LIFEstrength Health Center now offers Medical Thermal Imaging, also known as Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging or DITI.

Learn more about Medical Thermal Imaging in this interview with Taryn Brandt.

This service is brought to you by Taryn Brandt, CCT Level III, owner of Southwest Medical Thermal Imaging & Ultrasound, LLC, and Member of the American College of Clinical Thermology.

We’re very excited about this because thermography is a noninvasive, more sensitive, preventative tool that can keep you healthy.

If you’re interested in Medical Thermal Imaging testing, you can talk to Taryn at 239-949-2011 or you can find out more at southwestmedicalthermalimaging.com. Now available at LIFEstrength’s Naples, FL location.

TRANSCRIPT:

[Dr. Cade] Hey, you guys! My name is Dr. Cade, and we are back again and we're filming with somebody very special.

I've known Miss Taryn here for about twelve years. I've got the highest respect for her and I send everybody that I know, everybody that I talked to about this topic over to her. I love her, I trust her. She's amazing. And that's all I've ever heard.

So Taryn is the business owner of Southwest Medical Thermal Imaging and Taryn, we're going to talk a lot about the thermal imaging today.

But before we jump into all that. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

[Taryn] Absolutely! But, wow! What an intro. Thank you. The feeling is definitely mutual. I have the utmost respect for you and refer as many people as I can as well.

I got into thermography, it's kind of an interesting story. I was on my way to vet school, and decided not to go at the last minute and I've always ridden and shown horses and so I actually got involved with thermography through the veterinary aspect and I never really had any intention of imaging people. But that's not the plan. So that's not what happened. That's not how this evolved. So it's actually kind of funny.

So, when I first started out, I was doing my local girlfriend's horses and things like that. So I'd image their horses and they'd be like, "Hey, great! While you're here, how about we do some breast imaging?" Which was kind of cute and funny at first because I could control the environment in the barns that I knew.

But then I started imaging horses and barns where I didn't know the people and they were asking the same thing and I thought, this is really not the reputation that I want to get.

I decided I better get an official clinic. And that's when the first Bonita Springs Clinic became officially established. And that was back in 2011. And it just kind of grew from there.

And never say never!

Because my two biggest fears in life were public speaking and flying and I also work for the American College of Clinical Thermology. So I handle all their technician training in North America. So I fly quite a bit and talk quite a bit and the ACCT, that's the governing body. That's the organization that handles all the technician training and they also handle the board certification for the doctors that we used to do the interpretations on the thermography reports.

[Dr. Cade] So, we're sitting here talking with the right person, it sounds like, huh?

[Taryn] I hope so! I'd like to think so.

[Dr. Cade] Well, thank you again for joining me for this.

[Taryn] My pleasure!

[Dr. Cade] We have so many different things to talk about, right? But why don't we just start real slow? What is thermal imaging? I mean, we keep tossing around that term. What actually really is it?

[Taryn] So basically you'll hear a couple of different terms. You can say thermal imaging or digital infrared imaging or DITI. All of those mean the same thing.

It's basically skin surface temperature measurements.

But it's a test of physiology and it's a test of function.

And it's looking at the metabolic processes that are associated with the body's response to a pathology or a disorder or an injury or disease.

The neat thing about thermography is that it's really not invasive.

There's no radiation. There are no side effects. There are no risk indicators. There are no contraindications.

So, we can look at everything very safely and give an opinion on dysfunctions that we see. A lot of times before people are even symptomatic.

So, we can address a health issue right away, before it becomes a full-blown or a chronic health issue and that's especially true in breast imaging, where we see the vascular lymphatic process so early.

[Dr. Cade] You said so much stuff there for real. It's unbelievable what you said. Even if we just stopped the video there. There's so much value in understanding what you said.

So you said it's a test of physiology, right? And it's a test of what was, a function?

[Taryn] Function!

[Dr. Cade] Tell us a little bit more about exactly what you're saying there.

[Taryn] Yeah! And you have to stop me. Because I get really excited and I can steamroll for hours about thermography because it's something obviously I'm wildly excited about and something that I really believe in.

So everybody is used to structure an anatomy. Things that we can touch, things that we can cut, things that we can feel.

So if you go have a mammogram, the mammogram is actually going to be looking for calcifications or it's going to be looking for tumors.

If you go out and you have a radiograph done of your leg, we're going to see the bones in your leg.

Or if you have an ultrasound, we're looking at the density of tissues.

This is activity. This is function.

So we're looking at how are your organs functioning? Is your kidney functioning efficiently, or is its function compromised?

Same thing.

Do we have inflammation anywhere in the body? Because that's a big thing, isn't it? Inflammation is the precursor to disease, period.

So that's really what we're looking for. We're looking at those inflammatory and those metabolic processes to clue, as in.

The neat thing about thermography is that we're using the body as its own control because everybody is different.

And with the exception of rest, what we expect to see in a healthy individual is an individual that is thermally symmetrical.

And what that means is temperature patterns and gradients from the left side to the right side should match. They should be similar.

Where we have thermal abnormalities or where we have thermal asymmetries. That's what clues us into dysfunction.

And that's the important part.

That's where the physicians come in, because they have all the training as MDS and they have all the board certification in Thermology, plus software that helps in pattern recognition and stats analysis to determine one.

If we have an asymmetry is it significant? Because there's going to be a certain amount of variance that falls within the normal range.

And if it is significant, what does it relate to?

Is it thyroid? Is it dental?

If we're looking at abdominal views, is it liver versus kidney versus gallbladder dysfunction?

[Dr. Cade] Okay, so lots of more wonderful stuff!

[Taryn] Wonderful things!

[Dr. Cade] But we're taking an image with a heat sensitive camera, thermal sensitive camera, and we're looking for changes in the heat patterns.

We want to see it symmetrical from side to side.

And if we don't see something there, then that would indicate a potential issue that we need to dig in deep further, right?

[Taryn] Absolutely!

That's the wonderful thing about thermography is it's highly sensitive. It has varying degrees of specificity.

So again, we can see this dysfunction lots of times before people have symptoms or feeling pain or discomfort.

So thermography is like the finger pointer.

It's pointing to an area that needs to be addressed as a clinical marker of risk here.

So then if we see inflammation in the kidney, then that's going to be a urinalysis. It's going to be a blood draw, maybe even an ultrasound.

So it's not diagnostic. But we're all about prevention.

We don't want to wait until you're sick to do something.

This is the early stage indicator so we can be preemptive and proactive and staying healthy.

[Dr. Cade] I love it, and there's so much value in that.

But we're trained just on my way to work. I can't even count how many CVS's and Walgreens I pass by just on my way to work.

We're always just trained and I need to wait until something's wrong. But again, I think when we have conversations like this, it's so easy to understand, really, the value in trying to figure these things out before they turn into a bigger fire, right?

So let's go back.

You said pathology and function, and then the next couple of things that you said, it's more sensitive and it's non-invasive than a lot of the other potential options that are out there.

So can you tell me a little bit more about, like, if somebody comes into you, what is the process look like?

How is it non-invasive and how is it more sense of how can we compare that against some of the other imaging out there?

[Taryn] It's hard to compare the two because you have structured anatomy over here on one hand, which is going to be your mammograms or ultrasounds or radiographs, MRI, CT, and then we have thermography over here with physiology and function.

So they're not meant to be competitive to one another. They're meant to work in conjunction.

So when someone comes to see me, it depends on what we're looking at. Obviously, I see a lot of breasts. Those are different protocols that we follow.

But if somebody comes in for a full body, let's say they have a pain issue or they're just doing a health check. It's a pretty easy process. The worst part of the whole process is the paperwork. But unfortunately, I have no control. Bulk of that, and neither do you.

So they come in, we can't scan through clothing, and we can't scan through hair. So all that's got to get up and out of the way and you can just put a gown on.

And we talk about your health and your history and your symptoms and your medications and your injuries, all those things.

So we get a good idea of what's going on with you. So I know how to target my imaging, so I know what areas in particular that I need to pay attention to.

And then I also have to figure out how the patterns relate because do I need to take additional views and things like that?

So coming in, just like having your picture taken, only minus the clothing.

And then the whole process, if you're going to do just a simple region of interest, like breast appointments, like 15-20 minutes.

You're going to do a full-body or like a woman's health check. That's about an hour or so because I like to get everything done completely.

And I also like to take time to show people their images and answer any questions that they have.

And then we get the reports back in just a couple of days.

And again, the reports are going to list out their findings and then also any recommendations for additional testing that they might want to indicate, whether it's chest X-ray or whether it's hormone panel, whatever they see.

[Dr. Cade] And that's always included in that report. So if there is something that's normal, that's fantastic high fives all around.

But if there isn't, then there is follow up recommendations for them. Awesome.

All right, so let's go back and I know you don't want to compare, but can we just kind of talk through some of the processes, if that's okay?

[Taryn] Absolutely.

[Dr. Cade] Typically, right? The gold standard for breast imaging is a mammogram.

Let's confirm just contrast.

And like you said, they're complementary. Right. So what does that process look like for a mammogram? And what would be potentially a different process through thermal?

[Taryn] Okay, so I'll start with thermography first, because that will be the easiest.

Breast thermography.

[Dr. Cade] Taryn, I'm going to interrupt you real quick.

Can you talk about the potential pros and cons between both of those?

[Taryn] Absolutely! I can even go roll all of them. I'm more than happy to. Just trying not to start out negative.

All breast imaging has its place because unfortunately, with breast imaging, there isn't a single modality that's 100%.

There just isn't.

Not thermography, not mammograms, not ultrasounds, not MRIs.

They all have things that they do well, and then they all have things that they can't really do.

So with mammograms, that is the gold standard, as you said.

And there's a lot of controversy surrounding mammograms, and that's one, they use radiation.

That's the big one.

The second thing is that they're limited by the density of breast tissue.

And Florida actually just passed the breast density law in 2018.

We were a little behind other States, but that's the law that states that if on mammogram, we see that you have dense breast tissue, you have to do other testing because it's simple physics.

We just can't see with the mammogram. So that can create blind spots, or in some instances we really can't see the breast at all. They're only limited to what they can evaluate in between the compression plates. So whatever gets squeezed in here is the only thing that we're looking at.

And unfortunately, tumors didn't get the handbook that says that's the only place they can grow.

They grow outside the breast borders, on the chest walls all the time.

And by the time you have a positive finding on a mammogram, that's usually a five to eight-year process for that tumor to become large enough and dense enough to be seen on a mammogram.

Again, you just didn't get sick.

This is where we become reactive with our medicine. That's a five to eight-year process.

You've been sick for a while.

You just have to wait until it's large enough with mammograms to be seen to do something about it.

But for all the controversy, mammograms are the only ones that see calcifications, and then that becomes a whole another kind of worms, because calcifications can be malignant, they can be benign and then where it gets really confusing, they can be atypical, which stresses everybody out, which doesn't lead anybody anywhere good.

Ultrasounds are good.

They don't use radiation. They just use sound waves to measure the density of tissues.

But again, you better have a good sonographer. You better have great equipment.

And sometimes the downside of an ultrasound is that they see so much people feel like they end up with an unnecessary biopsy.

And then MRIs see structure very well.

Still not calcifications, but they do see structure well, but they will not do breast MRIs without the gadolinium.

And that has a whole slew of potentially very nasty side effects.

So none of them are perfect.

[Dr. Cade] That's the dye.

[Taryn] Yes, that's the dye.

[Dr. Cade] The side effects there are going to be what? Toxicity and kidney issues?

[Taryn] Kidney failure, liver failure, death.

A lot of people have like the MRI fog because I think in Japan in 2015 was the first one to publish a study that said the gadolinium is not being metabolized completely like we initially thought and they're finding deposits in people's brains.

So certainly deposits of anything in your brain can't be ideal.

Thermography is unique in that we do see things early.

And with the breast imaging. What we're looking for are the very early vascular and lymphatic phases. Those are the clinical markers or the risk indicators of early stage carcinoma.

Thermography is unique with breast.

And that's the only area of the body that we have to establish a baseline.

Because after puberty, usually mid to late 20s, women develop their own unique set of breast patterns. That's why they call it a thermal fingerprint or a thermal signature.

And they're yours.

They can't be compared to your moms, your sisters or daughters.

That's why they call it a fingerprint.

And the only thing that will alter that pattern or affect a change to that pattern is a developing pathology, which is, of course, the word that's this big and covers a whole bunch of territory.

That pathology can be a benign process like fiber cystic breast or cystic breasts.

It can be trauma if you go out and have an augmentation or reduction or even we see a lot of seatbelt damage done to breast and car accidents that can affect change to the patterns hormone balances or in fluctuations we can definitely see.

And we want to see those, especially when you start talking about estrogen dominance type related activity, because again, preactive or proactive and preemptive behavior, we can see these changes and get your hormones balanced out so we don't have an end stage disease.

But the big, again, red flags that we're looking for, our vascular activity and lymphatic activity.

So how the process works. The first year is a little bit different because we can't do a left to right comparison. We have to use the individual as their own control and breast thermography is all about change over time.

So the initial appointment, we come in, we take a complete history and symptoms, and we do send the first images off for interpretation, but the result is limited.

We get a preliminary risk category and a preliminary report.

But the real critical appointment is the three month follow up.

And at that three month follow up, they come back in, we repeat the images, and they're superimposed on the first set, looking for change.

Again, vascular change and lymphatic change being big ones.

And if we have no change, which is great, then we have your normal, we have your fingerprint, we have your thermal signature, and then that's archived for comparison every year.

That's the recommendation.

So when we have changed at any point on thermography, whether it's the three month follow up or the first annual or the second annual. We have identified the area of the breast as abnormal. That's what needs to be looked at.

So one of two things is going to happen.

This is when you have to have structural testing.

Because the only way to know for sure whether or not something is malignant is to do a biopsy.

And you cannot do a biopsy off the Thermogram.

So hopefully with the marks and the areas that we've deemed that need investigation, that increases the accuracy and the range of other testing, telling them where to look because thermography is not confined to the breast borders. We're doing a 360 all the way around. So increasing the range and the accuracy of that other testing hopefully leads to an earlier diagnosis, better treatment options, better outcomes.

So we're avoiding the radical surgeries, chemo, radiation, that type of thing.

That's the first scenario.

The second scenario is we have change with thermography but we're not seeing anything on structural testing yet.

And again, remember, by the time you have a positive finding on the mammogram, it's a five to eight year process.

So, yes, we see these changes very early.

So when we have early change and we don't have anything on structural testing, that doesn't mean you just sit there and twiddle your thumbs or you're off the hook.

No, you've been giving a warning. Something is brewing. Something is happening.

So I'm very fortunate to have a good group and a good network here in Southwest Florida of functional medicine practitioners that know what to do with this.

It can be something as simple as lifestyle changes.

It can be hormone balancing to get things leveled off there.

It can even be medications that are anti-angiogenic or can reverse or limit blood vessels in their growth.

So we can essentially start off with answers.

So that's our whole goal here.

Again it's with preemptive and proactive behavior and treatment.

So we don't have an end stage disease.

[Dr. Cade] Fantastic, lady!

You are amazing. Let's go back.

So the pros to thermal is, very very sensitive, right?

Can detect changes, not necessarily diagnosing what they are, but changes much earlier than what the other imaging can do.

It's non-invasive, right?

It can go much further than just the plate and discover a wider area. Right?

And that's the pros.

The cons are if we do find something, it's going to warrant further testing like the ultrasound or the MRI or the mammogram. Right?

So the downside to the mammogram is that they are limited by density. You're limited by what's on the plate, and you're also limited by how big a potential I guess malignancy has to be. Right? It has to be like that five to eight year process. Big enough for it to show up on the scan.

You said the limitations of the ultrasound are going to be the equipment and the tech, potentially. Right?

[Taryn] Exactly.

[Dr. Cade] The last thing I guess is the limitation of the MRI is that it doesn't pick up on the calcification and then there's also the dye that's involved, which is incredibly toxic. Right?

So should everybody really be starting with the thermal imaging as this potential preventative screening tool?

[Taryn] Absolutely.

Thermography is ideal for everyone provided you've been through puberty and your baseline is established and then what we really recommend because thermography is not perfect either.

Again, if there was just one modality that was 100%, things would be easy.

We just use that one.

Where we have cancers that are thermographically silent it's generally speaking one of two categories.

It's usually tumors that are dormant or encapsulated.

They're not metabolically active. So they're not doing any of the things that we're looking for. They're not feeding. They're not growing. There's no vascular activity or lymphatic activity.

And then the other scenario we might have is if the tumor is very slow growing. It's not particularly aggressive. It may be there when we go to establish the baseline and since the body is not really reacting to it, it may not elicit enough change for us to see from scan to scan.

It's small. It's about 17%, but it exists.

So cover your bases.

Yes, thermography every year.

But do throw something else in the mix, whatever works for you.

And this is a really cool thing that's been happening I think in the last 15-20 years or so.

As people are becoming their own advocates and making their own decisions.

I'm not going to have a mammogram or I'm not going to do this or I'm not going to do the other multimodality approach.

That's the way to go.

And you choose what works for you.

[Dr. Cade] I love it! I think that's huge.

One of my favorite practitioners out there, Dr. Sachin Patel, said a quote that just always sticks with me, and I love to share with people is "the doctor of the future is the patient".

And I think that can be taken a handful of different ways, but the physician is never the one doing the healing.

And I think now just what you said.

That veil is being lifted where people are educating themselves on the right decisions, and that's why we're sitting down doing this, so that we can help people in their journey. Right?

[Taryn] Absolutely.

[Dr. Cade] So that was incredibly helpful.

Taryn, is there anything else that we need to talk about or share with people?

[Taryn] I think that covers it.

I'm always open for questions at any time, like if it is something I'm very passionate about and there's no short phone call with me, to make sure everybody knows the whole spectrum, all the things it does and the things that it doesn't do.

[Dr. Cade] Well, hopefully this video will save you a little bit of time as people watch this and discover a little bit more if this is the right fit for them.

But again, it really sounds like this is the next iteration, right?

The next thing that people really should be doing as far as catching things as early as possible and keeping tabs without any downside.

So I did want to ask, you mentioned something, that it is a great tool for pretty much everybody.

There's no contraindications.

There's no damage that it will ever do.

There's nothing that it will hurt anybody.

Is that correct?

[Taryn] That's absolutely correct.

[Dr. Cade] Are there any areas of the body that is less effective at scanning and getting good reports on?

[Taryn] That's a great question! And I don't get that often enough. So thank you for asking it.

Thermography has varying degrees of specificity.

So let me start with this. There are a couple of things that are completely off the board that we cannot evaluate.

We cannot evaluate brain activity. So straight off the bat you have to go do other testing.

I do not. Some people do, but I do not recommend thermography for prostate screening because I think there are better tests.

And the findings pelvicly, male or female, aren't super specific.

So if there's a better test, use a better test.

And trust me, if I could have done prostate screening I would probably be retired by now. But no! Can't be done.

We can't do a testicular evaluation either.

Everything else we can give a pretty good opinion on and again, when we start getting into the pelvic findings, one of the things that we see a lot on, especially the female abdominal views are genitourinary dysfunction, because again, we have a little bit lower specificity.

So that's going to be, this is what needs to be investigated. Something in there. It may be bladder, it may be uterus, it may be ovarian that we need to check out.

But again, we see these things so early. It's something you can start paying attention to and start addressing and keeping an eye out.

So again, other things that's much more specific for is vascular function. Nerve function and again, all the things that we talked about with breast imaging.

[Dr. Cade] Okay, so give me a couple more examples of other areas of the body.

How about extremities, feet, ankles, knees, torn rotator cuffs?

[Taryn] That's a great one.

We can use thermography to support the diagnosis of a lot of autoimmune functions because they have very specific patterns.

You remember when Fibromyalgia was the diagnosis maybe six, seven years ago?

It does exist, and it has a very distinct thermal pattern at the T1 and T2 on the back.

What we see in any type of autonomic dysfunction is a very localized hypothermic focus.

So if we see something like this that's called a mound sitting on top of your thoracic vertebrae at the skin surface, that indicates to us that there's some sort of autoimmune dysfunction.

Fibromyalgia patients with that also have a whole bunch of myofascial inflammation, inflammation, shocker.

So we can support that diagnosis.

And we can also, it's nice to give people graphic images of, yes, that they are in pain because thermography doesn't lie.

Vascular insufficiencies.

[Dr. Cade] Can I interrupt you with that?

So it's a tool that we could use.

So say somebody has been given a diagnosis of Fibromyalgia, then they come in they get a thermal baseline, and then they come into, say, functional medicine and lifestyle changes. Can we then come back and take another image and say, "Hey, this is how far you've come". Your inflammation is lowering, it is working, but you're not quite yet maybe to where you want to go or you are.

[Taryn] Exactly.

And the reverse is true as well.

We can see this therapy of this treatment is not working. We need to do something else.

But as you can see the reduction of inflammation. You'll see a reduction of temperature differentials in that hypothermic focus. We talked about where it starts to gradually disappear if things are moving in the right direction.

[Dr. Cade] Now I know another marker, a blood marker that a lot of people will base things on is the hs-CRP, the high-sensitivity CRP testing.

How do you see the images relate here for inflammation with the thermal versus the blood testing?

[Taryn] That's great.

So stroke screening is something that we do a lot of, and we look for inflammation in the carotids.

And if you have bilateral inflammation and systemic inflammation, what's going to come back on your report is you need to do CRP testing. They will also recommend that you do a Doppler ultrasound, especially if you have unilateral inflammation, meaning one size more inflamed than the other.

And they just released at our last conference. They were doing a study of all the clinical correlation.

So everyone who had inflammation come back on their carotids and if they went and had a Doppler ultrasound done, what was the result?

And the result was this.

When you have inflammation on thermography in your carotids, regardless of what your CRP levels are, that's been a five-year warning that you've been given.

So after five-years, because again, inflammation is the precursor.

So you got a five-year window before you start to have stenosis and occlusion issues.

[Dr. Cade] Very good.

[Taryn] We get a lot CRP testing.

It's recommended a lot on thermography.

[Dr. Cade] What a valuable, valuable tool. All right. Is there anything else? I know I interrupted you. Do you remember?

So anything else you want to share or tell anybody else about anybody that's, I can't imagine anybody being on the fence about this.

I think it's such a valuable tool in so many diverse aspects.

And it's not invasive.

I mean, it checks all the boxes, doesn't it, Taryn?

I can see why you're passionate about it.

[Taryn] It's a good thing to do for yourself. It really is.

You are your most important advocate as far as your health goes and it's easy to do. I'm trying to make it fun. It's not the worst thing in the world to do for your health.

[Dr. Cade] That's awesome.

Well, I know that you and I have an announcement to make, so I'll let you go ahead and share.

[Taryn] We are very excited that we are going to officially be a part of Cade's team in the Naples office.

And we'll be starting officially in February.

Is that what we decide?

[Dr. Cade] Absolutely.

[Taryn] We'll be offering thermography services to Naples to make it a little bit more convenient for everybody instead of having to hike all the way to Bonita or Fort Myers.

[Dr. Cade] It's been a long time coming.

I've thought about this so many times.

I can't tell you how many people have told me to reach out to you and ask you about it and I think I've always been a little bit wimpy to do it.

[Taryn] Because I'm so scary.

[Dr. Cade] You're definitely the opposite of scary.

I don't know. I guess maybe a fear of rejection, but I'm so happy to make that announcement and yeah we're so excited to have you here.

I think it should really help.

[Taryn] It's been a long time coming.

We've worked well together for twelve years so I think it's just all about timing and I think now is definitely the time to do it and we are super excited.

[Dr. Cade] So excited to have you here and bringing this to a whole new group of people down here on the end of town so we'll be starting in February so if anybody wants to reach out I think they need to reach out to you directly because we'll just be another location for your services and they can talk with you about, I guess, how to get started so we'll make sure that we leave all of Taryn's information down here at the bottom of this video and again Taryn, is there anything else that you want to share?

[Taryn] I think we're good. I think we've covered all the territories.

[Dr. Cade] Awesome.

Thank you so much for your time, your passion, your education and just giving that to everybody who's listening here so I can't wait to see you again in person.

Taryn, thank you for everything.

[Taryn] Sounds great! Looked forward to it.

Thanks so much.