Rosacea and What Skin Issues Tell You with Dr. Tara O’Desky

Skin Conditions, Viruses, and How They’re Connected

Mimi MacLean:
Dr. O’Desky, thank you so much for coming on today. I’m so excited to talk about skin and everything skin because I think that is a topic I really haven’t covered that much. And so it definitely has been something I’ve dealt with Lyme. I’ve never had skin issues until I had Lyme, and now I have cystic acne, and it just causes other things to come out. And I also have hives, which I never had before. So I’m excited to have you on because you’re the skin expert.

Tara O’Desky:
Thank you so much for having me. I’m so happy to be here and talk about skin and viruses and how it all is connected.

Mimi MacLean:
So let’s just dive in. I would love for you to just talk about your transition from Western medicine to realizing why skin is an indicator of what’s going on inside.

Tara O’Desky:
So let’s see. I have had rosacea for 20 years, and when I was first diagnosed, I thought, oh, okay. It’s a skin rash. It’s a skin issue. You’re given topical creams. And this was back in my mid-20s, so I put the cream on, which was that. But fast forward 20 years of doing this and going to the best dermatologists. That was pretty eye-opening that no one was able to have that conversation. Nobody even addressed the possibility that it could have been related to gut or liver or anything other than something on your skin. And with my training as a chiropractor and getting to the root cause of things, I knew that there was much more going on. So I think at that point, I just realized that Western medicine was probably not going to have the answers, and I needed to really just learn everything I could about the connection with gut and skin. Even if I wasn’t finding research on rosacea specifically, I had to figure out how it was all connected and what was going on internally, causing this to appear on the outside.

Mimi MacLean:
What do you typically see when you have patients come in that’s causing it? What are the typical culprits?

Tara O’Desky:
What I’m finding with rosacea is there are really about four or five major things. Almost everyone has underlying gut issues, so either… In this country, we’ve come to think that this is normal to have acid reflux, IBS and gas and bloating, and food sensitivities. It’s not normal at all. So I would say that almost 90% of rosacea patients have some sort of underlying gut issues. That’s one of the big ones.

Tara O’Desky:
The liver is probably number two, liver toxicity. So these will be different things you’ve been exposed to throughout your whole life that has been building up in your liver that hasn’t been processed yet. And that was a big one for me. Going back, I’d had many antibiotics as a child, so my gut was horrendous—food sensitivities. And then combine that with different toxic exposures. I’d worked at a dry cleaner for a long time; I’d worked in a bar. And this is going back 20 years when people smoked cigars in bars, just full of smoke. That all builds up, and if you’re not eating the right foods or supplements actually constantly to detox your liver, it ends up just being overflowed. So I think of it as a sponge, and you’re not able to sop up anything else if it’s full. So when I started doing different detoxes and eating the right foods, it drastically got better. And that was just one piece of it.

Tara O’Desky:
Another big one with skin issues is dormant viruses, which, as you know, never actually leave. They just tend to go dormant and sit there and wait until you’re stressed or until something else is going on, and then they like to pop back up and say, I’m still here. That’s a big one. Heavy metal toxicity, almost all of us have that to some degree. It only builds as we get older. So that’s a big one for rosacea. There are so many more. Hormonal imbalances. But those are really the main ones. That’s how we start. We start with those, and then we continue.

Mimi MacLean:
So when they come to you and they have a skin issue or whatnot, what kind of tests do you do to determine which one of those culprits it could be?

Tara O’Desky:
By the time they come to me, they’ve already been diagnosed with rosacea. They’ve already been to dermatologists, multiple dermatologists. They know they have rosacea; I know they have rosacea. So then it’s really just a matter of starting to dig through their history. And I actually haven’t… So a lot of the patients I’ve been working with have been through Zoom. This is fairly new for me because this happened right when COVID started, so I’ve been mostly seeing patients over Zoom. And really, I go by symptoms. So I know I could order all these tests, but for me, getting a really accurate history going back to childhood. My intake form is 20 pages long because I want to know everything about where they’ve worked, where they’ve lived, what they’ve eaten, what they’ve been exposed to. And from that, I get a perfect sense of what we need to focus on in healing and detox.

Mimi MacLean:
Right. Most people, I would assume, probably have a liver that needs to be detoxed.

Tara O’Desky:
We all have it to some degree, but I am finding that almost everyone with rosacea has a major toxic exposure that they may have completely forgotten about. I was talking with a girl last week who had grown up in Eastern France, and it turns out she had forgotten about it, but I think that that was one of the big underlying causes for her was the Chernobyl cloud that ended up right over their village. And then, for years, there was just toxicity in the soil and the water in the air. And this led to other issues for her with thyroid. And it turned out… Just when you really talk to someone and find out about specific toxic exposures, many people have lived near nuclear plants, a lot of people live near farming communities where they’re drinking the water, and there’s a runoff in the soil. Almost everyone has this. And when you build up enough of this, that’s when health issues start to develop.

Mimi MacLean:
What do you typically recommend in the case with the one that you were just talking about in Eastern France? What is the first step to detoxing her?

Tara O’Desky:
So she actually is in amazing health, other than having her thyroid removed when she was 19, which, who has their thyroid removed at 19? So that was a big clue for me. So we start with diet. Diet is the first thing. Most people have been trying a lot of typical diets. They’ll say, “I’ve tried paleo, I’ve tried…” They’ve tried different things, and they haven’t seen a progress because the skin is so complex. Many of them are so nutrient deficient that even if they’re on a particular diet, they cannot absorb nutrients. So I like to focus a lot more on gut healing rather than a specific diet. Once your gut has healed and absorbing nutrients, then the supplements you’re taking can actually be beneficial.

Tara O’Desky:
I find many people go to a functional medicine doctor or a naturopathic doctor and are given tons of supplements, but they haven’t changed their diet. So they’re just taking… This is years. They show me their cabinets full of supplements. And I was the same. I was taking Standard Process and Metagenics, and why is this not helping me? What’s going on? And it was because I literally wasn’t absorbing the nutrients. So gut healing is first. That’s the most important.

Mimi MacLean:
What do you do with gut healing? Is that bone broth? What’s the protocol for that?

Tara O’Desky:
So eliminating the major inflammatories, so obviously dairy and gluten. A lot of people are histamine sensitive, so if you are, then high histamine foods. And then we dive into, exactly, the gut-healing foods. So bone broth every day, coconut milk every day, coconut oil, soil-based probiotic. These are key. These are key. And so you do this all together, really excellent plant-based diet. I think it’s great also to have some chicken and beef organic. Switch to organic because many people are not doing organic, and they’re just not getting the amino acids because of the glyphosate. That’s a whole other…

Tara O’Desky:
So once you start incorporating these, even just these small changes, people start seeing major progress in a month, not necessarily with their skin, but with how they feel. So that’s what I go by, is in a month, do you feel better? Do we see less brain fog? Do you have less acid reflux? All these things. This is the beginning. And so once they start seeing progress, it’s like, okay, now we have to keep going. Because you’re not going to see skin-clearing for several months. You have to trust that we have to heal all these other things first before we complete resolution of your skin.

Mimi MacLean:
Right. That makes sense. And so it’s about a month, but that’s good. Because I always thought it would be years because it took you that long to get to where you are. But you start feeling better after a month. That’s good.

Tara O’Desky:
Yeah. I think feeling better is the first step. Because most people’s rosacea has been, it’s not just on their skin. They’ve been feeling ill for years.

Mimi MacLean:
Exactly.

Tara O’Desky:
And they don’t know why. So even if we can get you starting to feel more energy, sleeping better, less anxious, these are clues that we’re going in the right direction. And yes, it could take months. It could take years. But rather than going in the wrong direction with more medications and things that aren’t helping, even just a little bit of progress in the right direction. I know you’re going to get there. It’s just a matter of time. I think for me, it was a total of about four months.

Mimi MacLean:
Four months and then you were back to normal.

Tara O’Desky:
Zero rosacea whatsoever.

Mimi MacLean:
Wow. That’s amazing.

Tara O’Desky:
And this is incurable. Every time you go to the dermatologist, they’re adamant. There’s no cure; you’ll never get better, it will only get worse; good luck to you, and they send you out the door.

Mimi MacLean:
Amazingly, they don’t see the correlation, normal dermatologists.

Tara O’Desky:
I’m still dumbfounded. I don’t understand.

Mimi MacLean:
Yeah, because it is, it’s an indication of what’s going on. So I know you don’t specifically work with Lyme patients, but you have worked with Lyme patients in the past, and you’re familiar with it for personal reasons as well. But do you see a trend, or is there a common skin ailment that pops up because of Lyme?

Tara O’Desky:
Yes. I definitely see skin issues because of Lyme. When your body is busy dealing with everything internal, viruses, gut issues, liver toxicity, heavy metals, all the things we talked about, it’s tough for it to manage everything. You add in stress. Everyone knows when you’re stressed, what’s the first thing you notice? Your skin starts acting up. So that’s just the final straw that things just aren’t right. So when you get to a point when your skin is pretty clear, I think it’s safe to say that things are probably going well internally. Now, there are people out there who have beautiful skin and are not healthy at all. But I think that eventually catches up with you. I don’t know how long you can go on that. I really feel like the skin is just a mirror to what’s going on inside.

Tara O’Desky:
Even if you don’t have many symptoms, like I didn’t seem to have a ton of health issues, I just knew things weren’t quite right. But it was enough for me to say, okay, my gut has been bothering me for years, so there’s got to be a correlation. And it’s tough to find that research specifically with rosacea and the gut connection. It just hasn’t been done. It’s just shocking.

Tara O’Desky:
So yes, in terms of Lyme, it would be very normal to have a skin reaction, which is really just your immune system not able to handle everything. And internal healing is definitely how to go about that.

Mimi MacLean:
It was interesting because I never really had skin issues, but I had said earlier, the cystic. They were so painful. It was all under my jaw. So it wasn’t really on my face; it was more my jawline. And they were just hard and painful. And it just all of a sudden started, and I had a bunch of them, and then all of a sudden, it went away. It lasted six months. And it was just the weirdest thing. And I had to attribute it to Lyme. What else would it be? It was just one of those weird, rare things.

Mimi MacLean:
And then my doctor gave me just something to calm… Maybe he put me on something, like some kind of anti, as you said… I forgot what it was. It was some kind of medicine. Because I was like, I can’t take… Because it was scarring. It was starting to scar my face. And so he gave me something, and then it stopped. He said it would regularly… I don’t know if it was hormones. He said, “Your hormones might be going off because of the Lyme,” and that it caused that. But it was weird because I’ve never had that before.

Tara O’Desky:
And for a lot of people going through Lyme treatment, if they’re taking antibiotics, all of that has to get processed through your liver. So the way that your liver detoxes are through your urine, your waste, and your skin. So many times, these chemicals end up coming out through your skin, and people react. I know people who go running and their face sweats, and then they almost have this immediate flush, not just from the blood from running, but from the actual chemicals purging from the liver-

Mimi MacLean:
Yeah, I get that.

Tara O’Desky:
… through your skin.

Mimi MacLean:
Yes. Yeah. And it was weird because another skin thing happened to me, which is really interesting for anybody listening. So one of these times when I was having one of my episodes, and I couldn’t move my neck, and I had the worst headache, I don’t ever get headaches. I had the worst headache, couldn’t move my neck. So I go to the emergency room, and they think I have spinal meningitis. So she put me into some kind of a scan. They were going to do a spinal tap, but they also were like, “Let’s just do a scan.” So they gave me that radiation, that stuff [inaudible 00:15:14] contrast. Oh my gosh. Whatever that was, I woke up the next morning; my body was covered head to toe in, not to be gross, but white pimples throughout. It was almost like my body was having… It was just too much of a reaction to that contrast.

Tara O’Desky:
That’s exactly what that is. Yeah. Your body has to push out these chemicals. So one way it does it is, of course, by pushing it to the surface, and people have this immediate flush. And another way is by a lot of people notice that they’re putting on weight and don’t know why. And your body will try to keep you safe; it will surround a toxin with adipose tissue, so a fat cell. So people tend to pack on these fat cells and don’t know why, and it’s actually just toxins. When you start to detox these toxins, you drop weight without trying to. It’s almost like it melts away because it doesn’t need to be there.

Mimi MacLean:
Well, it’s funny because I also still get my hives. I started only getting hives with Lyme as it progressed. So I think I’d gone into the mast cell thing with the histamine. And it’s funny because my doctor will say, “Well, where do you get the hives?” And I was like, “I only get it in my fat area.” So it’s interesting. I only get it on my butt, the area that I have more fat. That’s it. That’s all I get it.

Tara O’Desky:
That’s so interesting.

Mimi MacLean:
So it’s in the back of my legs. It’s all from my waist down; it’s an area where it’s more… So I think it’s more like that, what you were talking about, it’s more toxic.

Tara O’Desky:
I think that’s that it is. Yeah. That sounds about right. Yeah.

Mimi MacLean:
It’s crazy.

Tara O’Desky:
You should be able to get to a point when you’re not having those anymore when your liver is clear and all that.

Mimi MacLean:
Now, I just take Claritin. I have to carry Claritin with me no matter where I go because as soon as I get cold or something like that, it comes out. But yeah, it’s fascinating. What else do you do to recommend? I know we touched on it a little bit, but the liver cleanse. Is there anything or any other detoxing? I assume the saunas. Is there anything else that you recommend to people?

Tara O’Desky:
So exercise, number one. At least half an hour. That’s going to start to flush out your liver. So I do a lot with food. The two components of liver detoxification, phase one and phase two. Phase one, you need either milk thistle or dandelion. That’s key. So I have people drink that every day.

Mimi MacLean:
Oh, like a tea?

Tara O’Desky:
A milk thistle dandelion tea, yep. And then for phase two, you need amino acids. And this is where a lot of people are not getting amino acids, because if you’re eating foods that are not organically grown, they’re mostly in glyphosate, sprayed with glyphosate repeatedly. This is going to prevent the production of amino acids in those foods. So we’re eating diets that are deficient in amino acids and they’re very high in chemical levels. So many people are just becoming very toxic with their livers and they’re not able to detoxify.

Tara O’Desky:
So for me, I have a plant based protein powder that has 19 amino acids. There are excellent ways to bring that into your diet, to supplement. And once I started doing that, it was almost like I could feel it coming out of my skin, the toxins. I wear a lot of silver jewelry, and every three to four days, it would turn black. I didn’t know what was going on. I was like, maybe it was a chemical. Maybe I was cleaning with ammonia or something. But it kept happening. So I started Googling how to clean silver, and I found this woman who was telling you exactly how to clean silver. And she said, “I worked at a hair salon, and we couldn’t even keep silver jewelry because it would tarnish so quickly from the chemicals in the air.” And when she said that, I was like, oh my gosh, that’s it. It’s chemicals coming out of my skin tarnishing my jewelry. That’s how much was built up in my liver. And this was only while I was doing the liver detox.

Mimi MacLean:
And so all you were doing was taking an extra amino acid supplement, like a powder?

Tara O’Desky:
I did a flush. It was a seven day liver… There’s all sorts of different programs you can do. But it was a seven day liver flush. It was a drink. And then after I did that, I started really amping up the amino acids and the dandelion and milk thistle tea. And this went on for about two months, and then I just stopped wearing jewelry altogether because there was no point. But now I can wear it again and everything’s fine, so I feel like I’m in a much better place.

Mimi MacLean:
It’s funny because for the longest time, I couldn’t wear my wedding ring. I don’t even know what it’s made out of. I don’t think it’s silver. Because I would get literally raw, my skin would become raw from it. [crosstalk 00:19:43] And then now it’s fine. I can wear it now, but I couldn’t for the longest time.

Tara O’Desky:
That’s a heavy metal reaction. I had the same thing with earrings. I couldn’t wear earrings, even 24 karat gold earrings. Couldn’t even touch them. So that’s just a built-up toxicity of metals, and you can just become so sensitive to them that you can’t wear them.

Mimi MacLean:
That’s crazy. Now, do you ever recommend either fasting or coffee enemas or anything like that for detoxing?

Tara O’Desky:
I think fasting is really great for some people. Some people take it to an extreme. And a lot of people with rosacea are very nutrient deficient, so I’m careful about talking about fasting. But some people have found a lot of relief from that just because it allows gut repair, which is at the basis for so many people with skin issues. So even just allowing gut repair to take place for 24 hours, or even people who are doing intermittent fasting are finding a lot of progress with gut healing just from doing that.

Tara O’Desky:
As far as enemas, I’ve never done that. I know you’ve had a lot of good progress with that, but it’s different for everyone. Some things work for some people and not the other. I had so much success with food, but there’s so many other ways of [crosstalk 00:20:51].

Mimi MacLean:
Yes. Yeah, yeah. There’s tons of ways. And saunas have been great. So is there anything that we haven’t covered that you talk about with your clients that you think is important?

Tara O’Desky:
Yeah. So there’s always an emotional component to rosacea, always. And it’s often missed. I have people who’ve been doing amazing nutritious diets for years and have tried all these supplements and it’s like, they’re still missing something. So in Chinese medicine, the root cause of rosacea is anger and resentment. They’re buried in the liver. I often will suggest this to people and tell them to go back, go all the way back to childhood. What are those feelings you’re having? What are those memories you’re having that you haven’t quite let go of yet?

Tara O’Desky:
I remember reading this. I had read this for years, and I kept thinking, I’m not an angry person. I’m just not. And I’m not angry at anyone. So I just brushed it off. This wasn’t for me, didn’t make sense. When I really, really thought about it, and I really thought, okay, if this is what’s preventing me from healing, I’m going to address this. And so I did. I thought it through. I thought about different people I might’ve been holding anger or resentment towards, and I just focused on letting it go and realizing that these people have moved on. They have no idea that things that they did upset me and now it’s affecting my house. So when you come to that realization and you’re able to literally just let it go. Yeah. I think the next day, I woke up and saw a change in the color of my skin.

Mimi MacLean:
That’s amazing.

Tara O’Desky:
Yeah, it is. And that’s one thing that in Western medicine, we just neglect completely, is that whole emotional component.

Mimi MacLean:
The emotional component is huge. But I guess my question for you, just because you’ve done work about this topic, if you have people in your life that are in your life and you really can’t extricate them, but they’re causing that pain, is it possible to have them in your life still but still keep that distance? What you were talking about. So it’s not affecting health. Does that make sense? It’s a family member or something like that, that you’re like, okay, they cause me emotional stress. And you can manage your emotional stress, but at some point, you can only manage it so much.

Tara O’Desky:
I think you have to get to a place where you have changed the way you thought about the person, if that makes sense. If you think about where they’re coming from, not necessarily putting yourself in their shoes, but realize that perhaps they’re not where they should be. And who am I to judge?

Mimi MacLean:
Right. You’re not going to change them.

Tara O’Desky:
I’m not going to change them and they’re probably not going to change, and I need to be okay with that because these things tend to take care of themselves in the next life. So I do the best I can, you do the best you can. Little things are, of course, anything can set someone off. But just always look at the big picture. Does this really matter? Is it worth it? Is it worth getting so upset?

Mimi MacLean:
No, it’s not. And you know what? Most of the time, if you’re having a problem with that person, it’s probably they’re having a problem. It’s them. It’s not you.

Tara O’Desky:
Exactly. Exactly.

Mimi MacLean:
Because they’re having a problem with a lot of people. So you’re like, okay, there’s a reason why no one calls them or wants anything to do with them. So don’t fall into their trap. But it’s definitely hard to manage all that. But I definitely agree that that emotional component is huge.

Tara O’Desky:
Huge. Yeah. And for many people, that’s the one thing that they haven’t quite touched on yet. For me, I did it all at once because I was really determined to figure this out. So it was like, okay, there’s 10 different things that it could be, so let’s work on all of them. But each one brought me a little closer. And when I did that emotional healing part, that was huge.

Mimi MacLean:
Now, did do that on your own? Did you have a professional? Did you do a program? How did you do that?

Tara O’Desky:
Nope. I did that on my own. I read a quote that really just changed the way I thought about everything. It was basically, I was in the mindset of, I’ll do things for people who I feel like are deserving. And that was a mentality that I was raised with. Of course, do things for people all the time. But it was… I can’t remember the exact quote. But anyway, when I realized that, do things for everyone. Who am I to judge whether they’re deserving or not? If people need help, help them and don’t look for something in return. Just give. And when I realized, it was a very awakening moment for me that I should just be giving all the time to everyone. And it was a shift that took place. It allowed me to forgive people that I hadn’t been able to forgive. It allowed me just to realize that we’re all just doing the best we can.

Mimi MacLean:
I like that you touch on about you holding on anger is not hurting them, it’s hurting you.

Tara O’Desky:
Yeah. They’ve moved on. This is someone in my third grade class. They have no idea. And yet, if this is what’s causing my skin to look the way it looks, wow. Time to move on.

Mimi MacLean:
No, it’s true. It’s very true. No, I appreciate that because that is a huge part of it. And if someone can’t do it on their own, there’s so many great programs that people are doing, like the Amy Share program and a couple of other ones that are out there online just to help work through it.

Tara O’Desky:
There are amazing programs. And what I’ve realized is it doesn’t mean you have to be in therapy for years and years. It’s almost like a light bulb. It’s almost like when that shift occurs of how you are viewing the situation or how you’re thinking about something. When that takes place, it’s like, everything can just be. You can just let go. That’s how it was for me, and I’ve found that with many other people as well.

Mimi MacLean:
And the other thing I find is super interesting, not to get all philosophical, but I definitely used to be, with five kids under the age of whatever it was, seven or whatever, I used to be a screamer. Just because you were always tired, you were always… Kids hold this in. It was mayhem, and you were just always on just edge. And then you just realize now, it’s not worth screaming over. It’s just like, empathize with them, talk to them. And in the heat of the moment, you just got to walk away. One time, I did talk to somebody, and he was like, “Look, when someone’s doing this and they’re here, you can’t go here and actually…” You can’t rationalize with an unrational person. And in that moment when someone’s… We’ve all been there where we’ve been irrational. It’s hard for someone to talk you down.

Tara O’Desky:
Yeah. And I think people can make a conscious effort. I know I did, because I used to get… I remember just being in stores or being in the post office or being places where people would just really annoy me. Just get on my nerves about just-

Mimi MacLean:
Like if they’re talking on the phone or whatever, you were like-

Tara O’Desky:
Yeah. I would get physically… Then my face would start to get red. This is when I had rosacea. And it was this immediate emotional reaction. I would get very worked up. And then after all those feelings took place, now when I see someone doing that, I either turn around and leave because I don’t want to be in the presence of it, or I… Whatever. I’m just on my phone completely unaware, because I don’t need to get dragged into that drama. You do your thing, I’m going to do my thing, and I will be calm. And I just really see it from a… It’s like I’m up here now, and I look at this person and instead of getting upset with them, I feel bad for them that they’re still there. You know what I mean?

Mimi MacLean:
Yeah. No, it’s true. It’s true. But this is great. This has been amazing. So thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. And talking about skin and how important it is, and using that as your indicator that something’s either going on because of Lyme or some other issues you’re having. And I know we didn’t even touch on the whole kids. I don’t know if you deal with kids or not, but that’s a huge thing. When he was a baby, I know my son had the worst rosacea, and I found out it was because of the dairy. And to this day, he’s still super sensitive to dairy.

Tara O’Desky:
There’s an epidemic now of eczema, and a lot of it is dairy. A lot of it is even just the lotions, the shampoos. They’re all chemically based.

Mimi MacLean:
We didn’t even touch on that. For anybody who has not switched over any of their products, you have to do that. I can tell the difference if I go somewhere and someone washes things not in organic soap.

Tara O’Desky:
Oh, exactly. Yeah.

Mimi MacLean:
Oh my gosh.

Tara O’Desky:
And then the air fresheners and then everything. And then even teenage acne. These girls are developing acne at much younger ages now, and for some of them it’s tough. So I’ve been doing some of that as well, because there’s so much help out there. You just have to-

Mimi MacLean:
Yeah. And for anybody who’s listening who doesn’t even know where to start, go to the Environmental Working Group website. There’s an app that you can put in any product and it rates it. And it’s amazing, because then it tells you what’s good or bad as far as the toxicity in the product.

Tara O’Desky:
And even, they’re making these eyeshadows for little girls that have asbestos and mercury in them.

Mimi MacLean:
I know. Anything from China, do not buy. But makeup for the kids, worst of all, from China. And it’s all the heavy metals, which is super bad.

Tara O’Desky:
I know. Exactly. That was another whole eyeopening thing too, because I knew nothing about that. So when you clean up your skin and your diet, it’s like, okay, what’s next? And then you have to go through your house and, okay, what kind of chemicals do we have in the house and what are we breathing? [crosstalk 00:30:22]

Mimi MacLean:
And because I was not feeling well, I could literally walk in, like if I had a cleaning lady, and I’d say, “Here’s all my organic stuff.” And of course, they don’t want to clean with organic because it’s a little bit harder and doesn’t get it as super clean. And I could literally walk in the house and I’d be like, “Okay, who’s not using organic?” And I could literally sniff it out and go find them in the bathroom and be like, “You’re not using…” And she’s like, “Oh my God, how did you know?” I’m like, “Because I can tell.” I’m immediately breaking out. And I smell it. As soon as I walk into her room, I’m like, “I have to leave or I’m going to have a breakout.”

Tara O’Desky:
Yeah. And that smell. There’s a reason that we have that sense. It’s our body saying, you shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be breathing this.

Mimi MacLean:
But you get super sensitive when you’re blind.

Tara O’Desky:
Exactly.

Mimi MacLean:
I say to people, I’m like, “Don’t you smell that?” And they’re like, “What are you talking about?” I’m like, “You don’t smell that?” I’m like, “It’s driving me nuts.” I’m so much more sensitive to everything.

Tara O’Desky:
Yeah. Yeah. But I do think that once you’re past that… And while you’re detoxing, too, you’re super sensitive to everything because everything’s coming out. But once you get over that, I really think that there’s so much healing that can occur. Eventually, many people get to a point where they can look back and think of it as a learning experience and think of the positive things that have come out of it. Even though it seems horrible while you’re living through it, most people do get to the other side and realize that there was a purpose to all of it.

Mimi MacLean:
That’s perfect. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and thank you for everything you’re doing.