Did you know your hair holds the key to your health? In this episode, we dive into the power of Hair Analysis Testing—a simple yet revealing tool that uncovers mineral imbalances, toxin exposure, and nutritional deficiencies. Learn how this test can provide deeper insights into your wellness journey and help you make informed choices for better energy, detoxification, and overall health. Tune in to discover what your hair is telling you! Plus listen and learn about Cori’s crazy story about how she developed her autoimmune issues and then learned how to fix them all through hair analysis testing.
Cori Behrends is the founder of Cori B Health and Women, Wellness & WooWoo. As a Certified Health Coach, Epigenetic Hair Analysis Specialist & Energetics Practitioner, her passion is helping women discover health and happiness by getting to the physical, emotional and spiritual root cause of symptoms and chronic health issues. Cori works with clients to create new lifestyle habits, change limiting beliefs, find self worth and create optimal wellness.
Schedule your free consultation and claim $50 off your hair analysis session.
https://www.coribhealth.com/hairanalysis
Transcript
AnnaLaura Brown: Hello, this is Anna Laura Brown, host of the Autoimmune Rehab podcast, where we talk about how to actually thrive and heal your autoimmune condition rather than just covering it up with pills or changing your diet and hoping you’ll feel better one day. We feature solo episodes on helpful topics and interviews with guests who have actually walked in your shoes with autoimmune disorders who have years of experience in helping people to thrive and not just survive with autoimmune challenges. I started this podcast because I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s in 2018 and wanted to inspire hope and transform health for people with autoimmune challenges. So, keep listening. Let’s get you the help and hope you really need. This is the Autoimmune Rehab podcast. everybody. Today, I am super happy to welcome Corey Befriends, I’m not sure if I’m totally saying that right, her last name to the podcast.
AnnaLaura Brown: and she is going to be talking with us about a topic that I’ve wanted to cover but haven’t really, found a good person to cover it. We’re going to be talking about scanning your hair to help identify different ways to help you heal. But she’s also got her own autoimmune story as well. So Corey, why don’t you start off a little bit by sharing with us a little bit about…
AnnaLaura Brown: who you are and your autoimmune story, what brings you on to autoimmune rehab.
Cori Behrends: Thank you for having me and…
Cori Behrends: you had my name almost right. It’s Baron’s so bear the paint. And so you did great. That was actually better than most people do it. But thanks for having me. this is so fun for me to be able to educate with PE and share what I know with people because most of us that have had some kind of autoimmune now want to go on to help other people solve the problem. So, I’m a mom of four. I live in Farmington, Utah. I love adventure. I love being outside. I love the sun. And my job I’m a hair follicle analyst,…
AnnaLaura Brown: Absolutely.
Cori Behrends: health coach, and I do mind, spirit healing because I believe in whole body healing. Most of us that have some kind of symptom actually there’s usually emotional link to it.
AnnaLaura Brown: Pretty much emotions and your physical healing, but especially with autoimmune, where your body’s rejecting some sort of a part of your body or whatever, that emotional is always a part of it. most cases it mean it’s not all of it. There’s usually some kind of a component as well, whether it’s a virus or Lyme disease or a toxins like…
AnnaLaura Brown: which we’ll discuss, I’m sure, with the hair analysis part of it, all that kind of stuff. tell us a little bit about your autoimmune story. How did that whole thing start for you?
Cori Behrends: So in 2018 I was a flight attendant.
Cori Behrends: I’d worked for the airlines for almost nine years and I’d worked in various parts of the airline and I had decided to go into inflight and right when I went into inflight they brought out new uniforms and I started to get over the series of about four to six months I started to experience all these weird symptoms and I thought it was because of the job because of the lack of sleep being in the air just awful lifestyle of that job And so I started to get sick and one thing led to another and I was like something’s not right. And I eventually developed this cough that literally I couldn’t talk without coughing. I coughed 24/7 to the point that I didn’t want to even be around people because all I did was cough. And then my hair started to fall out. I was starting to get a bald spot here just in the front of my forehead. And I didn’t know what to do.
Cori Behrends: And out of coincidence, I’ll try to make it short, but I ran into somebody who was also a flight attendant. And she said to me, “Have you ever thought it was your uniform?” And I said, “You’re crazy.” And the more what I did is I started getting out of the uniform and then I started taking my luggage out of my bedroom. And as I noticed that when I wasn’t flying, I started to feel better. So long story short, along with all of those symptoms, I got the gift of two autoimmunes. I got Epstein bar and Rayods. And so good time. So I was extremely fatigued. My ray nods, for those that don’t know what that is. it’s circulation and it’s like your pits of your fingers go to sleep and turn white. So it’s like you have this that tingling and it’s so annoying. It started to go in my feet and that started to really scare me. So went through the me western medicine route. was on multiple prescriptions and got to the point where I couldn’t work. They wouldn’t let me come back to work.
Cori Behrends: And I finally just went, I got to take my health into my own hands because I’m not getting better. And I really was to the point where I didn’t want to get out of bed anymore because I’d have good days and bad days, but I was so stressed about what was going to happen for my future if I couldn’t work. And so I just cold turkey. I don’t recommend it, but cold turkey quit I was on mostly inhalers because it destroyed my lungs. I developed multiple chemical sensitivity. and I got off of all of those and I just started really connecting and listening to my intuition. I found some people to watch on YouTube. Joe Despensza, he saved me and started really working on my mindset to where I changed the way I woke up in the morning instead of being like, ” I feel awful. My life is awful.” I really started to change the way I spoke to myself. And that alone catapulted me. And then I just started to make lifestyle changes with diet.
00:05:00
Cori Behrends: And there’s a lot more to it,…
Cori Behrends: but getting to the hair analysis, I found that a couple two and a half, three years ago. I was introduced to that by my best friend. And I wish I would have had that back when I was sick because I would have saved a ton of money and I would have gotten better a lot faster.
AnnaLaura Brown: I’m sure.
AnnaLaura Brown: Absolutely. For sure.
Cori Behrends: Yeah. So the hair analysis the machine I use is a little mini it’s like a little mini Teslas coil and…
AnnaLaura Brown: Describe to us a little bit what goes into the hair analysis. what is it exactly and how does that work?
Cori Behrends: it was developed by doctors in Germany. So it’s a European technology very advanced as you probably know Analara is that we use hair for forensics right hair the dead hair is forensics drug testing hair follicle analysis is it is looking at epigenetics so it’s looking at that live root that’s alive in your hair. So, when I do a hair scan, I pull out four live bolds out of your hair and we put it in the scanner and and it scans over to Germany and it comes back with a full report that looks at everything that’s happening in your body and has been happening for the last 3 to four months and it will show you. It’s not diagnostic, so I can’t diagnose people, but it will give you clues on some things you can go back and ask doctors to look for in diagnosis.
Cori Behrends: but it comes back quite quickly and then the things that it will show you is what it does is it looks at all the systems in your entire body and it pulls up the top four that are the most inflamed. So, it’s not going to tell you you have Hashimoto’s or you have Epstein bar, but because it looks at the whole picture of your body and because of the knowledge I have in my background, I can look at it and say, “Okay, are you experiencing this because you’re low in this specific vitamin or mineral and I can say you probably have Epstein bar. Can’t diagnose that. You can go get tested for it. There’s no cure for it, so don’t even bother. Let’s just pretend like you have it and we’ll treat it that way.” Right?
Cori Behrends: So, it’ll look at vitamin, mineral, amino acid, every nutrient deficiency. It will look and tell you if you have heavy metals. It’ll tell you if you have bacteria. It’ll tell you if you have a virus.
Cori Behrends: It will tell you. It’s just seriously to this day, I’ve done hundreds of scans and every time I’m like, “How does it know?” It’s just really amazing.
AnnaLaura Brown: That’s crazy.
AnnaLaura Brown: So for somebody like me then who knows they have Hashimoto’s, it’s likely going to say, “Hey, your thyroid’s inflamed.” You know,…
Cori Behrends: Yeah. to be honest…
AnnaLaura Brown: I mean, it’s going to point that out probably. Yeah.
Cori Behrends: it’ll probably bring up what I’ve found in doing so many is if you have an autoimmune and you okay so the number one driver for Hashimoto’s and I know that this but for anybody listening is dairy and gluten they are really one of the number one things that c flare up your Hashimoto’s almost every single person I have ever scanned that has an autoimmune whether they know it or…
Cori Behrends: not gluten and dairy will come up in there or sugar that one of the three or all three of them because it’s a European scan. Gluten doesn’t come up unless you have something major going on. And so it doesn’t say specific thyroid,…
AnnaLaura Brown: And that’s interesting.
Cori Behrends: but it’ll tell me hormonal. If you’re low in selenium, there’s several nutrients that if you’re low in, then I can be like, “Yeah, you probably should go get a full thyroid panel done.
AnnaLaura Brown: Interesting. But it also can help you figure out …
AnnaLaura Brown: what supplements to take then too based on what it’s low you’re low
Cori Behrends: Yeah. Yeah.
Cori Behrends: Because the thing is as I go in once a week and work in a nutrition store and it’s really hard for me because people will see something on Facebook and be like, ” I have fatigue. They said B or vitamin D.” And I just say to people, “But you don’t really know that.” So, you don’t really want to take things that you don’t need because it creates more stress on your liver to detox them out anyways. So, it’ll tell you what you’re low on. And the beauty of it, because I’m all about root which is with having an autoimmune, I’m sure you totally understand that we got to heal the root cause, right? It gives you a food plan based on what you’re low in so that you can do a lot of it with food. And then I work on the root cause are you creating autoimmune in your body…
Cori Behrends: because you have leaky gut, because your liver is congested? And so when we can heal the root problem that’s going on in your body, oftentimes you don’t need a lot of supplements after that.
00:10:00
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, it’s a good point.
AnnaLaura Brown: And I know a lot of people, especially in the autoimmune community, and I’ve done this route before too, the biggest complaint that they have with a lot of functional medicine is a lot of times they get given way too many supplements,…
AnnaLaura Brown: and it’s like this is expensive and is this really necessary for me to take all this?
Cori Behrends: And sometimes it is,…
Cori Behrends: but if you’re willing to do it through food. So for my clients, I make them a smoothie recipe p based on what comes up as their foods in their scan. And I start it right there because with you, I’m sure that probably when you were going through figuring out how to get to the bottom of Hashimoto’s,…
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah.
Cori Behrends: if you went to functional medicine doctors, oftentimes they’ll put you on very difficult diets. where you’re just like, and the average person can’t do it. Now, they work and they’re amazing, but what I love about the scan is that it eases you into it. So, you may have gluten come up and I’ll be like, “You got to get gluten out.” But some people, it’s actually healthy foods that are just inflaming their body. Just how, spinach can inflame some Different healthy foods actually bother us. So, we’re all built differently. So, what works for you isn’t going to probably work for me all the time.
Cori Behrends: And so, it’ll actually come up with your no foods as well. what’s actually inflaming those systems?
AnnaLaura Brown: That’s interesting.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, for sure.
Cori Behrends: Yeah. wow,…
AnnaLaura Brown: But yeah, I was actually gluten-free for four years before I even got my Hashimonas diagnosis. So, …
Cori Behrends: you are one step ahead then.
AnnaLaura Brown: because I knew gluten had really started to really bother me and I knew it just was not good for me. And I do actually eat a little bit of it when I go to Europe though because I find that the European gluten doesn’t bother me as much.
Cori Behrends: Yeah, they don’t have the glyphosate. So if you live in Europe,…
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah. Yeah.
Cori Behrends: you could and you visit, you can eat all the gluten you want there. You can eat all the bread, all the pastries because they don’t put glyphosate in their wheat.
AnnaLaura Brown: So it really doesn’t bother me when I go to Europe, but when I’m here at home in the US, I’m really strict about not eating it. I act like I’m celiac even if I’m not,
Cori Behrends: Yeah, me too. and you probably know too,…
Cori Behrends: I’ll get a lot of clients that say, “I’ve been off it and I don’t notice a difference.” It’s the damage it’s doing inside, but when you’ve been off it for a long time, usually you’ll get a stomach ache or you’ll have some reaction when you eat it. Yeah. Yeah.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah,…
AnnaLaura Brown: But yeah, that’s interesting too because yeah, like you say, I’m not really an advocate of super strict diets because I feel like a lot of times, especially over the long term, they do more harm than good because it can create even eating disorders in some people because it’s like to this huge list of foods. And you’re right, I mean, for some people it may help them heal a little bit in the short term, but I feel like they do no more harm than good and they’re super hard to follow. So,
Cori Behrends: I ag I agree.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah.
Cori Behrends: It has to be a lifestyle change. and to be honest, there are some autoimmunes that literally it’s like once you get off gluten, do not ever have it again. I believe that sometimes if you have too much of a regimen, you’re creating more stress, which creates disease. Stress is one of the number one drivers for disease. So, I don’t want to give someone a food plan that’s going to cause them so much stress that they’re not going to get better, And so You have to treat yourself. And so even though I would say I’m gluten-free, if we have a once in a while have a burger with a bun for dinner. And I mostly try to eat free bread, but I give myself that leeway to have a dessert or whatever here and there because once you heal the root problem and once you really start to get in touch with your body and how it feels when it’s in a good place, most of the time you just don’t want to.
Cori Behrends: You don’t want to eat the other stuff. But I still have treats and stuff once in a while. I just don’t do it every day like I used to.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, for sure.
AnnaLaura Brown: Absolutely. Yeah, that’s a good point. So, another question I was going to ask you that I was curious about is,…
Cori Behrends: Yeah. Yeah,…
AnnaLaura Brown: you said originally your autoimmune got triggered by, your allergic reactions to your uniform. Was this the first time that you had ever had any kind of an issue with any kind of a reaction to a uniform or any kind of anything similar that you were aware of? Anyway,
Cori Behrends:
Cori Behrends: that’s totally fine. I never went to doctors other than when I had kids. Not just at the time I didn’t have anything against western medicine. I just never needed to go to the doctor. And so I thought I was completely healthy. And I’m glad you brought that up because a lot of people really think that they’re doing good, but our bodies are like a glass that’s just keeps filling up with water and filling up with water and you get trauma, layers of stress, bad diet,…
Cori Behrends: bad environment. and finally your body just goes done I can’t do it anymore and then that’s where it creates the symptoms.
AnnaLaura Brown: It’s crazy.
Cori Behrends: So I had none of that. My mom has Epstein bar and I have a son that has Epstein bar and Epstein bar comes from stress and so that’s the other thing is anyone out there that has Epstein bar and is aware of that you have to really be careful o overdoing it and stress because that will trigger it to come back on but a lot of it’s food.
00:15:00
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah,…
Cori Behrends: Yeah. The first thing I would say …
AnnaLaura Brown: absolutely. For So, if somebody’s dealing with, either symptoms similar to yours or just maybe some kind of an autoimmune in general and they’re, feeling a little overwhelmed, what’s one of the first things that you would tell somebody to do?
Cori Behrends: I don’t know where to begin. The first thing that I would do is really start to pay attention to where you have stress. I believe 50% of illness is stress and where you are up here. And so if you’re just I don’t know where to start paying attention to what you’re putting in. And I don’t mean just food. I mean environmentally, who you’re hanging around, what you’re watching on TV, the kind of music you’re listening to, all of the things. Really start to listen to what feels good and what doesn’t feel good for you. And so if the biggest thing that I see in my practice, emotions come up as number one on scans more than they ever have before right now because everyone’s under a lot of fear and stress. And so what’s what I’m seeing is people’s nervous systems are stuck in a cycle and that’s what’s creating illness in their body because it can never shut down.
Cori Behrends: And that…
Cori Behrends: when you’re under stress, your digestive system shuts down because when you’re in fight or flight, it’s like, ” I got to save energy because I might have to run in a minute, even though that’s not what we’re stressing about, right?” So, I would say mindful of stress and…
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah. …
AnnaLaura Brown: absolutely. Yeah,…
Cori Behrends: then really become conscious of what you’re eating that’s not real food.
AnnaLaura Brown: that’s a good point. Yeah. And stress is really a big one. I’ve had a few other guests on this podcast that people that have listened for a long time will know this that have had to undergo some pretty major changes including even career changes in order to actually really heal from their autoimmune.
AnnaLaura Brown: So, sometimes stress can really be getting you more than people realize.
Cori Behrends: Yeah. I So,…
Cori Behrends: and here’s another just side plug, and I don’t know if your followers are into all of this. I don’t know how much you get into in more of emotional spiritual health when you are out of alignment with your true soul if you believe in purpose if you believe in universe higher power god when you are out so you have a magnetic monopole that keeps you on purpose and when you’re outside of that I thought of this because of…
Cori Behrends: what you said careers you will get sick in order for your higher power to say to you do you’re in the wrong place and…
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah. …
Cori Behrends: I 100 % believe that that was why I got sick. If you would have told me I would be doing this seven years ago, I would have laughed in your face because this was not on my radar. But when I got sick and got I was like I had so much fear about ever get going there again that I was like, I have to help other people get well.
AnnaLaura Brown: And you’ll find that most of us that are in this field to one degree or another, whether it’s just, we’re creating content or we’re actually coaching or even lately, a lot of the doctors that I t have talked to, or healthc care professionals that have gotten into more of the holistic feeling healing, it’s because they got sick themselves and then started to realize, hey, I got to make a change.
Cori Behrends: I agree with that 100%. I think and…
Cori Behrends: I think that’s part of purpose is okay, we go through things to help other people.
AnnaLaura Brown: Absolutely. For sure.
AnnaLaura Brown: So, if you could go back in time to right before you got sick, what do you feel like is something that you would tell yourself now that you didn’t know then?
Cori Behrends: I would tell myself to really listen to my intuition about the choices I’m making. I had things that I had opportunities to not go inflight and I ignored those. And there’s one side of me that says, ” you wouldn’t be here if you wouldn’t have done that.” So we can never have shame around choices we made in the past.
Cori Behrends: But intuitively there were things that I was not being aware that were creating stress in my life. I would have really got in touch with my intuition.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, that’s a great one.
AnnaLaura Brown: That’s a good one. So, I know that I definitely have some people listening to this who live in Utah as I do. So, a lot of them may be able to meet with you in person and do a hair scan if they want.
AnnaLaura Brown: But how does somebody get in touch with you just in general?
Cori Behrends: Absolutely. So,…
AnnaLaura Brown: If maybe they’re interested in learning more and maybe they don’t live in Utah and they, need to work with you virtually, how would they get in touch with you?
00:20:00
Cori Behrends: I have a website. It’s coreybe.com. So, it’s c o r i b helpp. and then you can actually do a mail-in scan. So, basically, if you are not local, I can’t do them in New York for whatever reason. They don’t allow that. But if you’re local or if you’re not local, I’m sorry. you can order a mailing kit, pull your own hair follicles. they go into a main center because my scanner the follicle has to go in immediately. But you mail it in, I get the results back and then typically I’ll set up a virtual Zoom call to go over it with you. and I do that a lot with local people too that just can’t get away from home or they want to do it on their lunch hour or whatever.
Cori Behrends: you can still do a melon kit. but yeah, I’m in Farmington,…
Cori Behrends: so I have people that come from all across the and sometimes I’ll travel to St. George and stuff. Thanks.
AnnaLaura Brown: Awesome.
AnnaLaura Brown: We’ll put a link to your website below. Anything else that you want us to link to that people should go check out, learn more about you or what you’re doing?
Cori Behrends: If you’ve got a lot of female followers, I have a private page on Facebook called Women Wellness and Woo. and that should be really easy to just find. and it’s kind of like what you’re doing, Annalara. It just introduces people to practitioners. I give advice on mind,…
Cori Behrends: body, spirit health, and it’s just a good hopefully safe place for women to ask questions and to get information and education. …
AnnaLaura Brown: Cool. Yeah,…
AnnaLaura Brown: we’ll definitely include the link to that because I would majority people are definitely women. We’ve got some men though.
Cori Behrends: sweet. …
AnnaLaura Brown: I’ve started actually interviewing more men than I used to in the past. So, that’s been fun.
Cori Behrends: they’re starting to become more aware of, I got to take care of my body and they don’t have the emotional outlet that women have, right? They don’t talk to each other the way we do.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah. They do and…
Cori Behrends: And so, men need what we have to offer as well.
AnnaLaura Brown: they don’t get diagnosed with autoimmune conditions as frequently, but they definitely have them, and they definitely have some good important things to share. So, I’ve been pretty excited that I’ve started getting more men coming on. So, stay tuned for more interviews with more men.
Cori Behrends:
Cori Behrends: I love that. Yeah, 100%.
AnnaLaura Brown: Awesome.
Cori Behrends: Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind and see who I can send to you because Yeah.
AnnaLaura Brown: Thanks so much for sharing with us, Corey.
AnnaLaura Brown: And yeah, if you are at all interested, check out her links you’ll find in the description. And if you found this episode helpful, please share it with anybody that Please subscribe and follow Autoimmune Rehab if you aren’t doing that already. And we would love a rating and a review as well.
Cori Behrends: Thanks, Emma.
AnnaLaura Brown: Take care and we will catch you soon on another episode of Autoimmune Rehab.
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