Spotlight Series

Guest Name: Laurel Fetzer

Credentials:  MS, RDN, IFMCP

Welcome, Laurel. Thank you so much for being on our spotlight series today for the Best in Utah: Public Health Edition.

And I’m excited to introduce you to our audience here and get to know you a little bit better. And then we’ll dive into all the questions that we have for you today. Awesome. Okay.

From elevated functional nutrition, Laura Laurel is understanding how she focuses on understanding how environmental toxins, heavy metals, mold, and micro my mycotoxins and parasites affect our body has changed her world and the effectiveness of the therapies she uses. There’s a lot of educational need to explain all that goes on to the body and healing it, but she’d like to help those who are looking for support. It’s not a quick fix to stay healthy, but it can be done.

She would like to elevate your understanding so that you can find your root cause of your health issues. You’re the most knowledgeable person about your body.

So if you understand all the root cause solutions, you can resolve your health concerns. Amazing.

So I’m excited to jump in here and go through these questions with you to just deep dive into who you are and what you’re all about. So what made you decide to decide to go into this type of work and nutrition and things like that? So walk us through that story.

So it’s so funny because, um, my mom was all about like eating healthy and nutrition and supplements. Like anytime we’d have like a skin issue, she’s like, oh, here’s the formula we need to give you so that you can get rid of your acne, you know?

And I just remember she would give me all these different things growing up. Like I was on a diet when I was seven years old. So that’s kind of a, kind of an extreme right my mom was so worried about all that that I think from the time I was really little I was like so worried about what I was eating.

And when I hit college, I was like I want to know why I get all these different recommendations that are contradictory to each other, you know what I mean it’s like. Oh eat this and don’t eat this or it’s the same thing and you’re so yes and no.

And so when I learned more about biochemistry and a little bit more about anatomy and stuff that you can kind of find different bodies are built differently, they use a little more or a little less of something.

I like the spectrum idea that people need a range of things. And so that kind of was one reason why I studied nutrition.

I got my master’s degree at the University of Utah. After I did a bachelor’s in exercise physiology, I knew I wanted to be kind of in health. of my friends went into like medicine, but I couldn’t see myself balancing a medical career and have a family because I just had that value.

So I, you know, I got married. I had my first kid right after I had, I finished my master’s degree. So I kind of jumped into motherhood and trying to like balance lots of different things. And so I just did nutrition as like already exam and then I kept it up every five years you need 75 hours of continuing education.

So I would just always keep that up and do little things on the side like speak for church things or you know young women or you know a thing at the gym or something but just different random things as I had more kids and so it kind of got to a head all of my husband’s sisters had dealt with for that. And I just was worried about the long-term impacts of those things.

And my husband, he doesn’t travel very well over long distances, like going to Europe or China. He like takes a week to get onto their time zone. Right. And he like can’t sleep. And then, so we traveled to Europe one time and then he went to China twice for work and he had the most massive panic attack. The second time he went to China. He comes back and he starts having some massive depression and we’re like, whoa, this is kind of crazy. And he went to his doctor and they gave him two different antidepressants and a sleep aid, you know?

And after a few weeks, I’m like, you are not yourself. You’re like flat. You’re anyway. So I was like, we need to start like hitting what I’ve learned. You know, we need to eat better. You need to eat better. Because I don’t always like make sure he’s doing his own mind, you know? We’ve done that a few times. He’s my hardest sell. My husband is like, “There’s no way this is true.” He’s like my worst client. So if he is okay with some of these things, then I’ve done a little bit of vetting.

Anyway, so that kind of led me to find Dr. Hyman’s book called “The Ultramind Solution.” Dr. Mark Hyman is a functional medicine practitioner. And when I read that, I was like, oh, we can really like fine tune some of these supplements. And within a year, we got him off all of his medications that he had been put on.

And we just started, you know, making sure he was exercising more regularly and everything was a lot better. And I just said, I really want to do that.

Whatever that functional medicine stuff is, that’s what I want to do.

Yeah. So I did all of the Institute for Functional Medicine training. It required seven different like at the time you had to go to all their It’s a whole weekend course or a whole week course. It depends on which way you do your training. But by 2016, I had finished my functional medicine training and I just kind of had a lot of kids.

I was really involved in the schools. And so I was like, I just dabble and I just help people here and there. I’m like, you might want to try this.

Hey, if you want to come talk to me, I can help teach you lots of things. And And as I’ve kind of been doing that, my oldest son served his mission. And he was gone from 27, I mean, 2015 to 2017. And then at the end of his mission, he started getting these like really weird symptoms, headaches, brain fog, exhaustion. he made sure all of the missionaries exercised every day.

And my, my son had been like lifting weights and he was like, mom, I’m adding so much bull. This is so fun. And then he lost a lot of it. And he was like, I am just so sad, all this work.

And, um, and I’m like, well, what are you exposed to? Like, I can’t, I don’t know what you’re, he was in the middle of Kansas. So, you know, agriculture, all these different things.

Um, so he became my biggest, like teacher. And it took us a while. We found out his first diagnosis was that he had a hyperthyroid. And the more I learned with functional medicine, it was like the hyperthyroid is from some exposure. It’s not just because your thyroid is freaking out.

And I took him to an endocrinologist. My husband’s like, you got to go to all of the regular doctors before you go to all the naturopaths and stuff. And all the regular doctors were like, you’re healthy as a horse.

You know, you’re, you’re the best. You’re you’re the healthiest endocrine patient I have in my office. And, and he’s like, well, I can’t focus. I’m, you know, I have a standing tremor sometimes and, you know, it was just so crazy to just watch the symptoms he had.

Um, he started college and he’d be in the middle of a math class and he’s like, I just can’t think anymore. I like, I can’t focus. My brain is turned off. He’s like, I don’t know what’s going on. This is so weird.

So he just leaves school and they’re like, that’s a really hard way to finish college, you know?

Anyway. So I started following some doctors who help kids get off the autism spectrum and They did a lot of testing with organic acids and Michael toxins and environmental toxins, and so I said let’s just run all those tests, so we did all this test. And he came back with a really high mold Michael talks and i’m like wow this makes a lot of sense because Michael toxins really affect your health like.

If anyone doesn’t know about Michael toxins they totally. They’re toxic. They totally affect your brain and your nervous system and your, um, your digestive tract and your lungs, all these different than your sinuses.

And so once we started on that track, we’ve just done lots of different, like deep dives into like, how do we finally resolve it? We use medications with a functional medicine nurse practitioner.

She was so helpful and we made a lot of progress, but we kept having it come back. We’re like, why isn’t it not staying away? And. That’s how I found Cellcor. Cellcor does a lot of parasite cleanses and other supplements. And while I had heard one of the doctors who started Cellcor start saying, well, if you keep having mold symptoms over and over, then you have parasites that are holding the molds because parasites can hold like 10 times their weight in heavy metals, mycotoxins and other toxins.

And it’s at a really heavy price because they’ll replicate and then you get exposed to it again and you know, excused from your body.

Anyway, so once we started doing serious parasite cleansing, he started, you know, keeping his symptoms away and his, his, uh, mold symptoms seem to be kind of, um, he has to pay attention to it a lot.

We had last year, the apartment that he’s running, he’s living in my mother-in-law’s basement and like, mom, all my mold symptoms are coming back.

And, um, I was like, well, we must have water somewhere. So we went and took out this whole wall and the, there was just mold everywhere. And I was like, oh, of course for you, you’re in the apartment, not a mold.

Anyway, we had to, to remedy that. So the more I’ve learned about all of those things is, is how I’ve kind of come around to like re like, how do we figure out how to heal people is finding And so that’s kind of, I’m still fine tuning kind of my protocols. Cause they, as I go deeper, I’m like, oh, now we gotta do it a little differently, but that’s kind of my, my reason why I’m doing what I’m doing.

Yeah. What do you think makes you different in what you’re doing compared to other people who are doing similar things?

Um, I, I guess one of the things is I’m, I try to be, I guess, more of a guide for people and, um, I try not to charge too much because I just work out of my home.

And I feel like that’s kind of a benefit because I like to understand that everyone has other things in their life.

And I think the medical world, I think the hardest thing for me is a lot of people are like, well, do you take insurance? A

nd all of the tests that I do are all cash based. And I recently bought a new test that I can test people’s cell well-being. So I feel like this is a good solution for like, let’s just get us on the right track at a cheaper price. And then we’ll see if you want to do any more, like more expensive labs, they can get their insurance to cover it and stuff. But I don’t take any insurance. I can’t because of the testing I’m allowed to do is through different labs and With my certification, you know, I can’t take any insurance.

So that’s kind of, I guess one of my things is I, I’m kind of like your neighborhood is the word crunchy. My husband showed me all these videos of, have you seen the gal who’s really very crunchy? Have you seen her? No, she’s so funny. Anyway, he’s like, you’re like this lady. Oh, well, maybe I’m a little crunchy. So yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Um, who would be an ideal fit for you to then work with you?

So I’ve been working often with, uh, more of like women, probably more in their forties, fifties, sixties, but I’ve also been helping, um, a lot of my college, like college kids, I’m really excited. There are a lot of college kids that are like, I really want to be healthy. I want to know what’s going on with my body. And I think we have a lot of kids who are struggling with a lot of chronic things that no one had, you know, 50 years ago. So those have been my two big clients lately are, you know, more of my

Great. Okay. What’s the process look like to work with you? Do you call you sign up online? What does that look like?

Yeah. Call or text me. That’s probably my best. My website is always very good. So you can find me there, but it’s better to text or call and then I’ll just set up appointments that way.

So I meet with people monthly or every six to eight weeks and we kind of follow through like on the autism spectrum and slowly helping them, you know, use binders and other cleanses to like clear things out all the way, because I believe everyone can heal. And anyway, I kind of lost track of where we were. That’s okay. You’re fine. You’re great.

Okay. What are something that most people don’t know that you think that they should know about what you do?

Um, well, again, molds, mycotoxins and parasites are really problematic for our bodies and, and they’re way more, um, common than the medical community gives them any credit.

Um, the more I’ve looked into them, the more I’m like, whoa, these symptoms that people are like taking medication for are actually from molds and parasites. you know, environmental toxins like glyphosate. But all of those things really affect our body.

And if we can clean up those, you know, our diet, our environment, our water, and make sure we’re sleeping and pooping, we can really start changing how people’s bodies are working. So that’s what I think. I think everyone should know those things.

Absolutely. What is there anything special you want to promote to the audience that’s listening it up?

Well, I have my new cell well-being hair scan, and I’m doing just a special, I guess, at $97 for the scan. And then we go over, you know, what we would do going forward with the results.

So if anyone wants to come and try a hair scan, I get to take out a few hairs out of the back of your head. I got to get the root out. talk about the report and see what things are affecting you.

That’s very cool. Okay, what is the main thing that you want to be known for?

Well, I hope I’ve heard this well. I kinda like people to know me and to like not worry who I am. Like some of my neighbors are like, “Oh, it’s just Laurel, she’s here, come in.” You know what I mean? Like I want people to be able to understand that I relate to them and that like whatever symptoms they’re dealing with or whatever thing they’re going through, that it’s probably real and that I wouldn’t be critical of them having that issue. Like the things that I’ve understood about, like my son would send me pictures where like, we call it a brow down, but like half of his face would look like it’s almost paralyzed. And I’m like, this is the craziest thing in the world. Like, had I not lived through your symptoms, I wouldn’t believe that this was real, you know, and it would go away. But I think that that’s the thing. Like some people are having lots of things happen in their body. And, and I would like to be someone that be like.

okay, whatever those things are, we can help resolve it and get your body back to. where can we find you social media website all things like that?

So i i do have an elevated functional nutrition account on instagram and facebook um i so i ran for the state school board two years ago and while i was running my personal instagram account got hacked.

So i’ve had a hard time like getting back on cleanly um but i do have an account i have things But it’s there. They can find me. There’s things that they can learn. And I, it would be nice to build that more. But they can find me. And then my phone number, I don’t know. Do you want me to just give my phone number?

It’s up to you.

Okay. It’s 801-414-9336.

And then my email is Laurel at it’s E L F X N for elevated functional matrix. that’s my email.

Awesome website or anything like that.

So it’s, um, elfxn.com is my website. But again, it’s not so great. It needs a little updating.

Okay. Well, thank you so much Laurel for coming on our spotlight series and we look forward to seeing you in the community. Awesome.

Thank you so much.