Episode 207
Hali Laricey:The Shocking Reason Your Immune System Has Been Under Attack for Years Without You Knowing
Hali Laricey:
The Shocking Reason Your Immune System Has Been Under Attack for Years Without You Knowing
I'm obsessed with this conversation. Hali Laricey taught me how to read my CBC with differential like a detective - and you probably already have years of these sitting in your patient portal right now. Those "normal" labs everyone dismisses?
They're actually hiding specific patterns that can predict autoimmune flares months before symptoms hit. Hali breaks down the exact functional ranges for neutrophils, lymphocytes, and monocytes that reveal bacterial loads, viral activity, and chronic infections like EBV. This isn't about ordering expensive specialty tests - the CBC with differential is available anywhere and costs almost nothing.
If you've been told your labs are normal but you still feel terrible, this episode will give you the tools to have empowered conversations with your healthcare team.
They're actually hiding specific patterns that can predict autoimmune flares months before symptoms hit. Hali breaks down the exact functional ranges for neutrophils, lymphocytes, and monocytes that reveal bacterial loads, viral activity, and chronic infections like EBV. This isn't about ordering expensive specialty tests - the CBC with differential is available anywhere and costs almost nothing.
If you've been told your labs are normal but you still feel terrible, this episode will give you the tools to have empowered conversations with your healthcare team.
First Aired on: Sep 1, 2025
Episode 207
Hali Laricey:The Shocking Reason Your Immune System Has Been Under Attack for Years Without You Knowing
Hali Laricey:
The Shocking Reason Your Immune System Has Been Under Attack for Years Without You Knowing
I'm obsessed with this conversation. Hali Laricey taught me how to read my CBC with differential like a detective - and you probably already have years of these sitting in your patient portal right now. Those "normal" labs everyone dismisses?
They're actually hiding specific patterns that can predict autoimmune flares months before symptoms hit. Hali breaks down the exact functional ranges for neutrophils, lymphocytes, and monocytes that reveal bacterial loads, viral activity, and chronic infections like EBV. This isn't about ordering expensive specialty tests - the CBC with differential is available anywhere and costs almost nothing.
If you've been told your labs are normal but you still feel terrible, this episode will give you the tools to have empowered conversations with your healthcare team.
They're actually hiding specific patterns that can predict autoimmune flares months before symptoms hit. Hali breaks down the exact functional ranges for neutrophils, lymphocytes, and monocytes that reveal bacterial loads, viral activity, and chronic infections like EBV. This isn't about ordering expensive specialty tests - the CBC with differential is available anywhere and costs almost nothing.
If you've been told your labs are normal but you still feel terrible, this episode will give you the tools to have empowered conversations with your healthcare team.
First Aired on: Sep 1, 2025
Table of Contents:
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
In this episode:
Introduction
Hali Laricey is a Certified Functional Wellness and Nutrition Specialist and Functional Blood Work Specialist who helps people unravel mystery symptoms and autoimmune struggles after being told their labs are "normal." In this episode, she reveals how the CBC with differential - a widely available, inexpensive lab test - contains hidden information about chronic infections that could be attacking your immune system for years without you knowing.
Episode Highlights
The CBC with Differential: Your Underused Immune System Snapshot
Hali explains how the CBC with differential (not just CBC) is one of the most valuable yet overlooked tests for autoimmune conditions.
- Available at any lab company and extremely affordable
- Provides a detailed breakdown of your immune system function
- The differential piece shows specific white blood cell percentages
- Most doctors only focus on total white blood cell count, missing crucial details
The Magic Numbers: Functional Ranges That Reveal Hidden Infections
Hali shares specific functional medicine thresholds for each differential component that can identify different types of infections.
- Neutrophils: 60% or less (higher indicates bacterial infections like UTIs, SIBO)
- Lymphocytes: 30% (elevated suggests viral activity)
- Monocytes: 7% or less (higher points to chronic viruses like Epstein-Barr)
- Eosinophils: Less than 3% (elevated indicates allergies or parasites)
- Basophils: 1% or less (elevated suggests food sensitivities)
Looking for Patterns Over Time
The key to understanding your immune system is examining historical lab data, not just single snapshots.
- Go back 3-5 years of CBC differentials to identify patterns
- Look for consistently elevated markers that reveal chronic issues
- Single elevated results could be temporary infections
- Patterns show underlying problems that need addressing
The 2-to-1 Ratio That Predicts Autoimmune Flares
Hali reveals a specific ratio in your differential that can predict autoimmune flares before symptoms appear.
- Normal ratio: neutrophils at 60%, lymphocytes at 30% (2-to-1 ratio)
- When this ratio approaches 1-to-1, autoimmune flare is likely
- This pattern can show up months before symptoms manifest
- Early detection allows for preventive intervention
Chronic Infections: The Hidden Driver of Autoimmune Conditions
The episode explores how low-grade but persistent infections create the perfect storm for autoimmune development.
- Infections like Epstein-Barr can remain dormant and reactivate
- Chronic bacterial overgrowth leads to systemic inflammation
- These infections attack the body's weakest systems first
- Biofilms protect infections from detection and treatment
- Addressing infections is crucial for autoimmune healing
Normal vs. Optimal: Why Your "Normal" Labs Miss the Mark
Hali contrasts the limitations of standard lab ranges with functional medicine approaches.
- Standard ranges are population averages, not optimal health markers
- 33% of people seeking medical care have symptoms but "normal" labs
- Different lab companies use different reference ranges
- Functional ranges identify problems before they become diseases
Practical Steps for Empowered Healthcare
The episode provides actionable advice for having more productive conversations with healthcare providers.
- Always request CBC "with differential" - not just CBC
- Ask questions and be curious, not fearful
- Access your patient portal to review 3-5 years of historical labs
- Bring specific questions based on patterns you identify
- Consider working with functional practitioners for detailed analysis
Notable Quotes from this Episode
The bottom line is that 33% of people who are seeking medical care are struggling and suffering with real symptoms, and yet they hold those normal labs in their hands.
Hali Laricey
These low lying but chronic infections, if they're left untreated for a long time, they throw the door wide open to other things that we don't want creeping in, whether it is additional autoimmune conditions or whatever. Our systems are burned out.
Hali Laricey
Be curious. Don't be fearful. Replace that fear with curiosity. I hope that our conversation today has equipped your listeners to be able to say, 'Yes, I'm empowered. I have these tools right now.'
Hali Laricey
Other Resources:
Other Resources:
Connect with Hali Laricey
Connect with Hali Laricey
Watch this interview:
Watch this interview:
Hali Laricey has a gift for you!
Hali Laricey has a gift for you!
Hali's Dream Labs Checklist
Learn what to look for in your lab results, what the "magic numbers" are, and how to talk to your doctor about it!
Episode Transcript
Hali Laricey:(teaser intro) these differential pieces tell us about the immune system, but they also reveal low lying but chronic infections. When those, those infections are allowed to run rampant, they go to the weakest place.
So if it's your thyroid, it's gonna attack your thyroid, then it looks like Hashimoto's
(Intro Bumper)
Julie Howton:(Julie Intro) Welcome back to the Inspired Living with Autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Houghton, and today we're joined by Hali Laricey, a certified functional wellness and nutrition specialist, certified functional blood work specialist and heart math certified practitioner. Hali helps men, women, and children unravel the root causes of mystery symptoms and autoimmune struggles, especially after they've been told their labs are normal, but know something deeper is going on.
After navigating her own health challenges and the frustrations of being dismissed, Hali now uses a foundational medicine approach to reveal what traditional models often miss. She brings together functional lab analysis, nutrition counseling, and nervous system support to help clients feel vibrant, empowered, and fully seen.
And in today's conversation, Hali walks us through information that has likely been overlooked in routine labs that can help identify underlying causes of chronic health challenges. Even for those of us that have been told our labs are normal. This episode will provide empowering information and perhaps shed new light.
(Main Interview) Hali, welcome to the podcast.
Hali Laricey: Thank you so much, Julie. It's great to be here. I'm excited to talk to you today.
Julie Howton: I am so excited to learn from you today. I'm really glad that you're gonna share your wisdom, um, because I know this is a conversation that I'm gonna say at the end. Gosh, I wish I knew all these things 20 years ago.
So, um, I would love for listeners to get to know a little more about you by sharing your journey. How did you get into functional wellness? You know, how, how did you end up here? I, I always. And once in a blue moon I'm wrong, but 99% of the time. My guests weren't thinking this would be their path when they were children.
Hali Laricey: Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, it's funny because what, and when I was younger, um, I've always been a question asker. The why. I was a why person, you know?
Julie Howton: Well, there you go. That's all you need to say. You belong in wellness.
Hali Laricey: I was a why person and then, um, but, but I wasn't really into wellness, you know, at all.
I was really just more into living life and asking my why questions behind the scenes. Um, but as I got older and wiser, um. I started seeing a lot of patterns in life and a lot of times, you know, hearing a comment from a doctor, I love doctors. They're great at what they do and what they're trained to do.
They're trained to diagnose and treat.
Julie Howton: Mm-hmm.
Hali Laricey: Okay. But sometimes when you show up. Without like a, something that really needs a diagnosis, you know, you just want help and support. Sometimes you're just offered a medication or something like that. Almost
Julie Howton: always, almost always, I would say. Right? Yeah.
Hali Laricey: And then, you know, side effects, all those things that you're, you know, is this my only option?
And a lot of times a doctor will say, well, it's what I recommend. And so then you're kind of stuck, you know, well, do I go with this or do I do something else? So I saw this pattern and I just started asking more questions and I found out that there were other ways to do things. Mm-hmm. Ways that I totally embraced that lined up with kind of like how I feel about my life and how I want to go and my health.
Mm-hmm. So then I pursued the training and the certifications and everything behind the scenes to make that happen. Love what I do love being in this space. And so that's kind of what landed me here.
Julie Howton: Well, I, I am sure that all of your clients feel very blessed that thank you. You not only asked the questions, but, you know, took the time to, to get the training and really step into the space and, and help others.
And I'm so excited because I, I know that, that, and it does go. Right directly to your love of asking questions. Um, but you, I use a lot of functional labs, big panels. I, I say I like to look under a lot of rocks. Um, as somebody who, like so many people with autoimmunity, you know, I had normal labs, so therefore it was hard for anybody to really understand what was going on.
But you. Take a totally different approach because you actually know more about how to read those normal, normal labs or what I would call basic labs, um, and say that there are hidden answers in there that are often getting overlooked. Yeah, I wanna, I wanna learn about it 'cause I'm excited. Um, but, but, but like, how do you know this secret, you know, tell, tell us a little bit about, so, so let's, let's talk about that, because these are labs that your PCP is running, right?
Yeah. Like, so this, this isn't, these aren't specialty labs.
Hali Laricey: That's right. That, and, and that's, you know, really what I do is I want to equip your listeners to have. Empowered conversations with their doctors. Yes. Right. Uhhuh, because we want you to ask the right questions. We don't want you to just sit there in your appointment that only lasts 15 minutes and take all the information in and leave scratching your head going, oh my goodness.
What just happened? Yeah. So what I do is I, I take a look at your labs and we're talking about stuff that's sitting in your portal for three to five years. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. And today, because we're talking about autoimmunity, we're gonna focus on the CB, C with differential. Okay. I love this lab. It's full of valuable information if you know what you're looking for.
Wow. So. But, but all of the lab work that they do, you know, the comprehensive metabolic panel, um, the lipid panel, all of those are telling and give us puzzle pieces about what's going on in your body overall.
Julie Howton: Yeah. And
Hali Laricey: we'll talk about the CBC with differential today.
Julie Howton: And I do think, um. One of the, the shortcomings of allopathic western medicine is, you know, you just mentioned different parts of, of the panel, right?
C, b, c with differential, the CMP, the lipid panel, whether it's a, what I would consider a full lipid panel or not, whether you've had a full thyroid panel or not. The unfortunately. Physicians are, are, it's, everything is compartmentalized still in Western medicine. And I think that's one of the major differences with functional, you know, I mean the, the docs that work at my clinic are, are medical doctors.
They're both dos, they're both, but it's, it's what's your lens, right? They're, it's your lens. So, you know, what are they seeing in the lipid panel that also. Is showing up in one of the other pan. You know, it, it, they're not all separate because our bodies are integrated. So, um, sometimes it can give you a clue as as to, you know, and, and I really think that, that, that is one of the, the major challenges is like, oh, well you have this and you have that, and they're not asking your favorite question.
Why? Because maybe they're related. You know, I always had, uh, and some of it's genetic for sure, familial high cholesterol, high LDL, um, you know, and, and my, my dad had passed away at 54, so doctors were always, but my inflammation was out of control, so of course I had high cholesterol because it, it's, it's a repair molecule.
So it, but they don't think of it that way. I dunno. So sorry. I just, I'm so excited.
Hali Laricey: No, well, I mean, just to, to your point though, you know, we talk about specialized. I had a client tell me one time she was so excited because her do, her cardiologist had talked her into doing the shot that reduces your cholesterol.
She never talked to me about it. Mm-hmm. Okay. But she did it and she was so excited. She came in and she said, this was when I had my, my brick and mortar. Mm-hmm. Um, I'm so excited. I just met with my cardiologist there over the moon, my cholesterol's 1 0 5.
Julie Howton: How were the rest of her hormones? Oh, goodness.
Exactly. Oh,
Hali Laricey: because see, your cardiologist is good. Managed his set. That's right. That's his box. Oh. But what is, what's the cascade that's being affected by these things? So, you know, the bottom line is, is that 33% of people who are seeking medical care are struggling and suffering with real symptoms. Right.
And yet they hold those normal labs in their hands. Yeah. Yeah. They get that stamp of approval. And I think a lot of times women fall into this category because we, you know, we, we kind of put ourselves on the back burner a lot of times. Yeah, of course. And we have a symptom or two and we say, oh, I'm gonna talk to my doctor about that.
Your labs come back normal. And you say, well, the doctor must be right. My symptoms don't matter. Yeah. We squash them down and we go on with our life.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Well and normal and, and listeners, if they don't, you know, if you're new to the podcast, I'm married to a physician, so I'm not bashing doctors neither.
And he is a Western trained, um, but he's been practicing functional medicine for 20 years, but. Normal doctors aren't, not all doctors are trained on what ideal. First there's normal and then there's optimal, and, and most of the time in your really short appointment, they're scanning your labs and they're looking for what's.
Right. Well, what's flagged by one lab company is gonna be different than what's flagged by another. So like, and look at how unhealthy our, our country is. Like who wants to be in the middle of that range? 'cause that's how labs values are. They have nothing to do with optimal wellness. They're, they're averages.
Yeah. And so, you know, you're gonna get different, even like. During COVID, I mean, that was like the perfect example. All of a sudden, vitamin D ranges finally bumped up into what functional medicine would consider good values. Um, you know, everything used to get flagged high if somebody had a good, strong vitamin D level.
But then during COVID, I, it be, you know, everybody started taking vitamin D and all of a sudden the averages changed. One lab company changed by a hundred points, what they considered a normal vitamin D. So I, it's important for people to understand that physicians are doing the best they can with the training they have and the system they're they're working in.
And most of them aren't excited about only having 10, 15 minutes with you either. You know, but, so this is why I love, I'm all about empowerment. That's a whole reason we do the podcast. Uh, and I, I love that you are educating people to have those empowered conversations and, and ask the right questions. Um, and, and.
I will add sometimes the match of physician patient isn't good. Like if, if I, I tell people all the time, like if you're physician, and I'm not talking about the amount of time they're allowed to spend with you, depending on what system they're working in. But if you have a physician that's offended by questions, please find another physician.
Amen. Yeah. Really because they're not serving you. I know. And, and what I, I know a lot of physicians, um, and, and most of it's the same with like, they want engaged patients, right. They like, they got into medicine to actually help people. And so, okay. Sorry. I just, I'm so excited because I, I, when I think of CBC with differential.
I, I think of like, that's something I check if I have been sick or, you know, when things are out of whack. I'm like, oh, was I fighting a bug when I, when I took it? Or to me, it, it just seems it's run everywhere. The beautiful thing about it, this is why I am most excited. You can go to any lab with an order and get a CBC done.
You can cash pay and they're dirt cheap because dirt
Hali Laricey: cheap.
Julie Howton: Every lab runs a CB, C with differential, so there's nothing specialty about it. Um, so te tell us how, how can we find some breadcrumbs by Yeah,
Hali Laricey: let's do it. Okay. So the C, B, c, the A, a lot of, and I just ran into this two times in the last three days.
Okay. There's a C, B, C. And a CBC with differential. Yes. So I want to make it perfectly clear that when our listeners, your listeners, go. To their doctor that they request the CB, C with differential. 'cause the differential piece is what tells you the snapshot of your immune system and how it's performing.
The CBC by itself is not really gonna give you that breakdown.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Hali Laricey: All it's gonna do is tell the doctor where your white blood cell count is, and like you just talked about the ranges. It's super wide. Yeah. White blood cell count is not super sensitive.
Julie Howton: Yeah. And C, B, C complete blood count. Yes. Yes. Okay.
So I just, I like to like start Yes. At the very beginning. Um, and I love you said one other thing and then I promise I'm gonna try to zip it. Um, I love it. Keep going. But I think this is so important for listeners to understand. Any blood test is a snapshot. So I love that you use that word. It is, that's why I just said, you know, if my, if my numbers look off in my CB, C with differential, I'll think back to like what was going on when I got my blood drawn, because it doesn't necessarily mean there's some big ugly thing happening.
It's like, oh yeah, wait, I had a cold last week or whatever. Um, so. So the, the differential part is, is key. And, and that's the part that we're talking about specific to i, the, for this autoimmune population?
Hali Laricey: Yes. Yes. Um, it just said something that made me think something too about the immune, um, the snapshot.
Oh. So what I do is I want to look at somebody's. Previous lab work. Yeah. Like three years. And if you have an autoimmune condition, I wanna even go back five. Mm-hmm. And everybody has that, you know? Right, right. So then, like you said, it's not just a snapshot like, oh, I had a cold. I knew I had that. Were looking for patterns because a lot of people, me being one of them, my monocytes, and we'll talk about that, but my monocytes are always high.
So there's something going on that I need to address, but I didn't know that until I looked at five years worth of my labs. Right. If I just look at one, oh, monocytes are high. Maybe I had a little induction. Right. You explain away
Julie Howton: like I just did. Right? Like, ah, it's whatever. I feel fine. It was a snapshot.
Hali Laricey: It was something. Exactly. It was a snapshot. It's no big deal. Yeah. Tamp down. We make our, we dismiss. Yes. You know, we dismiss things. Mm-hmm. Um, so the other thing to keep in mind about the CBC with differential is that these differential pieces tell us about the immune system, but they also reveal low lying but chronic infections.
Yes. And these low lying, but chronic infections, if they're left untreated. For a long time, they throw the door wide open to other things that we don't want creeping in, whether it is additional autoimmune conditions or whatever. Our systems are burned out. Yes. So when those, yeah, when those, those infections are allowed to run rampant, they go to the weakest place.
So if it's your thyroid, it's gonna attack your thyroid, then it looks like Hashimoto's or you know, your rheumatoid arthritis, whatever the case may be. Your body is very smart. Viruses and infections are very smart too.
Julie Howton: Yes.
Hali Laricey: So my goal, and I know your goal, Julie, is to get to those systems that are under pressure and being broken down by these infections so that we can support them and get you feeling better as quickly as possible.
Amen. That's, amen. That's our goal. Amen. Well,
Julie Howton: and it's another, I, I say, you know, it's, it's like having a, a computer program running in the background, right? Yeah. And, and like you said, the body is innately intelligent. And always prioritizes resources. Yeah. And so, um, so, so important, you know, this afternoon I am gonna be like digging up all of my really, even really old labs
Hali Laricey: looking back to see, let me tell you what to look for then.
Yes, please. Um, and one thing I wanted to, to mention too is that. The reasons why I think that there are two important reasons why doctors maybe don't, don't pay attention to the differential. It's because what we already talked about, they're focused on the WBC, are you in range or out of range? And they don't, they, they don't value it because they're, they're like big picture looking down on top of things.
You know, things are, oh, you're okay. You know, that's one thing. And then the other thing is that the ranges are too wide. Um, for example, like TSH, I'm just gonna throw that out there for a second. The, the standard range is 0.5 to 4.5.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Hali Laricey: Well, if Julie is always at one, but over the years she's creeping up to two, three, something is going on.
Julie Howton: Subclinical thyroid challenges? Possibly.
Hali Laricey: Yeah. But if nobody's paying attention to that, it's not until you get outside the range. That a doctor's gonna be able to see that and be like, oh, let's get you to a specialist, or let's try this, or whatever the case may be. So
Julie Howton: that's my pet pee peeve peeve though.
'cause you picked my like pet peeve marker anyway, because your T because because of that your TSH can be normal for years and years and years. And if anybody ever bothered to look. Uh, do you have thyroid, you know, elevating, creeping up thyroid antibodies? Do you have suppressed, you know, free T three? Do you know?
They don't look, they don't,
Hali Laricey: no, they don't look. Yeah. And it, and it's like you said at the beginning too, like if you go and ask for a thyroid panel. Yeah, you get TSH, right?
Julie Howton: Right. It's not a panel. It's, I don't know why it just popped into my head this way. It, it, it is this app, and it's not just thyroid, but it's the, it's the easiest and most common example of the differences in approaches.
It would be like a fire, a fire crew sitting in front of a house where there's smoke coming out. Yes, but they're gonna wait till they see flames to pull the hoses. Like that's, that's what, to me that is, and that's why you have, you're gonna educate us on. Okay. But there are basic markers that are telling us things if we look at them through a different lens.
A little bit differently
Hali Laricey: lens. Through a different lens. That's exactly right. Okay. So do you wanna jump into the five? Yes. Okay, so the C, BC with differential, um, it's laid out. So the first thing you're gonna see is probably WBC, which is your white blood cell count.
Julie Howton: Mm-hmm.
Hali Laricey: The lens that I'm looking through, I'm gonna tighten up that, that range uhhuh.
So five to eight. Okay. Five to eight is my magic place. Okay. Now I wanna add a caveat. That the white blood cell count is not the most sensitive. Right. So even though you might be a six, you know, you might be, oh, I'm good. This is why we value the differential piece. Gotcha. So at the bottom, I don't know why it's laid out like this, but the bottom you're gonna go through, right?
Uh, red blood cell count and some other things. At the bottom of your report, there's gonna be five things listed, the neutrophils. The lymphocytes, the monocytes, eosinophils and basophils that makes up your differential. And just for all intents and purposes, that makes up a hundred percent of your white blood cell count, right?
So if you add it up, it's always gonna add up to be about a hundred percent, and you wanna focus on those percentages. Not the absolutes. The absolutes. I mean, there's a way to convert it, but more labs usually have the percentages, but that's what you wanna focus on. So let's talk about the magic numbers, the functional medicine numbers, the magical numbers that I like to call them.
Okay? The neutrophils is the first one you're gonna come to, and that magic happy number is 60%, 66 0. If you are above 60. It tells me that you're carrying some type of bacterial load of some kind, and you may say, okay, well what does that look like? What symptoms might I be having? Could look like pain, fatigue, urinary tract infections.
Yep. Sibo, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or fungal overgrowth, constipation, diarrhea, IBS, all of those kinds of things. And remember we're talking about chronic underlying. So if you go back and look at your previous labs, you know, and you see, oh my goodness, I always run high on the neutrophils, then you know why.
So 60% is our magic number. The next two I'm gonna group together because they tell me about your viral load and that is lymphocytes happy number 30. 30% monocytes, 7% or less. And if you're above, you have viral infections. Now I have a lot of people say, oh, how do we find out what the name of it is? Which viral infection do I have?
Or which bacterial infection do I have? We don't really care. Yeah. We wanna clear 'em, wanna get rid of 'em so they're not attacking you anymore. Mm-hmm. So that's kind of the difference too, between Doc, you know, doctors wanna get you the right antibiotic to treat. Mm-hmm. And we just wanna clear them. So what does this look like?
Well, these two markers are the number one driver for things like fatigue. Mm-hmm. Anxiety, depression, autoimmune and inflammaging. Inflammaging my favorite word. Yes. Low lying, but chronic. And it causes us to H faster. And I don't know about you. I don't want that in my life. No. I wanna go in reverse. Amen to that.
Yes, yes, yes. I want the wisdom and the healthy body.
Julie Howton: Let's do it.
Hali Laricey: Yes, I agree. Um, okay, last, I'm gonna group these two together too, that we've got the eosinophils. And the basophils, and we want the eosinophils to be less than 3% and the basophils to be at 1% or less. If you are above, then we're having a conversation about allergies.
Mm-hmm. Food sensitivities. Um, um, parasites. Things like that. And don't forget to, when we talk about the snapshot of the immune system, if you've got food sensitivities that go on for a long time, they're breaking down the other systems of your body, leading to leaky gut, celiac, you know, all of these different things that Hashimoto's.
Hashimoto's, right on. Yeah, because everything is connected.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Hali Laricey: Okay, so let's run through those five one more time. We've got neutrophils at 60%, lymphocytes at 30, monocytes at seven or less. Eosinophils less than three basophils, 1% or less. Oh, and I'm sorry, I forgot to say what it looks like with the food allergy, the food sensitivities, the allergies, stomach issues.
Yeah, that's kind of like a no-brainer, but I mean, you know when you can connect it, it's like, ah, Shazam, I have an aha moment. Uhhuh, chronic fatigue, muscle and joint pain. Yeah, things like that. So those are the five markers that are worth, they're the price of gold. They tell us so much about what's going on in your body,
Julie Howton: and so really sounds real.
Then important, again, we're looking at patterns and. Yes. So doesn't mean somebody should panic if they look at one CBC and they've got some elevated markers. Exactly. Um, but sometimes worth repeating, like I believe I, we had a, a, an appointment with a patient yesterday who her entire functional medicine panel.
Gorgeous except for her CBC with differential. And it was actually really concerning and the conversation was this could be a snapshot in time. The, this was out of the ordinary for this particular gal. Um, so we're repeating the CB, C in a few weeks to make sure that it was a snapshot.
Hali Laricey: Yeah. Well, and I think what we do too, since we're focused on functional and foundational medicine, you know Yeah.
We look at the whole picture. Yeah. We're looking at symptoms and life stories, right? About the life lived behind all of this. Oh yeah. You suffer a loss, a death, a move, a divorce, you know, all these things. Kind of like pumble apart and they
Julie Howton: tax the immune system. And that was actually the surprising this this happened to be almost like you were in the meeting, you know, happened, happened to be, you know, a, a vibrant young lady who has reclaimed her health over the past decade.
Um, but had a really, has, is still in the heat of a really particularly stressful season. And so the fact that the rest of the panel. Was as gorgeous as it was, was nobody expected that. Yeah. Um, you know, and so, but so some, and again, it's, it's cheap. It's easy to run. You can get it anywhere. And so if you know you are out of pattern, repeat it.
Yeah. I don't know. So I love that. And I, I, I really am I, because I am one of those people I have. You know, 'cause I'm that old. Before there were portals we got handed our labs. So me too. I have a, a file of, you know, labs even from back when I was very, very unwell, um, sitting in my office, taking up space in my filing cabinet, and I am gonna pull those out.
Because I'm, I'm just so very curious.
Hali Laricey: Yes. Intrigued. Well, and you bring up a really good point too, Julie, because one other little tip I wanna share is that, you know this, the neutrophils at 60% and the lymphocytes at 30%, that's a two to one ratio. Mm-hmm. Okay. Once that starts getting closer to one-to-one, you're looking at an autoimmune flare.
Okay. And I don't diagnose. That's not what I do. Right.
Julie Howton: No. I
Hali Laricey: support, and you know, we, we mm-hmm. We get you feeling better through supplementation and diet and all kinds of things, but I, I, I don't, I don't diagnose, but you probably already know. The answer's always inside, right? Yeah. We, we
Julie Howton: know well, and and that's the whole, that's why I love this EM empowerment piece because Yeah, so often the pattern is we know, and we're either talked out of it by our physician 'cause they don't have the label, the answer, the fix.
Um, because how they're looking at your labs, they look normal. And for those of you listening on audio, I'm air quotes around normal here. Um, you know, and sometimes to the point un unfortunately, of an offer of an antidepressant because, you know, if, if I hear one more story of a mother. Who's fatigued sharing with her physician that she's fatigued and, and getting told, well, of course you're tired, you're a mother.
Well, no, we know the difference. And, uh, very few people are gonna go to the doctor because they're tired and life is explaining the depth of the fatigue that they feel there's a difference between fatigue and tired. Um, and so, you know, that is, it is one of my, it, it just makes me really sad that. When they don't have an answer, even if they're not verbalizing, it's all in your head.
They're offering you a script for something that's gonna change your neurotransmitter uptake. It's not, it's not cool. I know it's not cool. Yeah, so I think that that every little. Piece of information that people can learn for their themselves. And it doesn't mean that you, you don't even have to understand what all of these are really to have that Start the conversation with your physician.
Yes. Yeah.
Hali Laricey: Ask the question. That's it.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Amazing. So, I, I, because I too am a curious, sort by nature, I wanna know, 'cause you mentioned that that was it. You said your monocytes are usually high or have been historically high. So what do you, what are you thinking? What are you doing?
Hali Laricey: Well, I, I'm working on the, the antivirals really.
Okay. Um, you know, monocytes a lot of times and, and. I, again, I wanna equip people so that they ask the questions. Mm-hmm. If your monocytes are high, like really high, like 11, 13, something like that, you wanna go ahead and ask your doctor to, to test for Epstein-Barr.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Hali Laricey: Period. You know, that was my
Julie Howton: first thought when you said that.
Yeah. Well, unless, let's talk like, educate a little bit about how vir viruses, so many of us, I just had this conversation literally about cancer cells, right? Like, oh. We all, at any given time, could, could have cancer cells and our, our body is supposed to clear them, but viruses and, and Epstein Barr is always just kind of that first one that pops into my head.
Um, can, can have dormant periods. So can you talk about that? Because I was thinking about that as you were walking us through the differential of like, it is good to know because those things then can flare up and it's nice to know that. Okay. That could be what's going on, and I need to focus a little more on that.
Hali Laricey: That that's the whole pattern thing. Yeah. You know, it's like once we get it, the snapshot that we talked about earlier, you know, maybe the monocytes are fine, but you're exhausted. You know, you have all of these other symptoms, you're, it's hard for you to recover after you're sick. You have these symptoms, and I may suspect, you know, like, Hmm mm-hmm.
Even if that number isn't high, and I've listened to your story, right. I'm gonna treat you for, for viral load. Yeah. You know, even, even if there's, there's nothing that shows up because it is a snapshot. More often than not, I've got three years worth. Yeah. Of lives. And that's usually three reports.
Sometimes it's six. Yeah. If you're older and you're going twice a year or something like that, or you have something else going on, the more information the merrier. It's like Christmas for me when somebody says, oh, I have tons of labs. You know? Yeah. It's like, oh good. There's tons of of pieces to your puzzle that are gonna help us be able to work together and get you some relief.
Yeah. You know? And when you talked about dormancy. There's a lot of stuff that gets so comfortable in our body that it creates a biofilm around it. Yep. And it sits there and it thrives. Mm-hmm. Doesn't show up on any lab work. Right. So that's another piece to the puzzle, but we have to have the lab work to match up with how you're feeling and your life.
Yeah. So, you know, it, it's hard to know everything going in, but for me, I start with the labs because the numbers don't lie. Right.
Julie Howton: You just had have to know how to use 'em. Well, I literally have never had, I mean, we do, you know, we, we track and look for changes and trends and, and things, but in the traditional system, I, I've never had anybody sit down and look at, I, I was laughing in my head when, when you were saying, you know, so sometimes it's labs are twice a year.
I'm thinking, wow. When I was. Like a full on rheumatology patient I was getting, I was getting a panel every eight weeks. Yeah. You know, 'cause I was on so many toxic medications, they were just trying to make sure they weren't killing me in the meantime. So, you know, they were follow, but I mean, at least, yay, they were following me closely.
Um mm-hmm. So, like, I'm not kidding in that file, I should have lots and lots of lots. Lots dobs of stuff. It's like gonna be a Christmas, Julie. It's gonna be Christmas. And I always say to people too, like, the, the most important thing is how you feel, right? I, I wanna see, I wanna go back, uh, because I, I just, I'm curious and this, and I'm a nerd and this is what I love.
And so I learned a new trick. I wanna, I always. Practice on myself first. So I, I wanna, you know, that's why, um, I, well, I don't wanna say, I don't care what your labs look like, if you feel well, um, but even as somebody's on their healing journey, sometimes markers lag, right? Like, I, I wanna know that, that, tell me your story.
I wanna know that you are feeling improvements. Yeah. And then the, the labs are going to improve too. There's just, they're just, it's not a always a really quick Yeah. I mean,
Hali Laricey: yeah, yeah. No, it's true. I mean, labs, labs are only one part of it. They, they're important. They're a guide. It's the symptoms that take us to the doctor.
Right. You know? Yeah. If I don't have any symptoms, I'm going for my physical and I'm good and everything's fine. Yeah. You know, but it's the symptoms. So if we can reduce those symptoms and get you feeling better. Yeah. Lab work almost always follows suit
Julie Howton: well, and that's why I love the, your approach of going back.
I, I use the term, you know, subclinical thyroid, right? It, it's there. So stuff is there in your labs before you have symptoms? Yes. It's there. It's there if you know what to look for. And so, and that's the difference is yeah, we don't want. Symptoms. Like, we don't wanna wait. I don't want them to wait till they see flames.
God forbid there's a fire at my house. Right? Like, we, if you see a smolder, let's, let's do it. So, I, I love that idea and I, I so grateful. I'm excited. You've given me amazing. New tool. I've given you something to do today. You, I have, I know I had nothing to do.
Hali Laricey: Exactly. Right. Mm-hmm. Sure.
Julie Howton: Yeah. But I love this stuff.
I mean, it, it's, you know, and so you, you took what I, I kind of have been a little bit dismissive of, because nobody ever showed me how to make it truly useful.
Hali Laricey: Yeah.
Julie Howton: Before, and now I'm, I'm even, you know, there's that little piece of me that's even more frustrated that, you know, how many CBCs with differentials I've had and, and nobody ever looked for a pattern back again.
I'm going back a decade. Yeah. Um.
Hali Laricey: Yeah. I would also be interested to know if you have some CBCs in there with no differential. Probably
Julie Howton: do, right? We don't. We don't ever run, we only do CB, C with differential at our clinic. Most
Hali Laricey: functional do. Yeah.
Julie Howton: Yeah, yeah. But we also never just run a TSH, so. Understood.
Yes ma'am. I got, but you would hope if a rheumatologist was the one that was ordering the bulk of my labs, that they would include the, the immune piece you would hope.
Hali Laricey: Maybe this is the reason why we're educating, right? Yeah. We're empowering to have that conversation, even if it's a specialist. You wanna ask that question?
Okay. I understand you're gonna do the C, B, C. We're gonna include the differential, right? I mean, I don't wanna absolute confrontational, but you just, it's my
Julie Howton: Or could we, can we, I would like to. Right me statements. The, the beautiful thing about the differential is again, it is in the normal labs. Like, so it's not even the first time I had asked my primary care to, to run a complete thyroid panel, and I, I brought her the markers I wanted.
Um, and she was fantastic and, and, um, very open and, and was like, I, I will absolutely order all of this for you. I am not gonna know what to do with the results. You know, she was honest, at least, you know, but, but this is not, it's not, you're not asking for a toxin panel. You're not asking for a food sensitivity panel, or, or things that are not insurance based, not hospital based.
Like any lab you go to can add the differential when you're getting a CBC done. Yes. So talk to your doctor about it. Um, yes, and, and I don't know, I, I haven't honestly like priced the difference of CBC with or without the differential, but I know with the differential is, is the like least expensive thing you can get run anyway.
Hali Laricey: Yeah. So,
Julie Howton: yeah.
Hali Laricey: I mean, I wonder if there's even a difference in price. You know what I mean? I think there probably isn't sometimes there probably isn't.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Sometimes maybe without is more, you never know. Maybe true. True. It could be. Yeah, could be. Yeah. So, uh, this is, this has been such amazing gold and I, you may have already said it, but.
I know, you know, you have a broad lens when looking at labs, but you also have a broad lens when it comes to functional health and wellness. Mm-hmm. Um, so here is your opportunity. What is one step that listeners can take starting today to improve their health? And it could be something you've already said or it could be totally different.
Hali Laricey: Well, I would like to say something about what I've already said, and then I would like to add something. So I think my number one takeaway is to be curious.
Julie Howton: Yes,
Hali Laricey: be curious. Don't be fearful. Too many people. Attach fear to going to their doctor because they're yielded to that 15 minutes and they're just gonna take whatever the doctor says and they're gonna walk away and whatever, and then mm-hmm.
Be afraid of what's gonna show up in their labs.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Hali Laricey: Don't, don't do that. Be curious. Replace that fear with curious curiosity. And I hope that our conversation today has equipped your listeners to be able to say. Yes, I'm empowered. I have these tools right now. I'm gonna go on my portal. I'm gonna look, I'm gonna see what's there.
And the next time I talk to my doctor, I'm gonna have a great conversation. I have some questions. Yes. Yeah. Yes. I love it. And, and then the, the, the other thing I think I would say to, to feel better is the vitamin D, which we already talked about, but all vitamin D is not created equal. So I've had lots of conversations with people that have said, you know, yeah, my doctor told me to pick up a big thing at Costco and take one a day, and don't do that.
You want a formula that is synergistic and handles a lot of things. It has a lot of co-factors in there that's gonna support your body. 'cause vitamin D is a hormone. It goes everywhere in your body. It needs to feed so many things. You gotta make sure that you're healthy in that area. So make sure you get a vitamin D three with K two.
Mm-hmm. And take at least 5,000 a day. That functional range is 80 to a hundred. Yeah. Just so you know, if your vitamin D number is there somewhere on your lab report, you want it to be 80 to a hundred.
Julie Howton: Well, and and they, especially, I can't tell you, I literally still don't know that I've ever had somebody come through my door with active autoimmune symptoms.
That wasn't supplementing with d that didn't have their D levels in the toilet, like, like teens, twenties. It hurts me to look at when I see it, and even the, the, the quality vitamin D is, is really relatively inexpensive. And it is, when I was on 10 prescriptions, the one thing that I actually felt was when they gave me vitamin D, they, they told me to add in vitamin D and I was like, holy cow, energy's a little bit better.
Um, I will add, you said it, but I, I am going to implore people because we have gone. Full swing. You know, it used to be PCPs used to be afraid of vitamin D, and now everybody understands it's really important. Test, test, test, test. It is fat soluble. You don't want to be supplementing long-term and not test and just know where you are.
Um, yeah, and, and for some people it can take a long time to, to get those levels elevated. Um, yeah. But some people, I, I have on the rare occasion seen like short term supplementation, really just getting people into that, that functional 80 to a hundred range. Um, and so yes, especially as seasons are changing and days are getting shorter.
The, this idea of yes, ideally our body is able to, you know, make vitamin D from sun exposure. Um, just because you may spend a lot of time outside and even if you don't wear sunblock, you still might have low vitamin D. So it is absolutely worth testing. That would be another ask, if that's not in your panels that that you are gonna dig up and go through.
Ask for it.
Hali Laricey: Empowerment. Yes, ask for it. Because it's not on the list. They don't normally run it. And even if you ask, sometimes they don't. So just be sure you get it.
Julie Howton: Yes. Amen. Hali, where is the best place for people that listen like I do on the go? And they may not click the show notes to find you.
Hali Laricey: Well, the easiest place to find me is I have that list that you just talked about.
Mm-hmm. I have a Dream Labs list on my website. It's halilarisey.com. H-A-L-I-L-A-R-I-C-E y.com. Labs and you can go there, you can download it, you can print it out, you can take it to your doctor. You can have it by you while you're looking through your old labs, so you know what is missing and what's good.
All of that. So that's the first place. The second place is, is if you're curious about your labs, if what we've talked about today has made you say, Hmm, I wonder what else is hiding in there, or whatever, feel free to schedule with me. So it's halle lar seed.com. Slash schedule and you can get on my calendar.
I would love to see you there. I would love to know that you heard Julie's in my conversation and that it was enlightening for you and you know, we can talk about it. I like to talk about it.
Julie Howton: I get that
because here's the thing. The, the curiosity leads to more questions, right? That's right. And, and so to have somebody and I, I do step one, absolutely. You know, talk to your physician. Um, but I know a lot of people who. You know, we, we require, um, we're not a primary care office and, and so our patients are supposed to have primary care doctors, and more often than not, when they bring primary care type questions to us, um, and I say, this is a good time to reach out to your primary care.
What I hear is. I don't like them, so, no. Or, um, oh, I only, you know, I go for the insurance requirement, but they, like, I, it's almost like I don't identify as their patient, kind of, you know? Um, so I say, you know, the, the ideal situation is for all of us to be able to, and it's not always possible financially or, you know, in network, maybe geographically, whatever.
To have a, a physician partner. You know, healthcare is supposed to be a partnership. Um, and, and so I say, you know, always, yes, that's the ideal. Um, but highly, highly recommend that for anybody who wants that guidance and the detective work, which you and I love so much, um, to reach out to you and book a call and, and get the walkthrough because as you answer.
You, you know, uncover or answer certain questions, then other questions arise because of that. And so to have somebody who's an expert like you are, um, is, is really a, a remarkable thing. And, and you work remotely and so, yes. Um, yes. Yeah. I would say guys, yeah, it
Hali Laricey: should be team. It should be teamwork, just like you said, you know?
Yeah. You want to have a, a whole group of people that are supporting your healthcare journey. Absolutely. That's what we all want.
Julie Howton: Yeah. And you are the most significant player in that team. Amen. Yeah. Amen. That's great. Heli, thank you so much for all of the gold you have given us today. It has been such an absolute pleasure.
And really, listeners listen to this two, three times. Yes. And, and then dig up those labs. Yes. Thank you, Julie. For everyone listening. Remember, you can get those transcripts and show notes by Visiting Inspired Living Show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week.
(Outro Bumper) ​
So if it's your thyroid, it's gonna attack your thyroid, then it looks like Hashimoto's
(Intro Bumper)
Julie Howton:(Julie Intro) Welcome back to the Inspired Living with Autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Houghton, and today we're joined by Hali Laricey, a certified functional wellness and nutrition specialist, certified functional blood work specialist and heart math certified practitioner. Hali helps men, women, and children unravel the root causes of mystery symptoms and autoimmune struggles, especially after they've been told their labs are normal, but know something deeper is going on.
After navigating her own health challenges and the frustrations of being dismissed, Hali now uses a foundational medicine approach to reveal what traditional models often miss. She brings together functional lab analysis, nutrition counseling, and nervous system support to help clients feel vibrant, empowered, and fully seen.
And in today's conversation, Hali walks us through information that has likely been overlooked in routine labs that can help identify underlying causes of chronic health challenges. Even for those of us that have been told our labs are normal. This episode will provide empowering information and perhaps shed new light.
(Main Interview) Hali, welcome to the podcast.
Hali Laricey: Thank you so much, Julie. It's great to be here. I'm excited to talk to you today.
Julie Howton: I am so excited to learn from you today. I'm really glad that you're gonna share your wisdom, um, because I know this is a conversation that I'm gonna say at the end. Gosh, I wish I knew all these things 20 years ago.
So, um, I would love for listeners to get to know a little more about you by sharing your journey. How did you get into functional wellness? You know, how, how did you end up here? I, I always. And once in a blue moon I'm wrong, but 99% of the time. My guests weren't thinking this would be their path when they were children.
Hali Laricey: Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, it's funny because what, and when I was younger, um, I've always been a question asker. The why. I was a why person, you know?
Julie Howton: Well, there you go. That's all you need to say. You belong in wellness.
Hali Laricey: I was a why person and then, um, but, but I wasn't really into wellness, you know, at all.
I was really just more into living life and asking my why questions behind the scenes. Um, but as I got older and wiser, um. I started seeing a lot of patterns in life and a lot of times, you know, hearing a comment from a doctor, I love doctors. They're great at what they do and what they're trained to do.
They're trained to diagnose and treat.
Julie Howton: Mm-hmm.
Hali Laricey: Okay. But sometimes when you show up. Without like a, something that really needs a diagnosis, you know, you just want help and support. Sometimes you're just offered a medication or something like that. Almost
Julie Howton: always, almost always, I would say. Right? Yeah.
Hali Laricey: And then, you know, side effects, all those things that you're, you know, is this my only option?
And a lot of times a doctor will say, well, it's what I recommend. And so then you're kind of stuck, you know, well, do I go with this or do I do something else? So I saw this pattern and I just started asking more questions and I found out that there were other ways to do things. Mm-hmm. Ways that I totally embraced that lined up with kind of like how I feel about my life and how I want to go and my health.
Mm-hmm. So then I pursued the training and the certifications and everything behind the scenes to make that happen. Love what I do love being in this space. And so that's kind of what landed me here.
Julie Howton: Well, I, I am sure that all of your clients feel very blessed that thank you. You not only asked the questions, but, you know, took the time to, to get the training and really step into the space and, and help others.
And I'm so excited because I, I know that, that, and it does go. Right directly to your love of asking questions. Um, but you, I use a lot of functional labs, big panels. I, I say I like to look under a lot of rocks. Um, as somebody who, like so many people with autoimmunity, you know, I had normal labs, so therefore it was hard for anybody to really understand what was going on.
But you. Take a totally different approach because you actually know more about how to read those normal, normal labs or what I would call basic labs, um, and say that there are hidden answers in there that are often getting overlooked. Yeah, I wanna, I wanna learn about it 'cause I'm excited. Um, but, but, but like, how do you know this secret, you know, tell, tell us a little bit about, so, so let's, let's talk about that, because these are labs that your PCP is running, right?
Yeah. Like, so this, this isn't, these aren't specialty labs.
Hali Laricey: That's right. That, and, and that's, you know, really what I do is I want to equip your listeners to have. Empowered conversations with their doctors. Yes. Right. Uhhuh, because we want you to ask the right questions. We don't want you to just sit there in your appointment that only lasts 15 minutes and take all the information in and leave scratching your head going, oh my goodness.
What just happened? Yeah. So what I do is I, I take a look at your labs and we're talking about stuff that's sitting in your portal for three to five years. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. And today, because we're talking about autoimmunity, we're gonna focus on the CB, C with differential. Okay. I love this lab. It's full of valuable information if you know what you're looking for.
Wow. So. But, but all of the lab work that they do, you know, the comprehensive metabolic panel, um, the lipid panel, all of those are telling and give us puzzle pieces about what's going on in your body overall.
Julie Howton: Yeah. And
Hali Laricey: we'll talk about the CBC with differential today.
Julie Howton: And I do think, um. One of the, the shortcomings of allopathic western medicine is, you know, you just mentioned different parts of, of the panel, right?
C, b, c with differential, the CMP, the lipid panel, whether it's a, what I would consider a full lipid panel or not, whether you've had a full thyroid panel or not. The unfortunately. Physicians are, are, it's, everything is compartmentalized still in Western medicine. And I think that's one of the major differences with functional, you know, I mean the, the docs that work at my clinic are, are medical doctors.
They're both dos, they're both, but it's, it's what's your lens, right? They're, it's your lens. So, you know, what are they seeing in the lipid panel that also. Is showing up in one of the other pan. You know, it, it, they're not all separate because our bodies are integrated. So, um, sometimes it can give you a clue as as to, you know, and, and I really think that, that, that is one of the, the major challenges is like, oh, well you have this and you have that, and they're not asking your favorite question.
Why? Because maybe they're related. You know, I always had, uh, and some of it's genetic for sure, familial high cholesterol, high LDL, um, you know, and, and my, my dad had passed away at 54, so doctors were always, but my inflammation was out of control, so of course I had high cholesterol because it, it's, it's a repair molecule.
So it, but they don't think of it that way. I dunno. So sorry. I just, I'm so excited.
Hali Laricey: No, well, I mean, just to, to your point though, you know, we talk about specialized. I had a client tell me one time she was so excited because her do, her cardiologist had talked her into doing the shot that reduces your cholesterol.
She never talked to me about it. Mm-hmm. Okay. But she did it and she was so excited. She came in and she said, this was when I had my, my brick and mortar. Mm-hmm. Um, I'm so excited. I just met with my cardiologist there over the moon, my cholesterol's 1 0 5.
Julie Howton: How were the rest of her hormones? Oh, goodness.
Exactly. Oh,
Hali Laricey: because see, your cardiologist is good. Managed his set. That's right. That's his box. Oh. But what is, what's the cascade that's being affected by these things? So, you know, the bottom line is, is that 33% of people who are seeking medical care are struggling and suffering with real symptoms. Right.
And yet they hold those normal labs in their hands. Yeah. Yeah. They get that stamp of approval. And I think a lot of times women fall into this category because we, you know, we, we kind of put ourselves on the back burner a lot of times. Yeah, of course. And we have a symptom or two and we say, oh, I'm gonna talk to my doctor about that.
Your labs come back normal. And you say, well, the doctor must be right. My symptoms don't matter. Yeah. We squash them down and we go on with our life.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Well and normal and, and listeners, if they don't, you know, if you're new to the podcast, I'm married to a physician, so I'm not bashing doctors neither.
And he is a Western trained, um, but he's been practicing functional medicine for 20 years, but. Normal doctors aren't, not all doctors are trained on what ideal. First there's normal and then there's optimal, and, and most of the time in your really short appointment, they're scanning your labs and they're looking for what's.
Right. Well, what's flagged by one lab company is gonna be different than what's flagged by another. So like, and look at how unhealthy our, our country is. Like who wants to be in the middle of that range? 'cause that's how labs values are. They have nothing to do with optimal wellness. They're, they're averages.
Yeah. And so, you know, you're gonna get different, even like. During COVID, I mean, that was like the perfect example. All of a sudden, vitamin D ranges finally bumped up into what functional medicine would consider good values. Um, you know, everything used to get flagged high if somebody had a good, strong vitamin D level.
But then during COVID, I, it be, you know, everybody started taking vitamin D and all of a sudden the averages changed. One lab company changed by a hundred points, what they considered a normal vitamin D. So I, it's important for people to understand that physicians are doing the best they can with the training they have and the system they're they're working in.
And most of them aren't excited about only having 10, 15 minutes with you either. You know, but, so this is why I love, I'm all about empowerment. That's a whole reason we do the podcast. Uh, and I, I love that you are educating people to have those empowered conversations and, and ask the right questions. Um, and, and.
I will add sometimes the match of physician patient isn't good. Like if, if I, I tell people all the time, like if you're physician, and I'm not talking about the amount of time they're allowed to spend with you, depending on what system they're working in. But if you have a physician that's offended by questions, please find another physician.
Amen. Yeah. Really because they're not serving you. I know. And, and what I, I know a lot of physicians, um, and, and most of it's the same with like, they want engaged patients, right. They like, they got into medicine to actually help people. And so, okay. Sorry. I just, I'm so excited because I, I, when I think of CBC with differential.
I, I think of like, that's something I check if I have been sick or, you know, when things are out of whack. I'm like, oh, was I fighting a bug when I, when I took it? Or to me, it, it just seems it's run everywhere. The beautiful thing about it, this is why I am most excited. You can go to any lab with an order and get a CBC done.
You can cash pay and they're dirt cheap because dirt
Hali Laricey: cheap.
Julie Howton: Every lab runs a CB, C with differential, so there's nothing specialty about it. Um, so te tell us how, how can we find some breadcrumbs by Yeah,
Hali Laricey: let's do it. Okay. So the C, B, c, the A, a lot of, and I just ran into this two times in the last three days.
Okay. There's a C, B, C. And a CBC with differential. Yes. So I want to make it perfectly clear that when our listeners, your listeners, go. To their doctor that they request the CB, C with differential. 'cause the differential piece is what tells you the snapshot of your immune system and how it's performing.
The CBC by itself is not really gonna give you that breakdown.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Hali Laricey: All it's gonna do is tell the doctor where your white blood cell count is, and like you just talked about the ranges. It's super wide. Yeah. White blood cell count is not super sensitive.
Julie Howton: Yeah. And C, B, C complete blood count. Yes. Yes. Okay.
So I just, I like to like start Yes. At the very beginning. Um, and I love you said one other thing and then I promise I'm gonna try to zip it. Um, I love it. Keep going. But I think this is so important for listeners to understand. Any blood test is a snapshot. So I love that you use that word. It is, that's why I just said, you know, if my, if my numbers look off in my CB, C with differential, I'll think back to like what was going on when I got my blood drawn, because it doesn't necessarily mean there's some big ugly thing happening.
It's like, oh yeah, wait, I had a cold last week or whatever. Um, so. So the, the differential part is, is key. And, and that's the part that we're talking about specific to i, the, for this autoimmune population?
Hali Laricey: Yes. Yes. Um, it just said something that made me think something too about the immune, um, the snapshot.
Oh. So what I do is I want to look at somebody's. Previous lab work. Yeah. Like three years. And if you have an autoimmune condition, I wanna even go back five. Mm-hmm. And everybody has that, you know? Right, right. So then, like you said, it's not just a snapshot like, oh, I had a cold. I knew I had that. Were looking for patterns because a lot of people, me being one of them, my monocytes, and we'll talk about that, but my monocytes are always high.
So there's something going on that I need to address, but I didn't know that until I looked at five years worth of my labs. Right. If I just look at one, oh, monocytes are high. Maybe I had a little induction. Right. You explain away
Julie Howton: like I just did. Right? Like, ah, it's whatever. I feel fine. It was a snapshot.
Hali Laricey: It was something. Exactly. It was a snapshot. It's no big deal. Yeah. Tamp down. We make our, we dismiss. Yes. You know, we dismiss things. Mm-hmm. Um, so the other thing to keep in mind about the CBC with differential is that these differential pieces tell us about the immune system, but they also reveal low lying but chronic infections.
Yes. And these low lying, but chronic infections, if they're left untreated. For a long time, they throw the door wide open to other things that we don't want creeping in, whether it is additional autoimmune conditions or whatever. Our systems are burned out. Yes. So when those, yeah, when those, those infections are allowed to run rampant, they go to the weakest place.
So if it's your thyroid, it's gonna attack your thyroid, then it looks like Hashimoto's or you know, your rheumatoid arthritis, whatever the case may be. Your body is very smart. Viruses and infections are very smart too.
Julie Howton: Yes.
Hali Laricey: So my goal, and I know your goal, Julie, is to get to those systems that are under pressure and being broken down by these infections so that we can support them and get you feeling better as quickly as possible.
Amen. That's, amen. That's our goal. Amen. Well,
Julie Howton: and it's another, I, I say, you know, it's, it's like having a, a computer program running in the background, right? Yeah. And, and like you said, the body is innately intelligent. And always prioritizes resources. Yeah. And so, um, so, so important, you know, this afternoon I am gonna be like digging up all of my really, even really old labs
Hali Laricey: looking back to see, let me tell you what to look for then.
Yes, please. Um, and one thing I wanted to, to mention too is that. The reasons why I think that there are two important reasons why doctors maybe don't, don't pay attention to the differential. It's because what we already talked about, they're focused on the WBC, are you in range or out of range? And they don't, they, they don't value it because they're, they're like big picture looking down on top of things.
You know, things are, oh, you're okay. You know, that's one thing. And then the other thing is that the ranges are too wide. Um, for example, like TSH, I'm just gonna throw that out there for a second. The, the standard range is 0.5 to 4.5.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Hali Laricey: Well, if Julie is always at one, but over the years she's creeping up to two, three, something is going on.
Julie Howton: Subclinical thyroid challenges? Possibly.
Hali Laricey: Yeah. But if nobody's paying attention to that, it's not until you get outside the range. That a doctor's gonna be able to see that and be like, oh, let's get you to a specialist, or let's try this, or whatever the case may be. So
Julie Howton: that's my pet pee peeve peeve though.
'cause you picked my like pet peeve marker anyway, because your T because because of that your TSH can be normal for years and years and years. And if anybody ever bothered to look. Uh, do you have thyroid, you know, elevating, creeping up thyroid antibodies? Do you have suppressed, you know, free T three? Do you know?
They don't look, they don't,
Hali Laricey: no, they don't look. Yeah. And it, and it's like you said at the beginning too, like if you go and ask for a thyroid panel. Yeah, you get TSH, right?
Julie Howton: Right. It's not a panel. It's, I don't know why it just popped into my head this way. It, it, it is this app, and it's not just thyroid, but it's the, it's the easiest and most common example of the differences in approaches.
It would be like a fire, a fire crew sitting in front of a house where there's smoke coming out. Yes, but they're gonna wait till they see flames to pull the hoses. Like that's, that's what, to me that is, and that's why you have, you're gonna educate us on. Okay. But there are basic markers that are telling us things if we look at them through a different lens.
A little bit differently
Hali Laricey: lens. Through a different lens. That's exactly right. Okay. So do you wanna jump into the five? Yes. Okay, so the C, BC with differential, um, it's laid out. So the first thing you're gonna see is probably WBC, which is your white blood cell count.
Julie Howton: Mm-hmm.
Hali Laricey: The lens that I'm looking through, I'm gonna tighten up that, that range uhhuh.
So five to eight. Okay. Five to eight is my magic place. Okay. Now I wanna add a caveat. That the white blood cell count is not the most sensitive. Right. So even though you might be a six, you know, you might be, oh, I'm good. This is why we value the differential piece. Gotcha. So at the bottom, I don't know why it's laid out like this, but the bottom you're gonna go through, right?
Uh, red blood cell count and some other things. At the bottom of your report, there's gonna be five things listed, the neutrophils. The lymphocytes, the monocytes, eosinophils and basophils that makes up your differential. And just for all intents and purposes, that makes up a hundred percent of your white blood cell count, right?
So if you add it up, it's always gonna add up to be about a hundred percent, and you wanna focus on those percentages. Not the absolutes. The absolutes. I mean, there's a way to convert it, but more labs usually have the percentages, but that's what you wanna focus on. So let's talk about the magic numbers, the functional medicine numbers, the magical numbers that I like to call them.
Okay? The neutrophils is the first one you're gonna come to, and that magic happy number is 60%, 66 0. If you are above 60. It tells me that you're carrying some type of bacterial load of some kind, and you may say, okay, well what does that look like? What symptoms might I be having? Could look like pain, fatigue, urinary tract infections.
Yep. Sibo, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or fungal overgrowth, constipation, diarrhea, IBS, all of those kinds of things. And remember we're talking about chronic underlying. So if you go back and look at your previous labs, you know, and you see, oh my goodness, I always run high on the neutrophils, then you know why.
So 60% is our magic number. The next two I'm gonna group together because they tell me about your viral load and that is lymphocytes happy number 30. 30% monocytes, 7% or less. And if you're above, you have viral infections. Now I have a lot of people say, oh, how do we find out what the name of it is? Which viral infection do I have?
Or which bacterial infection do I have? We don't really care. Yeah. We wanna clear 'em, wanna get rid of 'em so they're not attacking you anymore. Mm-hmm. So that's kind of the difference too, between Doc, you know, doctors wanna get you the right antibiotic to treat. Mm-hmm. And we just wanna clear them. So what does this look like?
Well, these two markers are the number one driver for things like fatigue. Mm-hmm. Anxiety, depression, autoimmune and inflammaging. Inflammaging my favorite word. Yes. Low lying, but chronic. And it causes us to H faster. And I don't know about you. I don't want that in my life. No. I wanna go in reverse. Amen to that.
Yes, yes, yes. I want the wisdom and the healthy body.
Julie Howton: Let's do it.
Hali Laricey: Yes, I agree. Um, okay, last, I'm gonna group these two together too, that we've got the eosinophils. And the basophils, and we want the eosinophils to be less than 3% and the basophils to be at 1% or less. If you are above, then we're having a conversation about allergies.
Mm-hmm. Food sensitivities. Um, um, parasites. Things like that. And don't forget to, when we talk about the snapshot of the immune system, if you've got food sensitivities that go on for a long time, they're breaking down the other systems of your body, leading to leaky gut, celiac, you know, all of these different things that Hashimoto's.
Hashimoto's, right on. Yeah, because everything is connected.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Hali Laricey: Okay, so let's run through those five one more time. We've got neutrophils at 60%, lymphocytes at 30, monocytes at seven or less. Eosinophils less than three basophils, 1% or less. Oh, and I'm sorry, I forgot to say what it looks like with the food allergy, the food sensitivities, the allergies, stomach issues.
Yeah, that's kind of like a no-brainer, but I mean, you know when you can connect it, it's like, ah, Shazam, I have an aha moment. Uhhuh, chronic fatigue, muscle and joint pain. Yeah, things like that. So those are the five markers that are worth, they're the price of gold. They tell us so much about what's going on in your body,
Julie Howton: and so really sounds real.
Then important, again, we're looking at patterns and. Yes. So doesn't mean somebody should panic if they look at one CBC and they've got some elevated markers. Exactly. Um, but sometimes worth repeating, like I believe I, we had a, a, an appointment with a patient yesterday who her entire functional medicine panel.
Gorgeous except for her CBC with differential. And it was actually really concerning and the conversation was this could be a snapshot in time. The, this was out of the ordinary for this particular gal. Um, so we're repeating the CB, C in a few weeks to make sure that it was a snapshot.
Hali Laricey: Yeah. Well, and I think what we do too, since we're focused on functional and foundational medicine, you know Yeah.
We look at the whole picture. Yeah. We're looking at symptoms and life stories, right? About the life lived behind all of this. Oh yeah. You suffer a loss, a death, a move, a divorce, you know, all these things. Kind of like pumble apart and they
Julie Howton: tax the immune system. And that was actually the surprising this this happened to be almost like you were in the meeting, you know, happened, happened to be, you know, a, a vibrant young lady who has reclaimed her health over the past decade.
Um, but had a really, has, is still in the heat of a really particularly stressful season. And so the fact that the rest of the panel. Was as gorgeous as it was, was nobody expected that. Yeah. Um, you know, and so, but so some, and again, it's, it's cheap. It's easy to run. You can get it anywhere. And so if you know you are out of pattern, repeat it.
Yeah. I don't know. So I love that. And I, I, I really am I, because I am one of those people I have. You know, 'cause I'm that old. Before there were portals we got handed our labs. So me too. I have a, a file of, you know, labs even from back when I was very, very unwell, um, sitting in my office, taking up space in my filing cabinet, and I am gonna pull those out.
Because I'm, I'm just so very curious.
Hali Laricey: Yes. Intrigued. Well, and you bring up a really good point too, Julie, because one other little tip I wanna share is that, you know this, the neutrophils at 60% and the lymphocytes at 30%, that's a two to one ratio. Mm-hmm. Okay. Once that starts getting closer to one-to-one, you're looking at an autoimmune flare.
Okay. And I don't diagnose. That's not what I do. Right.
Julie Howton: No. I
Hali Laricey: support, and you know, we, we mm-hmm. We get you feeling better through supplementation and diet and all kinds of things, but I, I, I don't, I don't diagnose, but you probably already know. The answer's always inside, right? Yeah. We, we
Julie Howton: know well, and and that's the whole, that's why I love this EM empowerment piece because Yeah, so often the pattern is we know, and we're either talked out of it by our physician 'cause they don't have the label, the answer, the fix.
Um, because how they're looking at your labs, they look normal. And for those of you listening on audio, I'm air quotes around normal here. Um, you know, and sometimes to the point un unfortunately, of an offer of an antidepressant because, you know, if, if I hear one more story of a mother. Who's fatigued sharing with her physician that she's fatigued and, and getting told, well, of course you're tired, you're a mother.
Well, no, we know the difference. And, uh, very few people are gonna go to the doctor because they're tired and life is explaining the depth of the fatigue that they feel there's a difference between fatigue and tired. Um, and so, you know, that is, it is one of my, it, it just makes me really sad that. When they don't have an answer, even if they're not verbalizing, it's all in your head.
They're offering you a script for something that's gonna change your neurotransmitter uptake. It's not, it's not cool. I know it's not cool. Yeah, so I think that that every little. Piece of information that people can learn for their themselves. And it doesn't mean that you, you don't even have to understand what all of these are really to have that Start the conversation with your physician.
Yes. Yeah.
Hali Laricey: Ask the question. That's it.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Amazing. So, I, I, because I too am a curious, sort by nature, I wanna know, 'cause you mentioned that that was it. You said your monocytes are usually high or have been historically high. So what do you, what are you thinking? What are you doing?
Hali Laricey: Well, I, I'm working on the, the antivirals really.
Okay. Um, you know, monocytes a lot of times and, and. I, again, I wanna equip people so that they ask the questions. Mm-hmm. If your monocytes are high, like really high, like 11, 13, something like that, you wanna go ahead and ask your doctor to, to test for Epstein-Barr.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Hali Laricey: Period. You know, that was my
Julie Howton: first thought when you said that.
Yeah. Well, unless, let's talk like, educate a little bit about how vir viruses, so many of us, I just had this conversation literally about cancer cells, right? Like, oh. We all, at any given time, could, could have cancer cells and our, our body is supposed to clear them, but viruses and, and Epstein Barr is always just kind of that first one that pops into my head.
Um, can, can have dormant periods. So can you talk about that? Because I was thinking about that as you were walking us through the differential of like, it is good to know because those things then can flare up and it's nice to know that. Okay. That could be what's going on, and I need to focus a little more on that.
Hali Laricey: That that's the whole pattern thing. Yeah. You know, it's like once we get it, the snapshot that we talked about earlier, you know, maybe the monocytes are fine, but you're exhausted. You know, you have all of these other symptoms, you're, it's hard for you to recover after you're sick. You have these symptoms, and I may suspect, you know, like, Hmm mm-hmm.
Even if that number isn't high, and I've listened to your story, right. I'm gonna treat you for, for viral load. Yeah. You know, even, even if there's, there's nothing that shows up because it is a snapshot. More often than not, I've got three years worth. Yeah. Of lives. And that's usually three reports.
Sometimes it's six. Yeah. If you're older and you're going twice a year or something like that, or you have something else going on, the more information the merrier. It's like Christmas for me when somebody says, oh, I have tons of labs. You know? Yeah. It's like, oh good. There's tons of of pieces to your puzzle that are gonna help us be able to work together and get you some relief.
Yeah. You know? And when you talked about dormancy. There's a lot of stuff that gets so comfortable in our body that it creates a biofilm around it. Yep. And it sits there and it thrives. Mm-hmm. Doesn't show up on any lab work. Right. So that's another piece to the puzzle, but we have to have the lab work to match up with how you're feeling and your life.
Yeah. So, you know, it, it's hard to know everything going in, but for me, I start with the labs because the numbers don't lie. Right.
Julie Howton: You just had have to know how to use 'em. Well, I literally have never had, I mean, we do, you know, we, we track and look for changes and trends and, and things, but in the traditional system, I, I've never had anybody sit down and look at, I, I was laughing in my head when, when you were saying, you know, so sometimes it's labs are twice a year.
I'm thinking, wow. When I was. Like a full on rheumatology patient I was getting, I was getting a panel every eight weeks. Yeah. You know, 'cause I was on so many toxic medications, they were just trying to make sure they weren't killing me in the meantime. So, you know, they were follow, but I mean, at least, yay, they were following me closely.
Um mm-hmm. So, like, I'm not kidding in that file, I should have lots and lots of lots. Lots dobs of stuff. It's like gonna be a Christmas, Julie. It's gonna be Christmas. And I always say to people too, like, the, the most important thing is how you feel, right? I, I wanna see, I wanna go back, uh, because I, I just, I'm curious and this, and I'm a nerd and this is what I love.
And so I learned a new trick. I wanna, I always. Practice on myself first. So I, I wanna, you know, that's why, um, I, well, I don't wanna say, I don't care what your labs look like, if you feel well, um, but even as somebody's on their healing journey, sometimes markers lag, right? Like, I, I wanna know that, that, tell me your story.
I wanna know that you are feeling improvements. Yeah. And then the, the labs are going to improve too. There's just, they're just, it's not a always a really quick Yeah. I mean,
Hali Laricey: yeah, yeah. No, it's true. I mean, labs, labs are only one part of it. They, they're important. They're a guide. It's the symptoms that take us to the doctor.
Right. You know? Yeah. If I don't have any symptoms, I'm going for my physical and I'm good and everything's fine. Yeah. You know, but it's the symptoms. So if we can reduce those symptoms and get you feeling better. Yeah. Lab work almost always follows suit
Julie Howton: well, and that's why I love the, your approach of going back.
I, I use the term, you know, subclinical thyroid, right? It, it's there. So stuff is there in your labs before you have symptoms? Yes. It's there. It's there if you know what to look for. And so, and that's the difference is yeah, we don't want. Symptoms. Like, we don't wanna wait. I don't want them to wait till they see flames.
God forbid there's a fire at my house. Right? Like, we, if you see a smolder, let's, let's do it. So, I, I love that idea and I, I so grateful. I'm excited. You've given me amazing. New tool. I've given you something to do today. You, I have, I know I had nothing to do.
Hali Laricey: Exactly. Right. Mm-hmm. Sure.
Julie Howton: Yeah. But I love this stuff.
I mean, it, it's, you know, and so you, you took what I, I kind of have been a little bit dismissive of, because nobody ever showed me how to make it truly useful.
Hali Laricey: Yeah.
Julie Howton: Before, and now I'm, I'm even, you know, there's that little piece of me that's even more frustrated that, you know, how many CBCs with differentials I've had and, and nobody ever looked for a pattern back again.
I'm going back a decade. Yeah. Um.
Hali Laricey: Yeah. I would also be interested to know if you have some CBCs in there with no differential. Probably
Julie Howton: do, right? We don't. We don't ever run, we only do CB, C with differential at our clinic. Most
Hali Laricey: functional do. Yeah.
Julie Howton: Yeah, yeah. But we also never just run a TSH, so. Understood.
Yes ma'am. I got, but you would hope if a rheumatologist was the one that was ordering the bulk of my labs, that they would include the, the immune piece you would hope.
Hali Laricey: Maybe this is the reason why we're educating, right? Yeah. We're empowering to have that conversation, even if it's a specialist. You wanna ask that question?
Okay. I understand you're gonna do the C, B, C. We're gonna include the differential, right? I mean, I don't wanna absolute confrontational, but you just, it's my
Julie Howton: Or could we, can we, I would like to. Right me statements. The, the beautiful thing about the differential is again, it is in the normal labs. Like, so it's not even the first time I had asked my primary care to, to run a complete thyroid panel, and I, I brought her the markers I wanted.
Um, and she was fantastic and, and, um, very open and, and was like, I, I will absolutely order all of this for you. I am not gonna know what to do with the results. You know, she was honest, at least, you know, but, but this is not, it's not, you're not asking for a toxin panel. You're not asking for a food sensitivity panel, or, or things that are not insurance based, not hospital based.
Like any lab you go to can add the differential when you're getting a CBC done. Yes. So talk to your doctor about it. Um, yes, and, and I don't know, I, I haven't honestly like priced the difference of CBC with or without the differential, but I know with the differential is, is the like least expensive thing you can get run anyway.
Hali Laricey: Yeah. So,
Julie Howton: yeah.
Hali Laricey: I mean, I wonder if there's even a difference in price. You know what I mean? I think there probably isn't sometimes there probably isn't.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Sometimes maybe without is more, you never know. Maybe true. True. It could be. Yeah, could be. Yeah. So, uh, this is, this has been such amazing gold and I, you may have already said it, but.
I know, you know, you have a broad lens when looking at labs, but you also have a broad lens when it comes to functional health and wellness. Mm-hmm. Um, so here is your opportunity. What is one step that listeners can take starting today to improve their health? And it could be something you've already said or it could be totally different.
Hali Laricey: Well, I would like to say something about what I've already said, and then I would like to add something. So I think my number one takeaway is to be curious.
Julie Howton: Yes,
Hali Laricey: be curious. Don't be fearful. Too many people. Attach fear to going to their doctor because they're yielded to that 15 minutes and they're just gonna take whatever the doctor says and they're gonna walk away and whatever, and then mm-hmm.
Be afraid of what's gonna show up in their labs.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Hali Laricey: Don't, don't do that. Be curious. Replace that fear with curious curiosity. And I hope that our conversation today has equipped your listeners to be able to say. Yes, I'm empowered. I have these tools right now. I'm gonna go on my portal. I'm gonna look, I'm gonna see what's there.
And the next time I talk to my doctor, I'm gonna have a great conversation. I have some questions. Yes. Yeah. Yes. I love it. And, and then the, the, the other thing I think I would say to, to feel better is the vitamin D, which we already talked about, but all vitamin D is not created equal. So I've had lots of conversations with people that have said, you know, yeah, my doctor told me to pick up a big thing at Costco and take one a day, and don't do that.
You want a formula that is synergistic and handles a lot of things. It has a lot of co-factors in there that's gonna support your body. 'cause vitamin D is a hormone. It goes everywhere in your body. It needs to feed so many things. You gotta make sure that you're healthy in that area. So make sure you get a vitamin D three with K two.
Mm-hmm. And take at least 5,000 a day. That functional range is 80 to a hundred. Yeah. Just so you know, if your vitamin D number is there somewhere on your lab report, you want it to be 80 to a hundred.
Julie Howton: Well, and and they, especially, I can't tell you, I literally still don't know that I've ever had somebody come through my door with active autoimmune symptoms.
That wasn't supplementing with d that didn't have their D levels in the toilet, like, like teens, twenties. It hurts me to look at when I see it, and even the, the, the quality vitamin D is, is really relatively inexpensive. And it is, when I was on 10 prescriptions, the one thing that I actually felt was when they gave me vitamin D, they, they told me to add in vitamin D and I was like, holy cow, energy's a little bit better.
Um, I will add, you said it, but I, I am going to implore people because we have gone. Full swing. You know, it used to be PCPs used to be afraid of vitamin D, and now everybody understands it's really important. Test, test, test, test. It is fat soluble. You don't want to be supplementing long-term and not test and just know where you are.
Um, yeah, and, and for some people it can take a long time to, to get those levels elevated. Um, yeah. But some people, I, I have on the rare occasion seen like short term supplementation, really just getting people into that, that functional 80 to a hundred range. Um, and so yes, especially as seasons are changing and days are getting shorter.
The, this idea of yes, ideally our body is able to, you know, make vitamin D from sun exposure. Um, just because you may spend a lot of time outside and even if you don't wear sunblock, you still might have low vitamin D. So it is absolutely worth testing. That would be another ask, if that's not in your panels that that you are gonna dig up and go through.
Ask for it.
Hali Laricey: Empowerment. Yes, ask for it. Because it's not on the list. They don't normally run it. And even if you ask, sometimes they don't. So just be sure you get it.
Julie Howton: Yes. Amen. Hali, where is the best place for people that listen like I do on the go? And they may not click the show notes to find you.
Hali Laricey: Well, the easiest place to find me is I have that list that you just talked about.
Mm-hmm. I have a Dream Labs list on my website. It's halilarisey.com. H-A-L-I-L-A-R-I-C-E y.com. Labs and you can go there, you can download it, you can print it out, you can take it to your doctor. You can have it by you while you're looking through your old labs, so you know what is missing and what's good.
All of that. So that's the first place. The second place is, is if you're curious about your labs, if what we've talked about today has made you say, Hmm, I wonder what else is hiding in there, or whatever, feel free to schedule with me. So it's halle lar seed.com. Slash schedule and you can get on my calendar.
I would love to see you there. I would love to know that you heard Julie's in my conversation and that it was enlightening for you and you know, we can talk about it. I like to talk about it.
Julie Howton: I get that
because here's the thing. The, the curiosity leads to more questions, right? That's right. And, and so to have somebody and I, I do step one, absolutely. You know, talk to your physician. Um, but I know a lot of people who. You know, we, we require, um, we're not a primary care office and, and so our patients are supposed to have primary care doctors, and more often than not, when they bring primary care type questions to us, um, and I say, this is a good time to reach out to your primary care.
What I hear is. I don't like them, so, no. Or, um, oh, I only, you know, I go for the insurance requirement, but they, like, I, it's almost like I don't identify as their patient, kind of, you know? Um, so I say, you know, the, the ideal situation is for all of us to be able to, and it's not always possible financially or, you know, in network, maybe geographically, whatever.
To have a, a physician partner. You know, healthcare is supposed to be a partnership. Um, and, and so I say, you know, always, yes, that's the ideal. Um, but highly, highly recommend that for anybody who wants that guidance and the detective work, which you and I love so much, um, to reach out to you and book a call and, and get the walkthrough because as you answer.
You, you know, uncover or answer certain questions, then other questions arise because of that. And so to have somebody who's an expert like you are, um, is, is really a, a remarkable thing. And, and you work remotely and so, yes. Um, yes. Yeah. I would say guys, yeah, it
Hali Laricey: should be team. It should be teamwork, just like you said, you know?
Yeah. You want to have a, a whole group of people that are supporting your healthcare journey. Absolutely. That's what we all want.
Julie Howton: Yeah. And you are the most significant player in that team. Amen. Yeah. Amen. That's great. Heli, thank you so much for all of the gold you have given us today. It has been such an absolute pleasure.
And really, listeners listen to this two, three times. Yes. And, and then dig up those labs. Yes. Thank you, Julie. For everyone listening. Remember, you can get those transcripts and show notes by Visiting Inspired Living Show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week.
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Hali Laricey
Hali Laricey is a Certified Functional Wellness Practitioner who specializes in helping women uncover and repair the root causes of chronic, unexplained symptoms — especially when they’ve been told their labs are “normal.”
Known as a compassionate health detective, she blends functional lab interpretation, gut and nervous system health, DNA-based strategies, and emotional wellness to create clear, personalized paths back to health.
Known as a compassionate health detective, she blends functional lab interpretation, gut and nervous system health, DNA-based strategies, and emotional wellness to create clear, personalized paths back to health.
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