key themes:

• What it took to finally get a Lyme disease diagnosis after over a decade of unexplained symptoms
• Why gradual decline is so hard to notice and even harder to advocate for yourself against
• How several right-fit interventions, stacked together, can move the needle faster than any single one alone

Dr. Su: "What stands out most in this conversation isn't any single treatment. It's the sequence. Christine had spent over a decade working through Lyme and mold before we ever got to hormones and ADHD medication. Each piece mattered, and each piece needed the ones before it. That's usually how real change works. It's rarely one thing."

Guest bio:

Christine" is a longtime RootSeek patient whose name has been altered to protect her privacy. She works in IT and has been under Dr. Su's care for over fifteen years, through a Lyme disease diagnosis, a mold reaction, and most recently, a five-month stretch of change involving body composition testing, hormone replacement therapy, and ADHD medication management.

Ready to start your own root-cause investigation? Visit rootseekhealth.com to get started, or grab our free Lab Results Guide if you've been told your labs are normal but you still don't feel like yourself.

Connect with RootSeek:

Get your free Lab Results Guide: Download at rootseekhealth.com/labs/

Have a question for Dr. Su? Once a month, Dr. Su opens one hour to five people only. Real questions, real answers, real direction.

Book your spot: rootseekhealth.com/askdrmark

Subscribe and Leave a Review:

If Functional Medicine Reality has been valuable to you, please subscribe and leave a review. It helps more patients find the answers they have been searching for.

If you're focused on optimizing your health long-term, we have something coming for you. Stay connected at rootseekhealth.com.

Instagram: @rootseekhealth

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only.  Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner. This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.

You've watched GLP-1s take over every feed, every ad, every conversation at a family gathering, and you're still not sure what to believe. Is it legit? Is it safe? Is it just the easy way out?

Why this episode matters: 

GLP-1s and peptides have gone from a niche diabetes medication to a full-blown cultural moment in just a few years, and the information hasn't kept up with the demand. Dr. Su and Mary Jo sit down for an honest, unfiltered conversation about what's actually happening in the body, where the confusion comes from, and why the stigma around using them deserves a second look.

What you will learn:

• The real mechanism behind GLP-1s, and how tirzepatide differs from semaglutide
• Why sourcing peptides has become what Dr. Su calls a wild west, and what that means for your safety and your wallet
• Where the "easy way out" stigma comes from, and why Dr. Su pushes back on it clinically
• What Mary Jo experienced firsthand over two years on semaglutide, including inflammation, energy, and the harder truth about what happens when you stop
• The evolving research connecting GLP-1s to mast cell regulation and inflammation, beyond weight loss alone

Key themes:

• The gap between how GLP-1s are marketed and how they actually work
• Stigma, gender, and the quiet judgment around using medication for weight
• Cost, access, and how to avoid getting overcharged for microdosing or unreliable sourcing

Dr. Su's perspective: Dr. Su is direct about where he stands. He's seen GLP-1s change the trajectory of patients' health, not just their weight, and he's equally direct that the "did you earn this the hard way" question misses the point entirely. His focus stays on what actually helps someone get better, faster, and at a cost that doesn't take advantage of them.

Guest bio, if relevant: Mary Jo Anderson is a recurring co-host of the Functional Medicine Reality Podcast, sharing her own chronic illness journey and recovery alongside Dr. Su.

Connect with RootSeek:

Get your free Lab Results Guide: Download at rootseekhealth.com/labs/

Have a question for Dr. Su? Once a month, Dr. Su opens one hour to five people only. Real questions, real answers, real direction.

Book your spot: rootseekhealth.com/askdrmark

Subscribe and Leave a Review:

If Functional Medicine Reality has been valuable to you, please subscribe and leave a review. It helps more patients find the answers they have been searching for.

If you're focused on optimizing your health long-term, we have something coming for you. Stay connected at rootseekhealth.com.

Instagram: @rootseekhealth

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only.  Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner. This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.

You've read about mold. You've read about CIRS, mycotoxins, water damage, and now maybe even bacteria, and it's a lot. So you start looking into an environmental inspection, wondering if your house is behind the fatigue, the brain fog, the symptoms nobody's been able to explain.

Why this episode matters:

Dr. Mark Su sits down with Mike Schrantz, CIEC, one of the most connected indoor environmental professionals in the country, to talk about a pain point that shows up again and again in both their practices, patients starting their mold illness journey with an inspector before a clinician is ever involved. It's a conversation that rarely happens out loud, two professionals from different sides of the same problem comparing notes on where the process breaks down.

What you will learn:

• Why starting with an environmental inspector before a doctor often leads to confusion, wasted money, and testing that doesn't answer the real question
• The difference between a targeted assessment and a whole-house assessment, and why that choice matters more than most people realize
• What a clinician actually adds to the process that an inspector can't, and vice versa

Key themes:

• The order of operations matters, clinician first, then environmental testing
• Cost and scope decisions get a lot easier once a doctor has narrowed the focus
• This is often a team effort between two professionals working toward the same goal, a patient who finally has answers

Dr. Su's perspective:

Dr. Su has seen this pattern often enough to know it's rarely anyone's fault. Patients are doing their best with the information available to them, and that information usually points them toward testing before it points them toward a doctor who can make sense of the results. His take throughout the conversation is straightforward, if you have chronic symptoms that aren't going away and you have real concerns about your environment, it's worth having a clinician involved somewhere along the way, earlier rather than later.

If this sounds like where you are right now, a Clinical First Steps Call with Dr. Su is a good next step before you spend a dime on testing. Book yours at go.rootseekhealth.com/askdrmark. Still in research mode? Grab the free Lab Results Guide at labsoptin.rootseekhealth.com/opt-in-page-landing-page-for-lab-results-without-answers.

Links:

• rootseekhealth.com
• go.rootseekhealth.com/askdrmark
• environmentalanalytics.net (Mike Schrantz)
• healthybuildingalliance.org
• iepradio.com
• iseai.org

Guest bio:

Mike Schrantz, CIEC, is one of the most networked indoor environmental professionals in the country, working with chronic illness patients and complex mold and water-damage cases through Environmental Analytics. He's a recurring voice on the Functional Medicine Reality Podcast and a board member alongside Dr. Su at ISEAI.

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only.  Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner. This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.

If you've done months of physical therapy or chiropractic care and your pain still hasn't moved, you're not imagining it, and you're not doing it wrong. Something in the plan was probably missing from day one.

Why this episode matters:
Most pain treatment starts with the same assumption: get stronger. But strength only works within the range of motion you actually have access to. If a joint can't move the way it's supposed to move, no amount of strengthening will fix it, and in some cases, it can make things worse. Dr. Su sits down with Dr. Mike Melander, a chiropractor and Active Release Technique instructor, to explain the question almost no one asks before starting treatment.

What you will learn:

• The difference between a mobility problem and a stability problem, and why it changes everything about a treatment plan
• What "tissue quality" means, and why pain itself is an unreliable way to judge what's happening in a muscle
• Why fibromyalgia and chronic Lyme patients often carry real, findable tissue issues, even when the root cause isn't musculoskeletal
• Why chiropractic care and physical therapy work best together, not as competing approaches

Key themes:

• Root-cause thinking applied to pain, not just complex chronic illness
• The overlap between structural pain and systemic conditions like Lyme and fibromyalgia
• Why "call me if you need me" is sometimes the best plan a provider can offer

Dr. Su's perspective:
Dr. Su draws a direct line between what Dr. Melander does with tissue and joints and what RootSeek does with labs and systems. The tools are different, but the instinct is the same: don't stop at the first plan, look for what's actually driving the problem.

 If this conversation named something you've been living with, whether it's pain that won't resolve or a chronic illness that hasn't had a clear answer, Dr. Su opens one hour a month to five people for real, direct guidance.
 

Book your spot: rootseekhealth.com/askdrmark

Free Lab Guide: rootseekhealth.com/opt-in

Links:

• North Shore Spine and Sport: northshorespinesport.com
• RootSeek Health: https://rootseekhealth.com/

Guest bio:
Dr. Mike Melander, DC is a chiropractor with 16 years in clinical practice and a multi-time Best of Boston winner. He has served as an Active Release Technique instructor since 2017 and practices at North Shore Spine and Sport in Newport, Massachusetts.

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only.  Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner. This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.