Transcript #510 How to Become Certified in HTMA with Susan Cachay
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- Today we look at the work of Susan Cachay.
- Learn the importance of Hair Mineral Analysis.
- Get an understanding of what your Hair Mineral Analysis can tell you.
- Explore the difference between hair analysis and blood analysis.
- Learn about the importance of proper mineralization.
- Discover the connection between our emotions and metal toxicity.
- Get introduced to Susan Cachay’s course and certification.
- Find out where to find Susan on the internet.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Hello, everyone. I’m Dr. Wendy Myers. Welcome to the Myers Detox Podcast. So, today I’m back after a long summer. I haven’t recorded anything for a little while, but I had an amazing summer with my boyfriend. We went to seven different countries. We went to Japan, South Korea and Thailand and four islands in Indonesia. We went to Bali and Lombok and Sumbawa and the Komodo Dragon Islands, and then we went to Dubai and then went to Istanbul, Turkey for my birthday, and then we went to Greece, to Athens, and to the island Milos, so it was just spectacular. I’m very refreshed, feeling very happy and healthy, and ready to get back on board and educate you guys. Today, I have Susan Cachay on the show and she’s been a friend of mine for probably 15 years, and she was definitely one of the practitioners that helped me on my detox journey when I was first learning about hair mineral analysis.
And now she’s got a course out called HTMA Success, and we’re going to be talking about what you can see in a hair mineral analysis or an HTMA, and we’ll talk about all the mineral status that you can see and why it’s so important to track your minerals and not only supplement minerals, but balance your minerals. It’s a very delicate balancing act and there’s a whole science behind it, and then we also talk about heavy metals and what’s happening when you don’t see metals on your hair mineral analysis and how heavy metals can negatively impact every organ system in the body, a lot of really interesting info conversation there. And then we talk about the emotional patterns, the stress patterns that you can see in a hair mineral analysis, and the information in that regard that can be gleaned from a hair mineral analysis and corrected, and when people are detoxing, how they can be releasing emotions.
When I was dumping a lot of aluminum, I had a lot of anxiety and was more nervous than usual because aluminum affects your nerves, it’s in your nerve tissue. And so, just a lot of interesting conversation today for people who’ve done a hair mineral analysis or are interested in trying one or even if you’re a practitioner or a doctor or someone that’s wanting to do hair mineral analysis testing or HTMA testing and start seeing clients and start making a career out of detoxing clients and using hair mineral analysis. Susan talks about her course called HTMA Success and how that can help you accomplish your goals. And also for me, when I was first detoxing, I took an HTMA course really just for my own personal use because I wanted to learn more about this fascinating tool I knew I was going to be on a detox journey for a long time and I wanted to learn how to read the test and learn what was behind it and really start doing the research and digging deep and taking a course on hair mineral analysis helped me do that.
And here we are today, 15 years later, still talking about it because I love hair mineral analysis, and I want you to also, and I want you to take a test. I want you to do a hair mineral analysis. So dig into this podcast, it’s really, really good. So you guys listening, I know that you’re concerned about your heavy metal levels, and I created a very simple quiz that you can check out at heavymetalsquiz.com. You can go there and see how toxic you are based on a bunch of lifestyle questions and get a free video series about how to address your toxins, and how to detox, and you get a free video series that answers a lot of your frequently asked questions. So go take it, it only takes a couple seconds at heavymetalsquiz.com. Our guest today is Susan Cachay and she’s an educator, psychology counselor, and holistic nutritionist who has specialized in hair tissue mineral analysis or HTMA and mineral nutritional balancing for 15-plus years.
Why? Because together they’re precise and personal and they make comprehensive healing possible, Susan has reviewed thousands of HTMA charts as a practitioner and coach for other practitioners, and I used to work with her as well. And among the 100-plus practitioners that she’s coached, many came to her lacking a thorough understanding of stress patterns or emotional patterns in the hair test, and they were unsure how to interpret the HTMA results and didn’t have the confidence to develop their own recommendations for supplements and detox protocols. So, Susan noticed a gap in the available HTMA training that she’s uniquely qualified to fill, and she created HTMA Success, which is an accredited hair analysis and mineral nutritional balancing practitioner course. Through her training, you can better your skills and find fulfillment in helping others through healing, plus take your business to the next level, you can learn more about Susan and her work at susancachay.com. So Susan, welcome to the show.
Susan Cachay: Hi. Thanks, Wendy. It’s great to see you.
Dr. Wendy Myers: So, I’ve known you for probably 15 years.
Susan Cachay: I know.
Dr. Wendy Myers: We’ve known each other a really, really long time, and we go way back because my interest in hair mineral analysis or HTMA is. I used to work with Dr. Larry Wilson, and so did you. I used to do hair testing through his kind of protocols, and sparked my interest in hair mineral analysis. And so, today I wanted to really do a deep dive on what you see in a hair mineral analysis. I think people don’t realize, especially practitioners, doctors, and lay people, who have gotten hair mineral analysis, don’t realize the wealth of information that can be gleaned from a hair mineral analysis. So, let’s just start with heavy metals. That’s what most people are interested in, that’s why most people get a hair mineral analysis. So, tell us about the importance or what metals you see in a hair mineral analysis and why you should do this test for heavy metals?
Susan Cachay: Well, it’s a really interesting look at metals in the body. So, the thing is that when you’re testing for metals, there is no test that will conclusively tell you your total heavy metal load, and that’s because we store metals everywhere. So from the time that we’re developing in our moms, we’re storing metals. Our mom passes metals to us when she’s pregnant with us when she’s nursing, and then of course we’re exposed to it in our everyday environment through air, water, and food.
Now, our bodies are always detoxing. So when things are balanced, well, our bodies can kind of handle that as long as there’s not really any acute exposure, but a lot of people are out of balance these days, and more and more people from a young age. And so, if the body isn’t in balance or if there are preferred minerals that are not around in abundance, the body is pretty smart, and what the body will do is it’ll say, “I don’t have enough zinc, oh, but cadmium here, I’ve got some of that and it will fit in the same enzyme binding sites as zinc, so I’m going to replace that.”
And what it does is it props the body up and it keeps the body going at least for a period of time, but over time, those metals accumulate layer by layer by layer. So, the interesting thing about doing an HTMA, is you need to know how to read the results correctly because I’ll get a lot of people coming to me and they’ll say, “I hope my metals are as low as possible. I hope it’s not an issue for me, and they’re just low.” And I’m like, “Actually, that’s the worst-case scenario.” If all of your metals are low and you have what we call an all-pores pattern, which is basically almost all of the heavy metals being low, they’re sequestered in the tissues. So even if a person is as careful as they can be, we know that everybody’s exposed to a certain amount of metals in the body.
And so, we want to see those metals being excreted. And if they’re not, they’re being stored and they’re causing problems. So, there are some people that have had an acute exposure to a particular metal. So for example, I worked with a fellow who had quite a high exposure to lead when he was in his 20s. He worked in a lead mine, and he said they kind of wore protective gear, but it wasn’t that great, and he was young and he didn’t think about it. He came to work with me in his 40s and for the first two hair tests that we did, his lead level was actually pretty normal, just slightly elevated, but because we knew that he had that exposure previously, even though it was more than 20 years, I knew it was in there or suspected it was in there. Now, right at the time of his acute exposure, had he done a blood test, we would’ve been able to see the levels were high in the blood, in the body.
But what the body does to protect itself when there’s an acute exposure, is it kind of stores it everywhere it can do the least damage. So the third, fourth, fifth hair test for this fellow, oh my gosh, his lead was off the charts. I’d never seen that before. So, this is the really unique thing, not only about HTMA, but about mineral nutritional balancing is that we’re not forcefully pulling metals out of the body because the body is sometimes using those metals to prop itself up. We’re actually providing preferred minerals, encouraging the body to balance, and then the body decides when it’s ready to release stuff, and we can see that.
I’m sure you see that with your clients all the time too on the retest, where go, “Wow, this is phenomenal,” all this stuff pouring out that we knew was sequestered, but the body had trouble getting rid of. So in terms of looking at the main heavy metals on the HTMA, it’s great, but also keep in mind that when things are low, it doesn’t mean they’re not there. It means they’re being sequestered deep in the tissue, and I think that’s important to recognize and a unique way of looking at the body. It’s kind of like a biopsy that we’re doing into the cellular function of the body.
Dr. Wendy Myers: And I think people have to be really careful when they do get their hair mineral analysis results and they don’t know how to read it and say all their metal levels are low. I think a lot of people are like, “Oh, good check. It’s not heavy metal. It’s my problem,” and onto the next thing, and that is a big mistake. For me, even when I still do hair mineral analysis, I still have stuff coming out. It’s just unbelievable. I’ll have a huge thing of arsenic coming out or a huge thing of uranium coming out, or especially when I first started detoxing, I had a lot of stuff coming out of me.
And so, it just goes to show when you feed your body the minerals it needs, the nutrients it needs, and gently help the body cope the stuff out with coffee and those infrared saunas, when the body has that, the energy it needs, it will finally allow the release of these stores of toxins. And for me, the healthiest people I’ve tested, like Dr. Mercola or Ben Greenfield or other people I’ve tested, have tons of stuff coming out because their bodies are so healthy, their detox pathways are open and working and they’re just releasing stuff as it’s coming in. But for a lot of people, a lot of people have that no-show effect where they don’t have any metal showing on their initial hair tests.
Susan Cachay: Exactly, but they’re there below the surface, and that’s where I think the uniqueness of the program comes in, in that there are a lot of people that will do those two-week cleanses or they’ll do even chelation therapy, which has its place, but it’s trying to quickly drag as much out as it can without worrying about replacement. And really, we’ve got so much stored, and you’re right, there’s so many people that will say, “Oh, my levels aren’t that bad on the hair test. I don’t need to worry about that,” but that’s not the case. We know below the surface there’s more and metals make an awesome breeding ground for parasites, different viruses, and bacteria. Everything gets stored together at the levels and even emotions. I know one author has written about how our toxic emotions or the trauma that we go through get stored along with the heavy metals and the parasites and the bacteria and all of that in the cells.
And as we start to get healthier, all of those start to release together. So, it’s really quite fascinating. I almost think about it as it’s a way of removing interference in the body. It’s a way of balancing the body and removing what is congesting the body, keeping it from functioning optimally and for as long as somebody is on the program, and you don’t need to stay on the program for your whole life if you don’t want to, but you keep releasing medals just like you are, you’re doing other things. After all of this time, I’ll still have spikes of different things that are releasing because again, when you get to this age, you know that you’ve been sequestering these metals from when you were quite young. So, it’s quite fascinating.
Dr. Wendy Myers: And you’re exposed every day to different toxins. There’s hundreds of stuff that we’re exposed to, and so that stuff also has to be processed and released, and I think people get frustrated with how long it takes a detox or it’s kind of like I encourage people to think of it as a detox lifestyle because we’re always being exposed. So, it’s just not something you do once a year or a twice-a-year cleanse or something like that, that is adequate for the toxin levels that we have in our body and that we’re exposed to on a daily basis.
Susan Cachay: Exactly, and I agree, it is more of a lifestyle. And even if somebody isn’t on the program, full on the program for an extended period of time, if they go through, and I know this sounds like a lot, but think of how many metals we have stored, but if you go through a few years on the full program and then you keep up with the lifestyle aspects and make sure that you are eating well and you are managing your stress and all of those components that are really important, often the body can then start to keep up a bit more. Whereas a lot of us, especially when you’re younger and you don’t think about and you’re exposed to different things, you’re out of balance, you go through these different traumas and don’t know how to deal with them, and so again, just everything gets so congested.
Dr. Wendy Myers: And with the hair mineral analysis, that’s testing like heavy metals, but there’s also when you do a detox program or what you’re calling the program, you’re also getting rid of lots of chemicals, as well hundreds or thousands of different chemicals. I’m not really so into chemical testing because it’s just we all have so many. We know that we have them. There’s hair testing for chemicals as well on glyphosate that you can do, but it’s very expensive and we already know it’s there, and we already know that you release that when you’re doing a detox program. So, it’s just not terribly practical, but the technology is there if people are interested, but a basic hair mineral analysis is very affordable and gives us a lot of information. So let’s talk about minerals, so why is it really important to look at minerals on a hair mineral analysis versus blood where a doctor would typically test for minerals?
Susan Cachay: It’s quite different, so the body maintains the levels in the blood at the cost of all other tissues, meaning that it will pull calcium from the bones, for example, to maintain the level of calcium in the blood. So, the blood kind of gives a different look at, well, what’s kind of happening right at this moment in time? And not taking any of the other tissues into consideration.
Whereas a hair tissue analysis is really a biopsy of what’s happened in the last couple of months where we’re looking at stress patterns that are happening over a longer period of time and mineral patterns that are happening over a longer period of time. And oftentimes things will start to get out of balance at a cellular level with the minerals before it even shows up on a blood test. So, it’s kind of neat in the way that nutritional balancing is also a preventative type of program where you can go, “We’re seeing this here, we’re not seeing it show up in the blood, which is good, but this is something we can do to prevent it from ever showing up as out of range on your blood test.
So, that piece is really important and the minerals are really important. So as we were talking about before, if the body doesn’t have enough of the preferred minerals, one of the main things it will do we’ll do is will A, it’ll steal it from bones and other places that you don’t want those minerals taken from, but the body will use heavy metals in its place. And so again, that’s another reason why doing things that really just forcefully pull metals out of the body sometimes can really kind of collapse the system a bit. Whereas what we’re doing is we’re looking at providing the preferred minerals, and this happens in a cycle over and over for as long as you stay on the program, but you provide the preferred minerals, help balance the body, and increase vitality. With that extra vitality and energy, the body goes, “Great, I can release some of these metals.”
Metals release, the body hangs onto the minerals for healing and repair, and it’s interesting because sometimes people have really high calcium and magnesium, which shows on the hair test, which shows that it’s bio and available. Oftentimes, it’s a loss due to stress. And if you don’t know how to read the test, you’d say, “I don’t need these. I’m super high,” and actually in reality, that loss is indicating that you’re low in those preferred minerals. And even by providing those, the levels start to normalize and come down by providing them in a bioavailable form and balanced with the other nutrients.
So, that balancing is really important. It’s not about just, “Oh, these are low and so we’re going to replace those.” It’s how do we balance things overall as a whole system with the focus really being on the health of the terrain of the body? And that’s even what you’re alluding to when you say, “Man, my arsenic just went up and I dumped all of that,” you’re increasing your terrain, the health and vitality of the terrain of your body, and therefore your body is continually kind of working on getting rid of stuff that was stored.
Dr. Wendy Myers: And so many people today are mineral deficient, it’s probably everyone to a certain degree is deficient in minerals, and I don’t think people really focus enough on minerals. They’re not that sexy. There’s not a lot of marketing around minerals, and I think that minerals have been kind of overlooked in people with supplement protocols and they’re certainly in multivitamins, but people aren’t getting enough. They’re not usually getting the right form, and therefore they are deficient. It’s not in the food. There are drastically reduced minerals in the food supply, and reduced minerals in the soil because of farming practices and stress use up minerals as well. We’re under a tremendous amount of different kinds of stress.
And I think it’s really important to look at your mineral levels because if you don’t supply your body with a super basic thing that it needs to function, you’re going to have problems downstream. So if you fix this issue, mineralize, balance the minerals, you fix that issue, you fix a lot of stuff downstream that people are getting prescriptions for and going to different doctors and all these different protocols and all these complex things when it’s very, very simple. Do this first and then see whatever’s left over to address. I could say the same thing for water or for hydration, for grounding, and things like that, but minerals really should be the focus of people’s supplement regimens.
Susan Cachay: Absolutely, and I look at it like the foundation of a house. So, a large majority of the clients that I work with, just need to fix that foundation, and everything else, as you say downstream, everything else just falls into place and that’s what needs just the focus. And there are some other people that fix the foundation and they’re like, “Man, I’ve really been struggling with this. I’ve had some mold exposure, all of that,” and they need a little bit extra support. But for the majority of people, it is that foundation that is absolutely key there, and that’s what we’re talking about when we’re looking at those basic minerals, what are they doing? Does your body have enough in the forms that it can use in order to keep it going, instead of pulling on heavy metals or pulling minerals from the bones or all of that?
Dr. Wendy Myers: Because the last thing we want as women listening, they’re in perimenopause or menopause, the last thing you want is calcium and other minerals being pulled from your bones to be used elsewhere. There’s a whole science to minerals and mineral balancing, and that’s the beauty of the hair mineral analysis, is really good trained practitioners can properly supplement themselves, versus just taking a shotgun approach and just taking every mineral under the sun or a lot of people don’t know, they don’t distinguish between the different mineral types and what they need need. So, there’s a lot of complexity that can go into supplementing, which is why a lot of people don’t do it correctly.
We’re going to talk about your program in a minute, the course that you have about how to interpret HTMAs and use it in your practice as a health practitioner. I want to talk about that in a minute, but I wanted to explore all of the amazing information you see in an HTMA because for me, it’s really the cornerstone of when I’m working with clients, and it always has been because I could get so much information out of this really inexpensive test people can do at home, and it’s just way more than meets the eye. People have no idea. You can even see emotional patterns in a hair mineral analysis, and we certainly see that with women who have been abused or in abusive relationships or people, in general, will have super high calcium levels or people with pain syndromes will have really high calcium levels that can kind of deaden pain signals, nerve pain signals and things like that. Can you talk about these different phenomena and other emotional patterns that we can see on a hair metal analysis?
Susan Cachay: Absolutely, and there’s a lot, and it’s really exciting for me right now because I’ve had a number of people, practitioners who are taking HTMA Success, the practitioner training course, where their interest is primarily on the emotional patterns. It’s really fascinating. They’re kind of approaching the healing from that slant, which is really exciting, and you’ve talked about calcium shell, the double low ratio on the second four minerals is a past trauma indicator. Anytime we have what we call an inversion of sodium to potassium, that sodium-to-potassium ratio is key for overall vitality. Anytime that’s below one, that’s a trauma indicator. A low potassium indicates being in a sympathetic dominance pattern, and there’s also a high CMG. So, high calcium in relation to magnesium can be a lifestyle issue. So, something in somebody’s lifestyle or their attitude or emotions is kind of holding them back from moving forward.
With the sympathetic dominance pattern, that’s a really important one, especially as you were alluding to today, where we’re under so much more stress and different kinds of stress. The challenging part is that the body really doesn’t know the difference between the kind of day-to-day chronic stress that we’re experiencing when it’s really elevated, as opposed to being chased by a tiger, the body doesn’t know. So, it gets into this pattern of being primarily in a sympathetic dominance mode. Now, one of the things that I stress when I’m working with clients who are showing that indicator is that it’s really important to work on that and the relaxation of the nervous system because when the body is in that state, even if it was a trauma that someone went through a number of years ago and they’re like, “Well, my lifestyle right now is great, it’s this and this and this, and I’m relaxing and I don’t have this stress anymore.”
The body can be in a holding pattern for a number of different reasons, and sometimes on a physical level, the body uses a lot of metals instead of minerals. On an emotional level, there can be that those trauma emotions are tied in with the heavy metals and sequestered in the body, and even though a person has done a lot of talk therapy and different things, they really haven’t been able to release them fully, but when a person is in that pattern, one of the things that results is that they don’t detox very well. So, we typically see that sympathetic dominance, low potassium in conjunction with someone being a poor eliminator, they’re not eliminating very well, and they can think, “Wow, I’m doing all these aspects of the program. Why are things not really moving?” And they need some attention to that emotional level as well, the emotional body because sometimes that’s where we’re hanging onto things, especially when that sympathetic dominance indicator is showing.
But it puts a person into a state where they keep storing more and more metals, and that’s why that focus is so important, is to really balance that, and it has a lot to do with a nervous system, it has a lot to do with metals stored. And what I found very fascinating as someone who has their master’s in psychology counseling is that sometimes people have gone through a lot of talk therapy and they still come to me for mineral nutritional balancing and they still are saying, “I’m still struggling with these issues,” and wow. And on the program, as the body gets healthier and starts to decongest even at a physical level and metals start to release, all of a sudden they have a lot of these old emotions that start to come up and finally be fully released. Whereas before, because the body was so out of balance, even though they did a lot of focused emotional work on that issue, it was still stored.
It was still stored at the cellular level. So, I see a lot of people getting a lot healthier through that process, and then we slowly start to see those patterns shift on the hair test. And I’ve seen it where someone has a high CaMg and we can’t tell what it is. We can just say, “This is what this represents. It’s that something may be holding you back,” and sometimes it’s a relationship, sometimes it’s a job. And the person has said to me, “I know it’s this, but I’m not ready to leave it yet.”
Eventually, when their awareness increases of the program and they start to get healthier and they start to make those changes, it’s fascinating how that marker, that indicator on the hair test changes. So, I find that aspect of looking at a hair tissue mineral analysis really exciting as well, just in terms of, yes, your body may be compensating at a physical level because of emotional things that have happened, and how do we really balance both? How do we actually support the body so the body can do what it needs to do to handle both of those and start to heal them together?
Dr. Wendy Myers: And I’ve always found it really fascinating how all the different emotions that you can see, the stress patterns, like if your calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium were all super higher all than average, that means you’re super stressed out. And that needs to be addressed in some way and ferret that out, so to speak. And I think doing an HTMA every three to six months has played a pivotal role in me recovering my health, dramatically improving my health, continuing to improve my health on many different levels because these mineral deficiencies and heavy metal toxicities will dramatically impact every different organ system. These heavy metals create a lot of oxidative stress, and a lot of reactive oxygen species and damage your DNA and damage your cells and cellular membranes, and they’re very aging. So, detoxification is a process that’s very anti-aging, and people report weight loss, their brain functions better, and their metabolism has improved. What are some of the other benefits that clients have seen in a detox program following an HTMA protocol or program?
Susan Cachay: Well, in addition to those, I’ve even had people say, “Oh, my spouse thinks I’m happier. My kids like me better. I’m easier to be around at work. I’m not so grumpy all the time.” So again, metals affect us emotionally as well, so I’ve heard a lot of that. Oh, there’s been a lot of various conditions where people have been diagnosed with thyroid issues or gallbladder issues. So, I’ve seen people be able to even save their gallbladder from getting it removed simply because their bile wasn’t flowing properly due to metal toxicity, and all of a sudden you get that going and the body’s working as it should be.
The neat thing about this, and we could go on and on listing a bunch of different conditions, but when it’s focusing on the terrain of the body, whether it’s metals or parasites or you’ve got a skin condition or emotionally you’re irritable or depressed or anxious, when you start to balance things out, all of those things start to resolve and improve and get better. That is the really wonderful thing I think about this program. It’s not taking a symptomatic approach. When we look at it at an HTMA, if someone has a really pressing health concern, sure, we can add in a bit of symptomatic remedies just to sort of help bridge that gap and support them, but really it’s about, how do we get the body to a healthier place where this condition or this symptom simply won’t exist? So, that’s the key.
Dr. Wendy Myers: And it’s so important. It doesn’t matter what your diagnosis or symptom, whatever, heavy metal detoxification, or demineralizing the body will overall improve your health, period, no matter what the label is. And so, it’s a really imperative part of anyone’s health journey and anyone listening to this knows that I’ve been beating this dead horse for over a decade that you have to detox your health regimen. But speaking to the practitioners and doctors and people who want to become practitioners or are interested in helping clients with detoxification, let’s talk about the course that you created I’m glad there are more courses out there because when I first started studying 15 years ago studying detox, there were one or two courses and I took those and there’s more out there.
I created a course, but it’s just for my own internal practitioners, we haven’t published it yet, unfortunately. I don’t know if we will, but I’m glad that you created a course because more people need to know. Doctors need to know how to read these things. I’ve heard of clients coming to me that their doctor did a hair test on them and said, “Oh, they don’t have any metals, so that’s not the issue. Let’s go to the next diagnostic test.” And I’m like, “What?” We need to educate people about this. So, tell us about your course HTMA Success.
Susan Cachay: So, I created it just exactly for that reason because there are people out there who are using hair tests that kind of don’t know how to read them and don’t know what to do with them. And so what I try to do, it’s a lot of information in the course, but I try to really make it very practical, meaning it’s not trying to trick anybody or anything like that, very practical with a lot of helpful guides where there are quick views where when people are identifying patterns, they can go and they go, “I think that’s a pattern.” Which one here does it look like? And what does that mean? What is the significance of that? What does it mean to the client? So, there’s a lot of practical information in it, how do I take this? So, it’s great to read in theory and go, “Okay, I want to use this in my practice, but how do I actually use it to make it helpful and to make a difference in my client’s lives?”
And so, that’s what this course is about, and it’s for people who are already practitioners who are wanting to add this into their practice, which is a wonderful addition. It’s for people who are already doing HTMA but really want a little bit of a deeper dive. It’s for people who perhaps are in a different healthcare field or have done some nutrition courses and would really like to develop their own practice, but aren’t really sure how to do that. So, that’s another thing about this course. I’ve really tried to make it a course so that a person can take it. And when they’ve completed the course, they do get a bunch of materials, a lot of articles, a client handbook, so usable materials to go, how do I start using this? And client information sheets, all of that’s included so that they can start practicing right away.
And the other thing is that there’s really sort of the science that’s involved with reading a hair analysis chart, and then there’s also a bit of nuance. It’s about, how do I work with the person in front of me, not just what I’m seeing on the HTMA? And what I’ve really seen over the years, which is unfortunate, is that there are some people that they’re very sensitive and they have a very sensitive nervous system. And that hasn’t been taken into consideration when supplements have been recommended. And it’s not that they were on the wrong program, but for their body, it kind of overwhelmed their body. So, one of the things I teach in my course is that let’s start slowly and let’s work up, let’s see where this person is at. And because there are those types of nuances, I’ve also built a year of support into the course.
I think that’s something that I noticed was missing, that people could take a course and then say, “Great, now I’ve taken this HTMA course, but I still don’t know exactly what I’m doing,” and I’m working with a practitioner right now, and she had taken a different course and she said, “I took this course and then the first test I got back from a client I was working with didn’t look anything like any of the ones in the course.” And so, she was stumped as to how to help her client, and that’s why that year of support where I review your client’s charts and send back notes and we can go through any questions is there, and people will learn that, but it’s something that happens over time. So, it’s a bit of a mentorship that’s built in there. So, I think that that piece is really important.
Dr. Wendy Myers: That’s fantastic. You have a lot of questions when you are taking any kind of HTMA course, and you can even do your own kind of your own HTMAs and your own detox interpretation of your own and supplement yourself, and you just have a lot of questions along the way. I drove my practitioner nuts with the questions every single day because I was so interested and so fascinated about this whole process. And here we are today, 500 podcasts later, still talking about it. So, does a person need to be on a mineral balancing and detox program to take the course?
Susan Cachay: Not necessarily, it’s not a requirement, but it’s certainly helpful and something that I encourage. And the reason is that this is a very difficult program to facilitate without having experienced it yourself, and I’m sure you know that too. Just with the detox protocols and retracing that can happen, it’s really quite something, and it’s different from any other type of cleansing or anything that a person would do really, it goes a lot deeper. So when a person starts the course, they themselves do not need to be on the program, but I certainly encourage that, and I have a lot of practitioners that are with me that started the course and then did their own test with me and program with me and are doing that along with the course.
Dr. Wendy Myers: And so your course is accredited, so what does that mean exactly? And just for anyone who doesn’t know.
Susan Cachay: So, it means that it allows well practitioners when they’ve finished the course to open an account with Analytical Research Labs, which is the main lab that I use for my hair testing, and allows them to do that and have their own account and run their own tests, which is really important as well when you’re wanting to do this for work and setting up your own practice.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Fantastic, and that’s really key for sure. And so tell us, what is the cost? What’s involved? How long is the course?
Susan Cachay: So, it’s $2,500. For any of your listeners, if they use the coupon code Myers Detox, they do get $100 off of the course and people have a year to complete it. Now, it doesn’t necessarily take the whole year. It really depends on how much time a person is spending. I’ve had some practitioners complete it in about four months. So again, that can really vary, but I put the timeline of a year on there just because otherwise people sometimes procrastinate and it just becomes longer and longer. So, a year is ample time for people to get through it and learn the material and all of the various sections.
Dr. Wendy Myers: And where can people find you? What is your website?
Susan Cachay: They can find me at susancachay.com and there’s a practitioner training page where they can get more information about HTMA Success or reach out if you have any questions. I’ve also got some great books for free that can be downloaded for free on my shop page, Dr. Paul Eck’s book Energy, which is a beautiful interview of Dr. Paul Eck, who’s sort of the main researcher behind the mineral nutritional balancing program and hair analysis. And it’s an easy read, but it’s still one of my favorites because I think it just explains it all so well.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Great, and so Susan, thanks so much for coming on the show. It’s just been nice watching you through the years, and you’ve also been a voice for getting people on detoxification programs and using hair mineral analysis, and so thanks for helping get the word out about that.
Susan Cachay: Thanks so much, it was really lovely to see you.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yes, so everyone, go check out Susan’s website, susancachay.com, C-A-C-H-A-Y.com. And everyone, I’m Dr. Wendy Myers. Thanks so much for tuning in to the Myers Detox Podcast. It’s such a pleasure every week to bring you all these experts from around the world, and my hope is that you’ve been inspired to do something for your health, to start thinking about detoxification or doing a hair mineral analysis or even helping other people by taking Susan’s course, helping other people get on a detox program themselves, or expanding your practice as well. So, thanks for tuning in and I’ll see you guys next week.
