DOCTOR REVEALS How She Cured Her Autoimmune DISEASE! | Cynthia Li & Mark Hyman

01:15:06
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VZrY2vSbws

Ringkasan

TLDRDr. Mark Hyman's podcast features Dr. Cynthia Lee discussing her transition from conventional medicine to integrative and functional medicine following her own chronic illness experiences. She shares her story of debilitating health conditions that traditional medicine failed to diagnose or treat effectively, leading her to explore alternative approaches. Her journey involves battling thyroid issues and chronic fatigue, intensified during a trip to Beijing. Gradually, through diet changes, understanding environmental and emotional contributors to her illness, and developing intuition, she found a path to healing. Dr. Lee emphasizes viewing the body as a holistic system, interconnected across various conditions, contrasting sharply with her formal medical training that emphasized compartmentalized care. Her story is captured in her book, "Brave New Medicine," which aims to offer hope to others by illustrating how a holistic, systems-thinking approach can lead to recovery from chronic conditions.

Takeaways

  • 🩺 Shift from conventional to functional medicine helped Dr. Lee heal.
  • 🌱 Holistic systems-thinking in medicine is effective for chronic disease.
  • 🧠 Developing intuition was key in Dr. Lee's health recovery process.
  • 🥗 Dietary changes played a significant role in healing.
  • 🚫 Removal of gluten improved her thyroid and gut health.
  • 🌍 Environmental factors like pollution were impactful on health.
  • 🏠 Detoxifying environment and home was part of healing strategy.
  • 🤝 Building community and accepting help fosters recovery.
  • 🛌 Emphasizing sleep and circadian rhythms supported better health.
  • 📚 Learning and relearning health practices were crucial for her.
  • 🔍 Asking new questions sparked a different healing journey.
  • 📘 Her book, "]Brave New Medicine[,]" outlines her healing path.

Garis waktu

  • 00:00:00 - 00:05:00

    Dr. Mark Hyman discusses chronic illness and the resulting feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, often compounded by bouncing from doctor to doctor without relief, and introduces Dr. Cynthia Li who has a personal and professional journey through mysterious chronic diseases.

  • 00:05:00 - 00:10:00

    Dr. Cynthia Li, a traditionally trained physician, shifted her perspective on medicine after dealing with chronic diseases that traditional medicine couldn't solve. Her journey from a successful career to being bedridden sparked a journey into integrative and functional medicine.

  • 00:10:00 - 00:15:00

    Dr. Li recalls her earlier career and personal life before the onset of mysterious symptoms post-childbirth, initially dismissed by normal test results, challenging her understanding of illnesses.

  • 00:15:00 - 00:20:00

    Her declining health coincided with a visit to Beijing where she experienced a severe health episode leading to hospitalization. Her symptoms, which persisted after returning home, sparked a re-evaluation of her understanding of chronic illness.

  • 00:20:00 - 00:25:00

    Attempting to conform to traditional medicine while her condition worsened, Dr. Li started exploring functional medicine. Her experiences paralleled Dr. Hyman’s, concluding that it wasn't in her head but a deeper physiological issue.

  • 00:25:00 - 00:30:00

    Dr. Li explores functional medicine principles after minimal success with traditional medical approaches. Realizing her symptoms' complexity, she embraces a more holistic view of health and disease.

  • 00:30:00 - 00:35:00

    Dr. Li discusses her path to healing through aligning her life with natural rhythms, personalized nutrition, and other foundational health practices, influenced by integrative and functional medicine.

  • 00:35:00 - 00:40:00

    Functional medicine provided a framework for understanding her health issues, with each lifestyle and dietary change leading to incremental health improvements, which were previously unavailable in traditional medicine.

  • 00:40:00 - 00:45:00

    Dr. Li shares how traditional Chinese medicine and studies on ancestral diets informed her recovery. Recognizing underlying systemic connections was key, emphasizing a shift in medical paradigms.

  • 00:45:00 - 00:50:00

    Her experience with personal health crises led to an openness to less conventional practices, such as developing her intuition, which revealed deeper physical and emotional insights contributing to her healing.

  • 00:50:00 - 00:55:00

    Finding a way through intuition and functional medicine enabled Dr. Li to better navigate complex health decisions, emphasizing patient empowerment in treatment choices.

  • 00:55:00 - 01:00:00

    She emphasizes the impact of detoxification and gut healing on her recovery, noting substantial improvements in health markers and symptoms.

  • 01:00:00 - 01:05:00

    Dr. Li recounts further personal health victories, crediting functional medicine’s holistic approach for her ability to eventually discontinue medications, underlining its role in long-term health restoration.

  • 01:05:00 - 01:10:00

    She critiques traditional medical education’s oversight on wellness and chronic disease management, advocating for a broader understanding of the body’s interconnected systems.

  • 01:10:00 - 01:15:06

    Dr. Li outlines her recovery steps in her book, presenting practical advice for health and well-being, aiming to empower others to reclaim their health using her experiential insights.

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Peta Pikiran

Mind Map

Pertanyaan yang Sering Diajukan

  • Who is Dr. Cynthia Lee?

    Dr. Cynthia Lee is a physician who has reimagined medicine for herself and others, focusing on integrative and functional approaches.

  • What chronic illnesses did Dr. Cynthia Lee face?

    She faced a series of mysterious chronic diseases including thyroid issues, fibromyalgia-like symptoms, and Lyme disease.

  • How did Dr. Cynthia Lee's experience in China impact her health?

    A family trip to China led to a dramatic health downturn, triggering symptoms such as weakness, vertigo, and digestive issues.

  • What is functional medicine?

    Functional medicine looks at the body as a system and addresses root causes of diseases rather than just symptoms.

  • How did Dr. Lee use intuition in her healing journey?

    Dr. Lee learned to develop and trust her intuition for guidance in navigating her health decisions.

  • Why did Dr. Lee write 'Brave New Medicine'?

    She wanted to share her journey and inspire others who suffer from chronic illnesses to find hope and explore alternative healing paths.

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Teks
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Gulir Otomatis:
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    one of the themes also that
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    um that comes up over and over again
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    with chronic illness and i know for
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    myself too is
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    you know reaching that point of
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    hopelessness or helplessness and
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    there becomes a learned helplessness on
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    top of that when you get punted from
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    doctor to doctor to doctor so are we
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    perpetuating illness as well
  • 00:00:20
    [Music]
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    [Applause]
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    welcome to the doctor's pharmacy this is
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    dr mark hyman and that's pharmacy with
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    an ffar macy a place for conversations
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    that matter and if you've been ill if
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    you know someone who's been ill if
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    you've had struggles with chronic
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    disease like i have
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    and like our guest has then this show is
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    going to help you figure out a different
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    way of thinking about it and give you
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    hope because a lot of times when we get
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    sick we feel hopeless and that's not
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    good because we actually have ways to
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    think about disease quite differently
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    and our guest today is going to share
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    as a physician
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    how she's reimagined medicine for
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    herself
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    as well as used a new medicine to help
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    heal her chronic diseases our guest is
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    dr cynthia lee she received her medical
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    degree from the university of texas
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    southwestern medical center in dallas
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    she's practicing internist in many
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    settings she's been at kaiser permanente
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    san francisco general hospital st athens
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    medical clinic she's served the homeless
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    she's worked in in very remote rural
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    areas in china helping with hiv patients
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    she's worked with partners in health and
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    all kinds of amazing community based
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    ways of healing people her personal
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    health challenges have really led her to
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    a very different view of medicine that
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    we learned in medical school integrative
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    and functional medicine and she now has
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    a private practice in berkeley she's on
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    the faculty of the healer's art program
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    at the university of california san
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    francisco school of medicine and she's
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    written a remarkable new book called
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    brave new medicine it's her first book
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    but it's an important book as you'll see
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    why as we have this conversation so
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    welcome dr cynthia lee thank you so much
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    for having me here
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    so we were just chatting before the show
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    and it was kind of remarkable
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    hearing your story because it seems in a
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    lot of ways we've gone down the same
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    path which is trained in traditional
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    medicine
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    both
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    suffered from
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    a series of different chronic diseases
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    which were mysterious and strange that
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    traditional medicine
  • 00:02:18
    can't help with
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    and we both were in china and got sick
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    we both had gi issues got sick we both
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    you know had mold in our houses and got
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    sick we both had lyme disease and got
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    sick so it's kind of fascinating
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    and and uh i i just sort of
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    want to unpack your story because you
  • 00:02:36
    knew you had everything you had a great
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    career in medicine you have a fantastic
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    marriage beautiful kids
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    and then
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    like happens to many people
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    one day you're fine
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    and the next day you're not and
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    everything falls apart and you had this
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    mysterious symptoms that traditional
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    medicine
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    couldn't solve your tests came back
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    quote normal
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    but you weren't feeling normal your
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    doctors were confused you were lost
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    you were in bed you couldn't get out of
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    bed with young kids and that's really
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    the beginning
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    of the change in your career that led to
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    discovering a new way to heal yourself
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    so can you take us through that journey
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    and like
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    where did you come from and how did you
  • 00:03:17
    get here oh my god yeah well first of
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    all um
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    this is not a journey i would wish on
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    anybody so i mean when we were comparing
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    our bearing
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    my god you know like i wouldn't yeah
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    would not wish this on anyone i mean i
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    know that millions right millions of
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    americans suffer from these kinds of
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    mystery conditions that are very
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    debilitating so this is not um not a
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    spurious
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    experience by any means although
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    although many doctors go well we don't
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    we can't figure it out your tests are
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    normal
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    there must must be on your head right
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    exactly exactly and you know and i went
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    through that myself i
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    my own health challenges did not fit my
  • 00:03:58
    own paradigm so for a long time i was
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    stuck in my head like i just need to get
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    past i need to get past it so
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    to um
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    yeah just to kind of go backwards a
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    little bit um about 15 years ago i was a
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    few years out of residency so i was at
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    this place in my professional life where
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    i felt
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    a sense of mastery right i i just i knew
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    the studies pat i knew the protocols pat
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    um
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    you know i i was running ers and just
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    feeling like
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    okay you're a master of your christmas
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    yes yes and i felt really proud of where
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    i had come
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    to in my life and
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    um i had married the love of my life
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    um i did something really radical i had
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    always been sort of the good girl the
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    conventional girl which is funny why you
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    know i ended up taking this very
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    unconventional path as far as this this
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    culture is concerned um i was yeah i had
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    a very conventional upbringing and um
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    my husband and i shortly after we got
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    married i did something radical and we i
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    quit my job and we traveled the world
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    for six months
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    uh no itinerary you know just a backpack
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    with you know a few
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    necessaries in them and
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    i felt so free and so
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    um
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    so alive
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    and after we returned
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    i started a job at the county hospital
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    where i was working with underserved
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    patients and really found my calling
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    so it was during this time that i
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    got pregnant and again you know the
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    pregnancy was easy um nine months later
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    we had this miracle of a baby we were
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    thrilled but it was three months after
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    that that i started feeling off
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    and you know started feeling really
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    tired my hair was falling out i was
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    losing weight i mean like super rapidly
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    and again it's just one of those things
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    that i think as um
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    as not wanting to complain as our
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    culture tends to do is normalize
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    you know
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    unwellness
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    to where you sort of tolerate it and so
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    i thought it was all postpartum suck it
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    up and push through exactly suck it up
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    and you know and a lot of times um
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    things resolve and you know life goes on
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    which i had learned in residency right
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    best healer is time everything goes away
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    it's just right what doesn't kill you
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    makes you stronger
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    right i didn't realize at the time that
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    only works for acute things not chronic
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    so i was in very much in that mentality
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    of invincibility both because i was
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    young and both and then the other reason
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    because
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    i was a doctor there was this strange
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    sense that because i understood chronic
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    diseases i mean i was an internist after
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    all an expert in chronic diseases
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    that i was somehow immune to it
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    you know my patients were over there and
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    i was over here yeah
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    since you knew all the diseases you
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    couldn't get them exactly exactly
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    and it took me a while to even recognize
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    the signs and i remember very clearly
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    that i was
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    you know i'd been kind of slogging
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    through my day-to-day life you know with
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    this new baby and an active husband and
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    my job
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    and i was
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    seeing a patient and she was a single
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    mom had like three kids was
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    uh working two jobs she was exhausted
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    and she came to me for fatigue
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    and i was i was looking at her and i was
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    just going through the checklist you
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    know all the review systems and i said
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    oh my god your textbook case of
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    hyperthyroidism i'm going to run these
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    tests
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    and it dawned on me that oh my god her
  • 00:07:39
    palpitations her insomnia her fatigue
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    you know her weight loss her hair loss
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    and i was like oh my god i am a textbook
  • 00:07:46
    case too so that was a that was a really
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    big eye-opener for me yeah you saw
  • 00:07:50
    yourself in her yes
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    and and also that
  • 00:07:54
    i i had a chronic disease most likely
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    because thyroid diseases are usually
  • 00:08:00
    chronic
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    so that was the beginning and i had
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    which by the way
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    low thyroid and thyroid problems in
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    women affects one in five women and half
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    of them are
  • 00:08:10
    undiagnosed yes and many of us who are
  • 00:08:13
    diagnosed aren't properly treated
  • 00:08:16
    absolutely absolutely and i think it
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    goes to
  • 00:08:19
    the fact that we dismiss
  • 00:08:21
    symptoms that are i mean they are
  • 00:08:24
    seemingly vague right fatigue i mean
  • 00:08:26
    i'm tired i'm a little depressed my
  • 00:08:28
    function sex my skin's a little dry my
  • 00:08:30
    hair's thinning right right exactly
  • 00:08:34
    so constipated whatever it's like normal
  • 00:08:37
    absolutely and oh so for me though my
  • 00:08:39
    initial presentation was hyperthyroid
  • 00:08:41
    and then i felt hypo so i was kind of on
  • 00:08:43
    this thyroid roller coaster
  • 00:08:45
    and what i had was hashimoto's an
  • 00:08:47
    autoimmune
  • 00:08:49
    thyroid condition
  • 00:08:51
    and when it happens in the postpartum
  • 00:08:53
    period
  • 00:08:54
    most of those cases resolve in about a
  • 00:08:56
    year and so i followed actually that
  • 00:08:58
    textbook trajectory
  • 00:09:00
    and about a year after i was diagnosed i
  • 00:09:03
    wasn't feeling well but i saw my
  • 00:09:06
    endocrinologist who was a top-notch
  • 00:09:07
    specialist and
  • 00:09:09
    he said yeah you know i think it's time
  • 00:09:11
    for you to try tapering off your
  • 00:09:13
    levothyroxine
  • 00:09:14
    and i did and my numbers stayed normal
  • 00:09:18
    and
  • 00:09:19
    i
  • 00:09:20
    was by his book and by my book i was
  • 00:09:22
    cured
  • 00:09:23
    but you still felt like crap i still
  • 00:09:25
    felt exactly the same
  • 00:09:28
    so that
  • 00:09:29
    it goes to show you know where i was in
  • 00:09:32
    my mindset was you know what the
  • 00:09:34
    paradigm that we're trained in
  • 00:09:37
    superseded my own experience yeah and
  • 00:09:40
    what we're trained in is that
  • 00:09:44
    everything hinges on the diagnosis yeah
  • 00:09:46
    if you don't have a diagnosis
  • 00:09:48
    right and the diagnosis is a set of
  • 00:09:50
    criteria or it's a lab test or it's a
  • 00:09:53
    pathology report it's something very
  • 00:09:55
    very concrete
  • 00:09:58
    so
  • 00:09:59
    uh i'm living my life and i was still
  • 00:10:01
    living a full life so i was also basing
  • 00:10:03
    health on functionality yeah you were
  • 00:10:06
    managing
  • 00:10:07
    yes yes i was managing and i was
  • 00:10:09
    managing quite well
  • 00:10:11
    so then um
  • 00:10:13
    a couple of years later my husband
  • 00:10:16
    are then toddler and i
  • 00:10:19
    take a trip to beijing
  • 00:10:21
    and my parents and my sister were living
  • 00:10:23
    there at the time
  • 00:10:25
    so i had taken these trips annually and
  • 00:10:28
    um we
  • 00:10:29
    went and i had a very dramatic
  • 00:10:32
    experience there before before you go on
  • 00:10:33
    i want to sort of clarify for people for
  • 00:10:35
    those who haven't been to beijing
  • 00:10:38
    it's been cleaned up a little bit but
  • 00:10:40
    on a sunny day
  • 00:10:42
    you can't see a building across the
  • 00:10:44
    street because the air is so thick
  • 00:10:47
    with pollution
  • 00:10:48
    and most of it is from coal rock hole
  • 00:10:51
    that they burn and from some of the
  • 00:10:53
    inversions that come from the weather
  • 00:10:55
    patterns from the gobi desert and
  • 00:10:57
    it's so bad that
  • 00:10:59
    many people in beijing walk around with
  • 00:11:01
    masks literally yes face masks you might
  • 00:11:04
    have seen those pictures so yes yes
  • 00:11:05
    we're not talking about just a little
  • 00:11:07
    pollution we're talking about air so
  • 00:11:09
    thick that you can basically cut it with
  • 00:11:10
    a knife on a sunny day and can't see the
  • 00:11:12
    sun yes yeah i mean my sister
  • 00:11:15
    um
  • 00:11:16
    taught elementary school when she was
  • 00:11:18
    there and they every day they would they
  • 00:11:20
    would get these you know these color
  • 00:11:23
    um
  • 00:11:24
    signals about whether or not they could
  • 00:11:27
    go out and there were many days where
  • 00:11:29
    they couldn't even go out at all stay
  • 00:11:31
    indoors with high
  • 00:11:32
    heavy duty air purifiers going on
  • 00:11:36
    um so
  • 00:11:37
    yes it was
  • 00:11:39
    um cheers
  • 00:11:43
    um a nice family trip nice family trip
  • 00:11:46
    and you know i will say i was we were uh
  • 00:11:49
    we took a hike on um the wild wall so
  • 00:11:52
    right the the un
  • 00:11:55
    restored yes the beautiful sort of
  • 00:11:57
    rustic but crumbling
  • 00:11:59
    wall of the great wall
  • 00:12:01
    and it was um
  • 00:12:04
    it was a really beautiful
  • 00:12:06
    hike
  • 00:12:07
    and
  • 00:12:08
    i stood at this lookout tower
  • 00:12:10
    and i said to my husband i said i feel
  • 00:12:12
    like myself again
  • 00:12:14
    so i was feeling like i'm coming back
  • 00:12:16
    right my stamina was back
  • 00:12:18
    um the aches and the pains and just that
  • 00:12:20
    low-grade fatigue was gone
  • 00:12:24
    um so i felt uh an ounce of
  • 00:12:27
    of real hope there
  • 00:12:30
    and
  • 00:12:31
    then we went to a dumpling house to
  • 00:12:34
    celebrate
  • 00:12:37
    and um
  • 00:12:39
    you know you had asked me um before this
  • 00:12:41
    like you know what might have triggered
  • 00:12:43
    this turning point i don't i was either
  • 00:12:45
    doubling disease i don't know but i was
  • 00:12:47
    eating a ton of things
  • 00:12:49
    um some of which were
  • 00:12:51
    like tons of different kinds of fungus
  • 00:12:54
    right mushrooms like things that are you
  • 00:12:56
    know can be immunologically
  • 00:12:58
    triggering as well so i have no idea if
  • 00:13:01
    that honey had anything to do with it if
  • 00:13:02
    it was just the foreign food proteins
  • 00:13:05
    but i was
  • 00:13:07
    having the feast of my life when i
  • 00:13:09
    suddenly felt like i was going to pass
  • 00:13:11
    out
  • 00:13:12
    you know and i was going through all the
  • 00:13:14
    you know differential diagnoses in my in
  • 00:13:16
    my head
  • 00:13:17
    and heat stroke dehydration i was
  • 00:13:20
    drinking water but uh suddenly i mean
  • 00:13:23
    before i know it i you know my life
  • 00:13:25
    flashes before me and i i think i'm
  • 00:13:28
    gonna die and then i pass out
  • 00:13:30
    so
  • 00:13:31
    i come to in a
  • 00:13:34
    an emergency room in downtown beijing
  • 00:13:37
    and
  • 00:13:38
    when i came to
  • 00:13:40
    i just came to a body that really wasn't
  • 00:13:42
    my own i didn't recognize myself
  • 00:13:44
    i could barely move my muscles
  • 00:13:47
    the entire room was spinning around as
  • 00:13:49
    if i was on a boat that was really
  • 00:13:51
    really um
  • 00:13:53
    being tossed around in the high seas yes
  • 00:13:56
    and that um
  • 00:13:59
    was something that was completely
  • 00:14:00
    outside of my own box as a doctor
  • 00:14:04
    i was calling the shots in the er
  • 00:14:06
    because the doctor overseeing me was a
  • 00:14:08
    resident
  • 00:14:09
    yeah and i've had that experience being
  • 00:14:11
    in a a hospital in thailand with severe
  • 00:14:14
    gastroenteritis telling him what to do
  • 00:14:17
    yes i mean
  • 00:14:18
    it is
  • 00:14:19
    it is it's challenging being sick but
  • 00:14:21
    it's challenging being a doctor who's
  • 00:14:22
    sick because people are still looking to
  • 00:14:25
    you yeah to number one stay calm and
  • 00:14:27
    number two figure out what's going on
  • 00:14:30
    and i was using my really um you know
  • 00:14:32
    basic mandarin too trying to
  • 00:14:35
    communicate
  • 00:14:37
    um i also realized that i had brain fog
  • 00:14:39
    i didn't know it at the time i just i
  • 00:14:40
    couldn't remember things um i was
  • 00:14:43
    looking at my own ekg and which was
  • 00:14:45
    normal but i couldn't quite read it you
  • 00:14:48
    had a broken brain i had read yeah
  • 00:14:50
    thousands of those right yeah
  • 00:14:53
    so um
  • 00:14:54
    [Music]
  • 00:14:55
    i was uh you know kind of in a state of
  • 00:14:57
    shock um but really just trying to push
  • 00:15:00
    through the misery of it
  • 00:15:02
    and in the smattering of tests um they
  • 00:15:05
    did stabilize my blood pressure which
  • 00:15:07
    was low i've got iv saline and
  • 00:15:11
    um
  • 00:15:13
    but all the tests turned out normal as
  • 00:15:15
    they so often do in these streams
  • 00:15:18
    right dr lee and the one that did not
  • 00:15:20
    turn out normal was one that i really
  • 00:15:22
    ordered as a precautionary test that we
  • 00:15:24
    do for all young women it was a
  • 00:15:27
    pregnancy test and that came back
  • 00:15:29
    positive
  • 00:15:30
    so
  • 00:15:31
    that was again a huge shock and my
  • 00:15:34
    husband and i were really trying to wrap
  • 00:15:36
    our heads around the fact that i like i
  • 00:15:38
    felt like i was gonna die
  • 00:15:40
    but then oh my god wait a minute like
  • 00:15:42
    i'm pregnant yeah so and i'm miserable
  • 00:15:46
    um
  • 00:15:47
    so at the time i did not realize that
  • 00:15:48
    this was going to be a
  • 00:15:50
    decade-long journey and you mentioned
  • 00:15:52
    that you had a gi problem then right yes
  • 00:15:54
    well that didn't manifest until the very
  • 00:15:56
    next day the next day um i started
  • 00:15:59
    having nausea vomiting and diarrhea
  • 00:16:02
    and
  • 00:16:04
    people said well it's probably the
  • 00:16:06
    pregnancy and you whatever you got this
  • 00:16:09
    dehydration
  • 00:16:10
    um you just overdid it but then my
  • 00:16:12
    husband and my daughter got it too
  • 00:16:15
    so i realized okay you know what there's
  • 00:16:17
    a gastroenteritis going on all of this
  • 00:16:19
    was in hindsight though you know i
  • 00:16:20
    wasn't you went from like literally the
  • 00:16:22
    top of the mountain on the great wall
  • 00:16:24
    feeling the best you felt in years to
  • 00:16:26
    like the worst you could possibly feel
  • 00:16:28
    yes yes in a matter of days yes and we
  • 00:16:30
    were we were scheduled to get on our
  • 00:16:33
    plane trip home
  • 00:16:35
    like three days later after the er visit
  • 00:16:37
    and um i didn't it was some miracle that
  • 00:16:40
    i made it but i had my first full-blown
  • 00:16:43
    panic attack on as we boarded the plane
  • 00:16:46
    because i was so weak and i was i barely
  • 00:16:49
    made it on i was in a wheelchair
  • 00:16:52
    and i was thinking 13 hours 13 hours
  • 00:16:54
    like what if something happens you know
  • 00:16:56
    i can't do this
  • 00:16:58
    um but but i made it
  • 00:16:59
    um i made it back home
  • 00:17:02
    and i remember calling my medical
  • 00:17:04
    director
  • 00:17:06
    and saying
  • 00:17:08
    um i got a gastroenteritis
  • 00:17:10
    and
  • 00:17:11
    i am in the early throes of pregnancy
  • 00:17:15
    uh
  • 00:17:16
    i'm gonna need an extra week to recover
  • 00:17:19
    but i'll be back yeah or so you thought
  • 00:17:22
    so i thought i never did i never
  • 00:17:23
    returned
  • 00:17:25
    so that was really the beginning of
  • 00:17:27
    the rest of my life
  • 00:17:29
    and um
  • 00:17:30
    it took me being
  • 00:17:33
    housebound
  • 00:17:34
    for two years
  • 00:17:37
    um
  • 00:17:38
    to break out of
  • 00:17:39
    that that paradigm that i knew
  • 00:17:42
    so you were still looking at traditional
  • 00:17:44
    medicine to solve the problem yeah they
  • 00:17:45
    weren't connected with the answers and
  • 00:17:47
    we went to see everybody yes i went to
  • 00:17:49
    see specialist after specialist and
  • 00:17:51
    again another sort of like you're
  • 00:17:53
    depressed take prozac right yes well i
  • 00:17:56
    mean even things like i was afraid to
  • 00:17:58
    say i was depressed because i was like i
  • 00:17:59
    don't want to kill myself i'm just
  • 00:18:02
    miserable you know like i'm miserable
  • 00:18:04
    i'm not depressed yes yes
  • 00:18:08
    but i knew from the other side
  • 00:18:10
    what
  • 00:18:11
    doctors did with patients like me so i
  • 00:18:13
    had a lot of symptoms that i kept to
  • 00:18:15
    myself
  • 00:18:17
    what they did meaning
  • 00:18:18
    meaning yeah antidepressants or
  • 00:18:20
    potential you know a major psychiatric
  • 00:18:22
    evaluation or
  • 00:18:24
    um
  • 00:18:25
    getting stigmatized as a difficult
  • 00:18:27
    patient
  • 00:18:28
    yeah we have a very uh you know in the
  • 00:18:30
    medical world we have a very pejorative
  • 00:18:32
    way of talking about these patients we
  • 00:18:34
    we use a fancy medical word we say it's
  • 00:18:36
    super tentorial which means it's a
  • 00:18:39
    in your brain it's in your head and it's
  • 00:18:42
    very nasty and not true and i think your
  • 00:18:46
    experience is very important because i
  • 00:18:47
    think most of us who suffer aren't
  • 00:18:50
    doctors and so we don't have that
  • 00:18:52
    insight but
  • 00:18:54
    when you actually are a physician and
  • 00:18:56
    you get that uh you know i had someone
  • 00:18:59
    say to me the other day
  • 00:19:00
    oh you know i don't believe all this
  • 00:19:02
    fatigue stuff when i want energy i just
  • 00:19:04
    jump up and down and run up the stairs i
  • 00:19:05
    get energy i'm like no you don't get it
  • 00:19:07
    like
  • 00:19:08
    when you get
  • 00:19:10
    your tank emptied and you don't know how
  • 00:19:13
    to refill it it's real it's not in your
  • 00:19:15
    head it's not
  • 00:19:17
    psychiatric
  • 00:19:18
    it's it's your biology and i had exactly
  • 00:19:22
    the same experience so i i get it and
  • 00:19:24
    it's sort of what led me to be
  • 00:19:26
    a functional medicine physician and to
  • 00:19:28
    so be passionate about telling the world
  • 00:19:30
    which i think also why you write your
  • 00:19:31
    book so to share with the world look
  • 00:19:33
    look like i'm a physician i know the
  • 00:19:35
    science but
  • 00:19:37
    i hit a dead end when it comes to the
  • 00:19:38
    paradigm that we were trained in and i
  • 00:19:40
    needed to find a different way so
  • 00:19:42
    so tell us about how can i ask you were
  • 00:19:44
    you as hard-headed as i was i mean did
  • 00:19:46
    it take you
  • 00:19:47
    oh well first of all too for me i think
  • 00:19:49
    partly it took so long was because i was
  • 00:19:51
    pregnant
  • 00:19:52
    and all the specialists told me that
  • 00:19:54
    this is a difficult pregnancy and part
  • 00:19:56
    of me wanted to believe it or that a lot
  • 00:19:58
    of it would resolve
  • 00:19:59
    and amazingly i had this baby who's
  • 00:20:02
    she's healthy and she's the strongest
  • 00:20:04
    one actually in the whole family
  • 00:20:06
    so um there was that piece but i was i'm
  • 00:20:09
    just curious did it take you as long as
  • 00:20:11
    it took me to yeah i realized there was
  • 00:20:13
    another pass
  • 00:20:15
    no i i well it was interesting i mean i
  • 00:20:18
    literally went down hard i mean i i was
  • 00:20:21
    the same story i lived in china i was
  • 00:20:23
    exposed to mercury
  • 00:20:25
    i came back from china
  • 00:20:26
    and i was up on a lake in maine
  • 00:20:29
    and i got some kind of bug some kind of
  • 00:20:31
    stomach bug
  • 00:20:33
    and i never had anything like it i
  • 00:20:35
    thought it would get better and it
  • 00:20:37
    didn't so the mercury was sort of like
  • 00:20:40
    the
  • 00:20:41
    sort of underlying
  • 00:20:43
    problem yes and then the straw that
  • 00:20:45
    broke the camel's back was getting an
  • 00:20:47
    acute stomach issue which caused a leaky
  • 00:20:49
    gut and this massive inflammation
  • 00:20:52
    and my whole system collapsed you know i
  • 00:20:54
    not only did i didn't have the stomach
  • 00:20:56
    issues and diarrhea and pain and
  • 00:20:58
    bloating
  • 00:21:00
    i also had immune issues my
  • 00:21:02
    rashes all over my tongue would swell up
  • 00:21:04
    when i eat certain foods i get rashes
  • 00:21:05
    around my eyes
  • 00:21:07
    i have all sorts of abnormal blood tests
  • 00:21:09
    my little white count positive ana which
  • 00:21:11
    is like autoimmunity i had
  • 00:21:14
    a little bit of liver function tests i
  • 00:21:16
    had severe cognitive problems i couldn't
  • 00:21:18
    focus i couldn't remember anything i
  • 00:21:21
    couldn't really barely work i had
  • 00:21:24
    trouble sleeping i mean just my whole
  • 00:21:26
    system was down and was called chronic
  • 00:21:27
    fatigue syndrome which you know for a
  • 00:21:29
    long time we thought was psychological
  • 00:21:32
    and
  • 00:21:34
    and now there's real good data that
  • 00:21:36
    there are
  • 00:21:37
    a lot of biological markers of what's
  • 00:21:39
    going on in chronic fatigue syndrome
  • 00:21:41
    it's not just some fabricated thing we
  • 00:21:43
    call it a syndrome in medicine when we
  • 00:21:45
    don't actually understand that seriously
  • 00:21:48
    it's like oh yeah irritable bowel
  • 00:21:49
    syndrome what does that mean it means
  • 00:21:50
    your stomach hurts and you have diarrhea
  • 00:21:52
    or constipation or bloating it's like
  • 00:21:54
    that doesn't mean anything so
  • 00:21:55
    for me it took me a while because this
  • 00:21:57
    was 25 years ago and there wasn't like a
  • 00:21:59
    big functional medicine movement but
  • 00:22:00
    thank god i was working at a place
  • 00:22:03
    called canyon ranch where there was a
  • 00:22:04
    nutritionist kathy swift who
  • 00:22:07
    introduced me to this guy jeff bland
  • 00:22:09
    who's the father of functional medicine
  • 00:22:11
    and i heard him speak and it was like
  • 00:22:12
    the light went on i'm like oh okay
  • 00:22:14
    there's a different way of thinking i
  • 00:22:16
    said well if he's either crazy or he's a
  • 00:22:18
    genius and i better figure out which one
  • 00:22:20
    so i started to learn read about an
  • 00:22:22
    experiment on myself
  • 00:22:23
    so i was working part-time experiment
  • 00:22:25
    with my patients they would get better i
  • 00:22:26
    wouldn't get better i couldn't figure it
  • 00:22:27
    out i mean it took me years and years
  • 00:22:29
    and years
  • 00:22:31
    if i know what i knew now then i would
  • 00:22:33
    have gotten better a lot faster but i
  • 00:22:35
    didn't have all the information i didn't
  • 00:22:36
    have all the tools i didn't know but i
  • 00:22:38
    did find a huge level of mercury and all
  • 00:22:40
    sorts of other issues so
  • 00:22:41
    i think um
  • 00:22:43
    for me you know i was i'm not stubborn
  • 00:22:46
    but i knew i knew
  • 00:22:48
    like you going to special specialist
  • 00:22:50
    after specialist
  • 00:22:51
    that
  • 00:22:52
    this wasn't in my head like i knew i
  • 00:22:55
    wasn't depressed like you said although
  • 00:22:57
    i felt depressed i felt fatigued i felt
  • 00:23:00
    you know unable to cope or manage but i
  • 00:23:02
    knew it wasn't in my head yes it was
  • 00:23:04
    affecting my brain
  • 00:23:06
    but it wasn't emotional or psychological
  • 00:23:09
    i think you were yeah a step ahead of me
  • 00:23:11
    so i ended up referring myself to a
  • 00:23:14
    psychiatrist
  • 00:23:15
    um because well i went there too
  • 00:23:20
    by that point i wanted a diagnosis right
  • 00:23:23
    i wanted something i could hang my hat
  • 00:23:26
    on
  • 00:23:27
    um
  • 00:23:28
    it and and i hear this a lot from my
  • 00:23:30
    patients too it's it's giving a name to
  • 00:23:33
    something somehow makes it more real and
  • 00:23:36
    i had i had a moment in the bathroom i
  • 00:23:39
    remember i was coming out of the shower
  • 00:23:40
    and i was feeling you know my heart rate
  • 00:23:42
    racing and my blood pressure dropping
  • 00:23:44
    feeling i was going to faint
  • 00:23:46
    and i was going through all my symptoms
  • 00:23:49
    and i basically diagnose myself in the
  • 00:23:51
    bathroom with chronic fatigue syndrome
  • 00:23:53
    and dysautonomia this
  • 00:23:55
    the total dysfunction of the autonomic
  • 00:23:58
    nervous system right which is the branch
  • 00:24:00
    that controls
  • 00:24:01
    largely unconscious
  • 00:24:03
    vital body functions like heart rate
  • 00:24:05
    blood pressure digestion you know this
  • 00:24:08
    stuff it's like i really say well it's
  • 00:24:09
    like air traffic control well worse but
  • 00:24:12
    more serious because
  • 00:24:13
    as soon as it's gone you you realize
  • 00:24:16
    what it was sort of keeping together
  • 00:24:18
    managing all these moving parts
  • 00:24:21
    uh so nothing really felt like it was
  • 00:24:23
    working um within myself
  • 00:24:26
    and
  • 00:24:27
    you know like you said though i mean
  • 00:24:29
    these are syndromes and which kind of
  • 00:24:31
    mean nothing
  • 00:24:33
    so i didn't want that i wanted something
  • 00:24:36
    to
  • 00:24:37
    say it's treatable i always say the name
  • 00:24:39
    of your disease isn't the cause of your
  • 00:24:41
    disease right exactly dysautonomia just
  • 00:24:44
    means your nervous system isn't working
  • 00:24:46
    right chronic fatigue syndrome just
  • 00:24:47
    means you're tired all the time right
  • 00:24:49
    right exactly doesn't tell you why so um
  • 00:24:52
    yeah so i did i went to a psychiatrist i
  • 00:24:54
    think you know where a lot of patients
  • 00:24:56
    like us end up one day
  • 00:24:58
    um and she said you know something that
  • 00:25:02
    made me almost laugh you know she said
  • 00:25:04
    this is not you're not depressed you're
  • 00:25:06
    not anxious
  • 00:25:07
    i think it's your hormones i think it's
  • 00:25:09
    your immune system i mean she was really
  • 00:25:10
    actually going into the systems
  • 00:25:13
    but at the time like i was like well my
  • 00:25:15
    endocrinologist you know said it's not
  • 00:25:17
    my thyroid and right you know and
  • 00:25:19
    immunology why would i go to an
  • 00:25:21
    immunologist you know and so
  • 00:25:23
    uh so i kind of exited and had i known
  • 00:25:26
    about functional medicine or even
  • 00:25:28
    integrative medicine at the time
  • 00:25:31
    it would have been a much smoother path
  • 00:25:33
    but i
  • 00:25:34
    because i had to rebuild the paradigm
  • 00:25:36
    from the bottom up in order to even get
  • 00:25:38
    there
  • 00:25:40
    it took me
  • 00:25:41
    many more years yeah so how did you come
  • 00:25:43
    out of it
  • 00:25:45
    so
  • 00:25:46
    um the first thing i did was uh i went
  • 00:25:49
    back to basics
  • 00:25:51
    and so i did you know i did not suddenly
  • 00:25:54
    just start seeing an acupuncturist or
  • 00:25:56
    start you know trying energy medicine or
  • 00:25:59
    anything that's really alternative i was
  • 00:26:00
    like okay no i'm a doctor i start off
  • 00:26:02
    with crystals no i didn't i didn't
  • 00:26:05
    uh and oh god meditation was like it was
  • 00:26:07
    like pulling teeth so
  • 00:26:09
    um no i went back to basics and i i took
  • 00:26:13
    out my um pathology 101 textbook yeah
  • 00:26:16
    right pathologic basis of disease
  • 00:26:18
    robinson co-training exactly that's the
  • 00:26:20
    we all take it for sure second year
  • 00:26:22
    medical school right and kumar kumar was
  • 00:26:24
    my pathology teacher oh wow so i took it
  • 00:26:27
    out you know i still had it uh it was
  • 00:26:30
    highlighted dog-eared i mean and it
  • 00:26:32
    it actually
  • 00:26:33
    was good for me like if i know
  • 00:26:35
    neuroplasticity right it kind of brought
  • 00:26:37
    me back to this time where i had
  • 00:26:39
    more of a sense of agency over my life
  • 00:26:42
    so in that sense it was also healing i
  • 00:26:44
    didn't recognize it at the time
  • 00:26:47
    but i started reading about
  • 00:26:50
    how diseases how chronic disease
  • 00:26:52
    develops
  • 00:26:54
    and you know about cellular repair and
  • 00:26:56
    cellular injury
  • 00:26:57
    and i was like wait a minute and and
  • 00:26:59
    they actually talk about this was you
  • 00:27:01
    know this was published i don't even
  • 00:27:02
    know which edition but
  • 00:27:03
    20 years ago yeah
  • 00:27:05
    where they say the one cause
  • 00:27:09
    one effect paradigm does not work
  • 00:27:11
    anymore yeah right we're in this this
  • 00:27:14
    complex
  • 00:27:15
    living environment where
  • 00:27:18
    nutrition matters where environmental
  • 00:27:20
    toxins i mean this is 20 years ago yeah
  • 00:27:22
    and they probably wrote that
  • 00:27:24
    several years before that it was
  • 00:27:26
    published right
  • 00:27:27
    so i started reading that and i thought
  • 00:27:28
    wait a minute
  • 00:27:30
    and and then that diseases are not
  • 00:27:33
    defined by a set of criteria
  • 00:27:35
    yeah
  • 00:27:36
    they're this continuum this this process
  • 00:27:39
    and that yes i remember i remember going
  • 00:27:41
    back and reading chapter one and it said
  • 00:27:43
    any pathologic change
  • 00:27:45
    is always preceded by a biochemical
  • 00:27:48
    change
  • 00:27:49
    yes which means that anything you see
  • 00:27:51
    like on a microscope
  • 00:27:52
    there's got to be a lot of years of
  • 00:27:54
    stuff going wrong with your biochemistry
  • 00:27:56
    and physiology before that happens yes
  • 00:27:58
    years and we don't we don't know how to
  • 00:28:00
    look at that in your medicine we just
  • 00:28:02
    wait till you have something wrong and
  • 00:28:03
    then we go oh yeah now i don't know what
  • 00:28:04
    it is right right because in the the way
  • 00:28:08
    that we've been trained inflammation
  • 00:28:10
    which is what i had right widespread
  • 00:28:12
    inflammation in my nerves inflammation
  • 00:28:14
    in my gut inflammation in your brain in
  • 00:28:16
    my thyroid exactly um it doesn't qualify
  • 00:28:19
    as a treatable disease inflammation
  • 00:28:22
    right that's what i was joking say
  • 00:28:23
    functional medicine doctors are
  • 00:28:24
    inflammologists you know yes i love that
  • 00:28:27
    i remember that
  • 00:28:28
    from the first functional medicine
  • 00:28:31
    conference i went to yeah
  • 00:28:32
    where i gave a talk on that right right
  • 00:28:35
    right so um
  • 00:28:37
    and but so that was a really big aha
  • 00:28:39
    moment for me
  • 00:28:40
    was wait a minute
  • 00:28:42
    okay i understand this sudden
  • 00:28:44
    disturbance would i call it in beijing
  • 00:28:46
    but then i had the thyroiditis before
  • 00:28:49
    that which was sort of right the ant the
  • 00:28:51
    the
  • 00:28:53
    preceding
  • 00:28:54
    trigger yeah um
  • 00:28:57
    and then before that okay wait a minute
  • 00:28:59
    you know what when i was in residency
  • 00:29:01
    post call 36 hour shifts
  • 00:29:03
    i would my muscles would feel like
  • 00:29:06
    really cramping fibromyalgia like i felt
  • 00:29:08
    like i'd run a marathon
  • 00:29:09
    and i was dizzy
  • 00:29:11
    and i just assumed well of course
  • 00:29:12
    everyone feels this way because they're
  • 00:29:14
    exhausted
  • 00:29:15
    right right and so i started going
  • 00:29:17
    backwards and realizing okay this has
  • 00:29:20
    been going on for a long time
  • 00:29:22
    and
  • 00:29:24
    for some people that can be really you
  • 00:29:25
    know sort of disheartening but for me at
  • 00:29:28
    where i was
  • 00:29:29
    it was a little ounce of hope because
  • 00:29:33
    it meant that i could sort of stepwise
  • 00:29:36
    piecemeal
  • 00:29:38
    address inflammation in a way that i
  • 00:29:40
    could tolerate what i was really afraid
  • 00:29:42
    of because i was so brittle was having
  • 00:29:44
    any kind of setback that would push me
  • 00:29:46
    down further
  • 00:29:47
    and um so if i could do it in a way that
  • 00:29:50
    was more controlled and gentle
  • 00:29:53
    then um it felt like something i could
  • 00:29:55
    move forward with
  • 00:29:57
    so what did you do and um or the things
  • 00:30:00
    that helped you recover
  • 00:30:02
    so
  • 00:30:03
    what one of the things was um yeah was
  • 00:30:06
    it by the way chronic syndrome is not
  • 00:30:08
    something most people recover from right
  • 00:30:10
    fibromyalgia is not people something
  • 00:30:12
    people recover from absolutely unless
  • 00:30:14
    you see a functional medicine doctor
  • 00:30:17
    right right or have some kind of some
  • 00:30:18
    one of those you know spontaneous
  • 00:30:20
    remissions which is one in a million
  • 00:30:22
    probably right
  • 00:30:24
    um
  • 00:30:27
    yeah so so what i ended up doing also
  • 00:30:29
    was distancing myself from the diagnosis
  • 00:30:32
    and the prognosis
  • 00:30:34
    because it was more despairing
  • 00:30:37
    my marriage was held together by a
  • 00:30:38
    single thread you know i had two young
  • 00:30:40
    kids
  • 00:30:41
    i had everything to lose so i was like
  • 00:30:43
    if i don't get my act together and start
  • 00:30:45
    trying differently then i'm gonna lose
  • 00:30:48
    whatever
  • 00:30:49
    you know what what little i have left
  • 00:30:52
    so um i was really motivated and you
  • 00:30:54
    know the first thing i did was really um
  • 00:30:56
    i started reading about well i knew i
  • 00:30:58
    had to get sleep if i can't get sleep
  • 00:31:01
    i'm gonna not have enough energy
  • 00:31:03
    so
  • 00:31:04
    really looking understanding the
  • 00:31:06
    circadian clock
  • 00:31:07
    and you know i learned things that i was
  • 00:31:09
    surprised i didn't know already you know
  • 00:31:12
    i knew about the pet pineal gland and
  • 00:31:14
    the hypothalamus and we have this master
  • 00:31:16
    clock and we have jet lag and that's why
  • 00:31:19
    but i didn't know about um every organ
  • 00:31:23
    having its own yes clock your own rhythm
  • 00:31:27
    and even a whole field of chronobiology
  • 00:31:29
    where different kinds of chemo is better
  • 00:31:31
    given at different times of the day to
  • 00:31:33
    work better i know this is in
  • 00:31:34
    conventional medicine right and it makes
  • 00:31:36
    i mean it makes
  • 00:31:38
    like complete rational sense right
  • 00:31:41
    so um i started first of all being more
  • 00:31:43
    regimented about just okay you know i'm
  • 00:31:46
    gonna wake up you know and get up out of
  • 00:31:48
    bed
  • 00:31:49
    um even if i feel kind of miserable but
  • 00:31:51
    i'm gonna my body needs to know that
  • 00:31:54
    it's awake and that it's alive
  • 00:31:56
    so really basic fundamental um
  • 00:31:59
    steps
  • 00:32:00
    and um
  • 00:32:02
    and i
  • 00:32:03
    learned that
  • 00:32:04
    when we deviate i mean particularly when
  • 00:32:06
    you're brittle like that i mean of
  • 00:32:07
    course when we're more resilient like
  • 00:32:09
    now i have much more flexibility but
  • 00:32:11
    when when i was brittle you know any uh
  • 00:32:14
    when you stray away so often from a
  • 00:32:18
    routine it causes stress on the body so
  • 00:32:21
    i was like oh okay this is maybe an
  • 00:32:23
    easier way right i can reduce stress on
  • 00:32:25
    my body yeah rhythm
  • 00:32:26
    yeah i feed my dog at the same times
  • 00:32:30
    every day right why do i do that for
  • 00:32:31
    myself you know
  • 00:32:33
    you know and he gets walks now um at the
  • 00:32:35
    same time
  • 00:32:36
    why don't i do that for myself
  • 00:32:38
    so um
  • 00:32:40
    it was i started syncing myself also
  • 00:32:42
    with my kids right like okay i'm gonna
  • 00:32:44
    take care of my kids i can take care of
  • 00:32:45
    myself at the same time
  • 00:32:47
    so um i think that also as in that
  • 00:32:50
    caretaker mentality you know as a mother
  • 00:32:52
    or a partner or a doctor
  • 00:32:55
    is we we tend to put ourselves last
  • 00:32:58
    and so it was kind of time to put myself
  • 00:33:01
    first you know as my first patient
  • 00:33:04
    that's good and so you did the rhythm
  • 00:33:06
    and what else changed your diet and then
  • 00:33:08
    um yeah and you know a lot of it was
  • 00:33:10
    just asking new questions um
  • 00:33:12
    the diet piece i thought i was eating
  • 00:33:14
    quote healthy
  • 00:33:16
    um
  • 00:33:17
    you know which was
  • 00:33:18
    largely vegetarian um i was cooking
  • 00:33:22
    meals but also doing a lot of
  • 00:33:23
    prepackaged meals but you know not a lot
  • 00:33:25
    of processed stuff
  • 00:33:27
    um and
  • 00:33:29
    it wasn't until i saw an acupuncturist
  • 00:33:31
    so the acupuncturist that i saw robert
  • 00:33:33
    levine who's in berkeley
  • 00:33:35
    uh california he um
  • 00:33:38
    uh he was brilliant really brilliant
  • 00:33:40
    he's still practicing and he's a good
  • 00:33:42
    dear friend of mine a mentor of mine i
  • 00:33:45
    learned a ton from him about
  • 00:33:47
    understanding the body in terms of
  • 00:33:48
    systems so when my thyroid was out of
  • 00:33:51
    whack it wasn't just my thyroid it was
  • 00:33:54
    my whole hormone system yeah which is
  • 00:33:56
    tied then to the digestive system which
  • 00:33:59
    is tied to the immune system like it
  • 00:34:00
    suddenly started making sense into the
  • 00:34:03
    thigh bone right yeah exactly
  • 00:34:06
    and the body is connected to the brain
  • 00:34:08
    which is actually amazing in medicine
  • 00:34:10
    that our entire training teaches us the
  • 00:34:13
    opposite that there's all these organ
  • 00:34:15
    systems right we take the gi system and
  • 00:34:18
    the liver and the lungs and the brain
  • 00:34:21
    and the heart and the horm and you go to
  • 00:34:24
    specialists for every different part of
  • 00:34:25
    you and nobody connects the dots right
  • 00:34:28
    right and traditional chinese medicine
  • 00:34:29
    is actually a system of thinking of the
  • 00:34:31
    body as a system and that's what
  • 00:34:33
    functional medicine is it's a systems
  • 00:34:34
    thinking yes absolutely and so you know
  • 00:34:37
    we can extrapolate that to any size
  • 00:34:39
    system right we look at
  • 00:34:41
    our communities and our world right
  • 00:34:44
    and you know one of the things i feel
  • 00:34:46
    like that drives almost every everything
  • 00:34:48
    if not everything that we do as
  • 00:34:50
    individuals and that we do as societies
  • 00:34:52
    is how do i get more energy yeah right
  • 00:34:55
    my qigong teacher was talking about that
  • 00:34:57
    how do we get more energy you know
  • 00:34:59
    whether it's through you know chi means
  • 00:35:01
    energy yeah whether it's through
  • 00:35:03
    solar energy you know
  • 00:35:05
    fossil fuels whether it's yeah i mean
  • 00:35:07
    it's food um nature
  • 00:35:11
    movement
  • 00:35:12
    um so
  • 00:35:14
    you know i began to shift my thinking in
  • 00:35:17
    relationship to
  • 00:35:19
    health and disease in a much more living
  • 00:35:22
    sort of embodied
  • 00:35:24
    way
  • 00:35:25
    so the but the diet thing he was the
  • 00:35:28
    first one he was like you know you're so
  • 00:35:30
    deficient right now like i think you
  • 00:35:32
    need more meat you know and you need
  • 00:35:34
    more
  • 00:35:35
    of these heavier foods like you're doing
  • 00:35:36
    lots of salads and you're doing which
  • 00:35:38
    are great but not for you right now so i
  • 00:35:41
    hadn't even thought about a personalized
  • 00:35:43
    diet yeah and i was like more meats what
  • 00:35:46
    are you talking about you know and this
  • 00:35:47
    is before paleo days and all that
  • 00:35:50
    um
  • 00:35:52
    i began researching ancestral diets and
  • 00:35:54
    you know the work of
  • 00:35:56
    dentist uh weston a price price and
  • 00:35:59
    melvin connors right and it suddenly
  • 00:36:01
    made sense like oh yeah like okay i'm
  • 00:36:03
    gonna eat like my ancestors ate i'm
  • 00:36:06
    gonna prepare food and the way my
  • 00:36:07
    ancestors prepared so i can maximize
  • 00:36:09
    nutrient density nutrient density equals
  • 00:36:11
    more energy yeah
  • 00:36:14
    and then the gluten issue came up uh you
  • 00:36:16
    know i was really
  • 00:36:18
    skeptical yeah yeah it's one of the
  • 00:36:20
    biggest drivers of thyroid disease
  • 00:36:22
    hashimoto's yes yes
  • 00:36:24
    and the celiac experts know that but
  • 00:36:27
    endocrinologists don't
  • 00:36:29
    so there's no crosstalk there either and
  • 00:36:32
    this is in conventional medicine right
  • 00:36:34
    um
  • 00:36:35
    so and i do remember asking my
  • 00:36:37
    endocrinologist like what can i do what
  • 00:36:38
    can i do and he said nothing you know
  • 00:36:40
    it's genetic
  • 00:36:41
    oh gosh no it's um right right
  • 00:36:44
    it's a genetic predisposition but not
  • 00:36:46
    predetermination
  • 00:36:48
    and um so the but the gluten thing
  • 00:36:50
    didn't actually arise i think i was
  • 00:36:53
    partly in denial about it
  • 00:36:55
    um
  • 00:36:56
    i just you know there were lots of
  • 00:36:57
    rabbit holes that i knew about and i
  • 00:36:58
    just didn't want to go down
  • 00:37:00
    as long as i was steadily getting better
  • 00:37:02
    it was my older daughter who she was
  • 00:37:04
    five at the time i was taking her to her
  • 00:37:06
    first dentist visit and you know i felt
  • 00:37:09
    like as a family we ate pretty well she
  • 00:37:11
    didn't do a lot of sweets and
  • 00:37:13
    um but she had not just one cavity at
  • 00:37:16
    her visit she had six cavities wow yeah
  • 00:37:19
    and i was floored
  • 00:37:22
    so
  • 00:37:23
    uh you know and the dentist kept saying
  • 00:37:24
    well don't feel guilty don't feel guilty
  • 00:37:26
    you know and i was like wait a minute
  • 00:37:29
    i wasn't feeling guilty until you just
  • 00:37:30
    said that
  • 00:37:31
    but um it made me investigate like
  • 00:37:35
    something else is going on like i know
  • 00:37:37
    how we eat i know how she brushes
  • 00:37:39
    and i know cavities happen but like six
  • 00:37:42
    it just it didn't compute so i started
  • 00:37:45
    researching and that's when i came
  • 00:37:46
    across west nate price's work
  • 00:37:49
    around
  • 00:37:51
    the condition of teeth tied directly to
  • 00:37:55
    diet but then going deeper and then in
  • 00:37:58
    my research i came across gluten and
  • 00:38:00
    gluten causing enamel defects gluten you
  • 00:38:03
    know causing inflammation in the gut
  • 00:38:05
    which therefore could translate into
  • 00:38:07
    poor oral hygiene
  • 00:38:09
    and or just conditioning of the gums and
  • 00:38:12
    the teeth and um
  • 00:38:14
    so that was just kind of another step
  • 00:38:17
    in that process when i realized oh i got
  • 00:38:20
    to go back and again this is not
  • 00:38:22
    unconventional this is just traditional
  • 00:38:24
    hippocrates said all diseases begin in
  • 00:38:27
    the gut right so we're just kind of
  • 00:38:28
    going back
  • 00:38:30
    and i realized i have to learn i have to
  • 00:38:33
    learn how to heal my gut
  • 00:38:35
    as another step did you still have
  • 00:38:37
    digestive symptoms after that initial
  • 00:38:39
    gastroenteritis in china or did it get
  • 00:38:40
    better uh it was they were largely uh
  • 00:38:43
    quiescent until i removed gluten and i
  • 00:38:46
    removed gluten and i had
  • 00:38:48
    massive withdrawal
  • 00:38:50
    diarrhea irritable bowel and you know
  • 00:38:52
    and again this was kind of before the
  • 00:38:54
    time that i realized i understood about
  • 00:38:57
    detox and how healing happens is that
  • 00:38:59
    often it gets a lot worse before it gets
  • 00:39:01
    better and that it could be a good sign
  • 00:39:04
    so i um
  • 00:39:06
    i was really frightened by how severe my
  • 00:39:10
    my reaction was when i stopped gluten so
  • 00:39:12
    i was thinking it was a bad thing
  • 00:39:14
    um but then you know what i stuck with
  • 00:39:16
    it and a week later it calmed down
  • 00:39:19
    and then my health improved a notch
  • 00:39:21
    so and not only that but you know we
  • 00:39:23
    changed the way that our whole family
  • 00:39:25
    ate
  • 00:39:26
    and um my younger daughter so my my
  • 00:39:28
    older daughter's teeth like you know
  • 00:39:31
    really basically resolve i mean they
  • 00:39:34
    they became really strong some of her
  • 00:39:36
    cavities even filled really good like
  • 00:39:37
    they re-calcified
  • 00:39:39
    and
  • 00:39:40
    uh didn't have to get filled
  • 00:39:42
    my younger daughter um who
  • 00:39:45
    didn't really have any uh thing that you
  • 00:39:47
    know was alarming but she could she had
  • 00:39:49
    like this perioral eczema which is this
  • 00:39:52
    dermatitis which is very difficult to
  • 00:39:54
    treat with it's often dairy
  • 00:39:56
    steroids i mean which is how we treat
  • 00:39:58
    most dermatitis
  • 00:40:01
    red on the skin they put steroids on it
  • 00:40:03
    exactly exactly why is the skin
  • 00:40:04
    irritated right from the inside not the
  • 00:40:07
    outside so she had that and she had she
  • 00:40:09
    would get asthma when she got colds
  • 00:40:11
    and
  • 00:40:12
    both of those are totally totally
  • 00:40:14
    resolved
  • 00:40:16
    off of gluten
  • 00:40:17
    well off of gluten but also doing the
  • 00:40:18
    ancestral diet
  • 00:40:20
    so often dairy
  • 00:40:22
    yes
  • 00:40:23
    yes yeah and um
  • 00:40:25
    you know so it was just one of those
  • 00:40:26
    things i was like you know you can't
  • 00:40:28
    make this stuff up
  • 00:40:30
    and um this stuff isn't written up
  • 00:40:33
    um and it's very individualized
  • 00:40:36
    so but if you look in the literature you
  • 00:40:38
    know doctor where's the evidence where's
  • 00:40:39
    the evidence well there's 900 000 papers
  • 00:40:41
    published every year most doctors
  • 00:40:42
    haven't read that many of them
  • 00:40:44
    and the truth is that most of the ones
  • 00:40:46
    that are on these subjects are
  • 00:40:47
    completely ignored and when you put all
  • 00:40:49
    the dots together there's a pattern
  • 00:40:50
    there and the data that suggests that
  • 00:40:52
    these things are real that there is
  • 00:40:53
    something called leaky gut that there is
  • 00:40:55
    inflammation that comes from the
  • 00:40:56
    microbiome that you know foods do cause
  • 00:40:59
    reactions in the body that lead to all
  • 00:41:00
    these diseases that heavy metals and
  • 00:41:02
    toxins are an issue that cause disease i
  • 00:41:04
    mean there's no lack of data it's just
  • 00:41:06
    not data that doctors pay attention to
  • 00:41:08
    in literature right and you know and it
  • 00:41:10
    takes on average fourteen year i thought
  • 00:41:13
    seventeen oh seventeen oh god
  • 00:41:16
    that's not good for information that's
  • 00:41:18
    not a good day for information and
  • 00:41:20
    research to translate over to clinical
  • 00:41:21
    care yeah i think that's a good day the
  • 00:41:23
    guy who discovered that we should wash
  • 00:41:25
    our hands before giving you know any
  • 00:41:27
    surgery or
  • 00:41:29
    uh childbirth
  • 00:41:30
    was basically ridiculed for suggesting
  • 00:41:33
    that doctors could be causing their
  • 00:41:35
    patients to get sick by not washing
  • 00:41:36
    their hands and he was
  • 00:41:38
    basically exiled and ended up dying in
  • 00:41:40
    sort of disgrace with no money and you
  • 00:41:42
    know excommunicated from the medical
  • 00:41:44
    community semi-wise and it took 50 years
  • 00:41:46
    for them to go yeah maybe we should wash
  • 00:41:48
    their hands oh my god
  • 00:41:50
    no no
  • 00:41:52
    where's the science on that right yeah
  • 00:41:54
    right well it was just it was it was an
  • 00:41:55
    anathema the doctors that oh you could
  • 00:41:57
    suggest that a doctor would be causing
  • 00:41:58
    their patients to die from childbirth
  • 00:42:00
    fever because they didn't wash their
  • 00:42:01
    hands that's nonsense yeah so that it is
  • 00:42:03
    tough to change medical paradigms right
  • 00:42:05
    right but i mean some of it is common
  • 00:42:07
    sense yeah we don't need science to show
  • 00:42:09
    us that right well i mean when they
  • 00:42:11
    didn't know about bacteria common sense
  • 00:42:13
    was yeah that's true that's true yeah
  • 00:42:16
    so yeah i mean i kind of just did this
  • 00:42:18
    stepwise um progression
  • 00:42:20
    to get to the point where i was
  • 00:42:23
    much more able to get out of the house
  • 00:42:25
    yeah and then um
  • 00:42:27
    and one of the the things i also
  • 00:42:30
    explored which i would say maybe is down
  • 00:42:32
    the unconventional path was
  • 00:42:33
    um i began to
  • 00:42:36
    i began to shadow integrative doctors on
  • 00:42:39
    just different
  • 00:42:41
    um
  • 00:42:42
    different paths in integrative medicine
  • 00:42:44
    or sort of you know i didn't actually
  • 00:42:47
    know about functional medicine at the
  • 00:42:48
    time so i was shadowing a um
  • 00:42:52
    an anthroposophical
  • 00:42:53
    medicine doc
  • 00:42:55
    you know someone doing like sort of
  • 00:42:56
    anti-aging hormone therapies
  • 00:42:59
    um and then it was when i was shadowing
  • 00:43:01
    a integrative pediatrician
  • 00:43:04
    who said well you know what are you this
  • 00:43:05
    is i mean i was still
  • 00:43:07
    unwell i was had taken off work for a
  • 00:43:10
    couple of years and but i was starting
  • 00:43:12
    to think like oh how does it how would
  • 00:43:14
    it look
  • 00:43:16
    if i were to return to work like what
  • 00:43:17
    are the different ways i could practice
  • 00:43:20
    and um it was the pediatrician who said
  • 00:43:22
    what are you interested in i said well
  • 00:43:24
    you know i really i love the traditional
  • 00:43:26
    chinese medicine paradigm it makes so
  • 00:43:28
    much sense to me the system's thinking
  • 00:43:30
    you know about the gut you know sort of
  • 00:43:31
    being the foundation of healing and i'm
  • 00:43:34
    really you know ancestral health you
  • 00:43:36
    know uh figures into it
  • 00:43:38
    and she said um it sounds like you you
  • 00:43:41
    know you're interested in functional
  • 00:43:42
    medicine i was like what is that what's
  • 00:43:44
    that what is that
  • 00:43:45
    so um and she really strongly
  • 00:43:48
    recommended that i go see the uh take
  • 00:43:50
    this course with institute for
  • 00:43:52
    functional medicine yeah so i it was
  • 00:43:54
    sort of a a bone for me right like i i
  • 00:43:56
    could i was aiming to get
  • 00:43:59
    healthy enough to be able to travel to
  • 00:44:02
    go attend a conference
  • 00:44:04
    and so um
  • 00:44:05
    and it came to santa monica and i live
  • 00:44:07
    in in the bay area so it was it felt
  • 00:44:10
    doable it wasn't yeah across country
  • 00:44:13
    and um
  • 00:44:14
    and i went and it was i think i had that
  • 00:44:16
    aha moment like you did when you you
  • 00:44:18
    know listened to jeff bland
  • 00:44:21
    i was like oh my god
  • 00:44:23
    oh my god and like
  • 00:44:25
    this is this is like this is something
  • 00:44:27
    that's been developed and developing
  • 00:44:29
    and there's a framework i don't have to
  • 00:44:31
    make this up no
  • 00:44:33
    um so it was a it was a really important
  • 00:44:37
    turning point for me it gave me hope
  • 00:44:39
    both in
  • 00:44:40
    you know as a
  • 00:44:42
    as a patient but also as a doctor how
  • 00:44:44
    can i give back
  • 00:44:46
    um what it did also cause was it caused
  • 00:44:49
    a little bit of anxiety
  • 00:44:51
    yeah i had to relearn medicine
  • 00:44:53
    i had to relearn medicine but then
  • 00:44:55
    suddenly
  • 00:44:56
    i went from
  • 00:44:58
    having no or very few options
  • 00:45:01
    to having infinite options and how to
  • 00:45:03
    get better
  • 00:45:04
    yeah yeah right okay like which diet
  • 00:45:06
    when you know which supplements you know
  • 00:45:08
    what do i you know what do i rule myself
  • 00:45:11
    out for mold and mercury and all these
  • 00:45:12
    things
  • 00:45:13
    and it felt very overwhelming
  • 00:45:16
    and so that's when i ended up i i
  • 00:45:18
    actually didn't choose this
  • 00:45:20
    i did and you know i had a very an
  • 00:45:22
    unconventional navigator was we had a
  • 00:45:24
    visit from some friends of ours
  • 00:45:27
    who uh ended up staying with us and
  • 00:45:30
    um we had known them for years but
  • 00:45:32
    they'd never stayed with us and we've
  • 00:45:33
    always known them through sort of the
  • 00:45:35
    sustainability work right so i was i had
  • 00:45:37
    been doing environmental health my
  • 00:45:39
    husband is in public policy around
  • 00:45:41
    renewable energy so we knew them through
  • 00:45:43
    um work
  • 00:45:44
    circles and anyways we were hosting them
  • 00:45:47
    for a weekend and they come
  • 00:45:50
    we knew that the wife pia
  • 00:45:53
    was um was also clairvoyant so she was
  • 00:45:56
    she was a sustainable architect and her
  • 00:45:58
    husband was one of the leading climate
  • 00:46:00
    physicists
  • 00:46:02
    so there was this very
  • 00:46:03
    skill to have exactly so they're very
  • 00:46:06
    dynamic couple we knew about her
  • 00:46:08
    clairvoyance through sort of hearsay but
  • 00:46:10
    we we had never experienced it up front
  • 00:46:13
    and kind of never
  • 00:46:14
    really were curious enough to go there
  • 00:46:17
    oh yeah exactly that's how i felt
  • 00:46:19
    so
  • 00:46:20
    they ended up staying in our house and
  • 00:46:22
    um one of the things was that uh my
  • 00:46:25
    younger daughter was having night
  • 00:46:26
    terrors and um
  • 00:46:29
    for four months which did not bode well
  • 00:46:31
    for my insomnia
  • 00:46:33
    and we had tried everything i mean and
  • 00:46:35
    and actually gone out kind of on an
  • 00:46:36
    alternative limb right she was doing
  • 00:46:38
    like chamomile drops and
  • 00:46:40
    um you know some homeopathy
  • 00:46:44
    uh but nothing really touched her and so
  • 00:46:46
    pia walks into her house and she starts
  • 00:46:48
    coughing
  • 00:46:50
    coughing coughing
  • 00:46:51
    and uh and she said you know there's
  • 00:46:53
    something uh there's something going on
  • 00:46:56
    the energy in this house is really heavy
  • 00:46:58
    you know do you guys feel it
  • 00:47:00
    and we're all looking at each other like
  • 00:47:01
    okay
  • 00:47:02
    you know right right and uh she said
  • 00:47:04
    well but it's really heavy and so she
  • 00:47:06
    she said
  • 00:47:07
    do you mind if i just walk around so
  • 00:47:09
    she's walking around and she said it's
  • 00:47:10
    heaviest in the girl's room
  • 00:47:13
    and so
  • 00:47:14
    you know
  • 00:47:15
    nothing opens your mind like desperation
  • 00:47:17
    right sure right
  • 00:47:19
    so
  • 00:47:20
    people only change when they have
  • 00:47:22
    when they don't have any peace syndrome
  • 00:47:24
    anymore you know any peace syndrome is
  • 00:47:26
    not enough pain yes yes when people have
  • 00:47:28
    enough pain they're gonna do whatever
  • 00:47:29
    right right and you hit that dead end
  • 00:47:31
    right
  • 00:47:32
    so uh i just said i said you know what
  • 00:47:34
    maybe it's heavy because sonia my
  • 00:47:36
    daughter's been crying every single
  • 00:47:38
    night right
  • 00:47:39
    and she said wait a minute she said no
  • 00:47:41
    no no it's the other way around
  • 00:47:43
    sonja's crying because she feels the
  • 00:47:46
    heaviness too i'm like okay whatever
  • 00:47:49
    so she goes off to whole foods of all
  • 00:47:53
    places
  • 00:47:54
    gets a sage wand right with a smudge
  • 00:47:56
    stick which i had never heard of before
  • 00:47:59
    it's a native american way of course
  • 00:48:01
    exactly so she just goes around she said
  • 00:48:03
    well you it's really important that you
  • 00:48:04
    come with me you're the lady of the
  • 00:48:06
    house and your intention really matters
  • 00:48:08
    and i'm like but my intention is i don't
  • 00:48:09
    actually believe what you're doing she
  • 00:48:11
    said no no just
  • 00:48:13
    just say whatever doesn't belong here
  • 00:48:14
    needs to leave
  • 00:48:16
    and if the thing that really um
  • 00:48:18
    convinced me to do it with her
  • 00:48:21
    well first of all is low risk i mean
  • 00:48:22
    there was right i'm always looking for
  • 00:48:24
    high potential gain low risk a little
  • 00:48:26
    sage
  • 00:48:27
    exactly never hurt anyone um but
  • 00:48:30
    get out she said that she had a vision
  • 00:48:33
    and she described this vision of this
  • 00:48:35
    man you know tall slender
  • 00:48:37
    reddish brown hair balding right here
  • 00:48:40
    wearing a plaid shirt
  • 00:48:41
    and it sent chills down my my just threw
  • 00:48:44
    out my body because
  • 00:48:46
    this was the seller of the house who
  • 00:48:48
    we'd met three times
  • 00:48:50
    like 280
  • 00:48:51
    wow and so she said he died
  • 00:48:53
    he had not died he had moved out but he
  • 00:48:56
    had not wanted to move out
  • 00:48:58
    and she said
  • 00:49:00
    that's just what keeps coming to me when
  • 00:49:02
    i look at the energy and i was like okay
  • 00:49:04
    whoa
  • 00:49:06
    weird but okay like that's really spot
  • 00:49:09
    on yeah so we just walked around and uh
  • 00:49:11
    you know and i was kind of just being
  • 00:49:13
    very sympathetic too i sympathized with
  • 00:49:17
    the cellar right that he had to leave
  • 00:49:18
    his home yeah
  • 00:49:20
    so um
  • 00:49:22
    you know but but i was i wasn't holding
  • 00:49:24
    my breath and from that night on sonia
  • 00:49:26
    slept
  • 00:49:27
    soundly amazing i mean you know to this
  • 00:49:30
    day she's an incredible sleeper
  • 00:49:32
    so
  • 00:49:33
    you know and then there was still part
  • 00:49:35
    of me who was like well you know there's
  • 00:49:36
    no control you know how do we really
  • 00:49:38
    know maybe it was coincidental
  • 00:49:40
    but before pia left what she did was she
  • 00:49:43
    said um oh i actually approached her and
  • 00:49:45
    i said well if you can lift the
  • 00:49:47
    heaviness in a house can you live what's
  • 00:49:48
    wrong with me can you lift the heaviness
  • 00:49:50
    in my body
  • 00:49:51
    you know i mean i'm much smaller than
  • 00:49:52
    this house
  • 00:49:54
    and
  • 00:49:54
    she said oh you know it doesn't work
  • 00:49:57
    quite like that
  • 00:49:58
    um and she said but i can do one thing i
  • 00:50:01
    can teach you how to develop intuition
  • 00:50:03
    which i had never heard of i did not
  • 00:50:05
    know that intuition was something like
  • 00:50:08
    music or art like you can develop it
  • 00:50:10
    yeah you can practice it and she was
  • 00:50:13
    very pragmatic about it and she said no
  • 00:50:14
    this doesn't mean you're going to be
  • 00:50:15
    clairvoyant right but it just means that
  • 00:50:18
    you can learn to to open this other
  • 00:50:20
    side of your brain that has probably
  • 00:50:22
    been closed off for a long time because
  • 00:50:24
    of your training and your upbringing so
  • 00:50:26
    i um
  • 00:50:28
    so she taught me how to do that
  • 00:50:30
    um well she taught me what i needed to
  • 00:50:32
    do to begin to practice to open up to
  • 00:50:34
    that and a lot of it was it was so basic
  • 00:50:37
    a lot of it was just silencing my
  • 00:50:39
    analytical mind and
  • 00:50:42
    being in my body
  • 00:50:43
    and that second part was the heart well
  • 00:50:45
    actually they were both really hard they
  • 00:50:46
    were both really hard silent the
  • 00:50:47
    analytical mind being in my body um
  • 00:50:51
    because my body was so uncomfortable
  • 00:50:52
    yeah and so she said you know you can
  • 00:50:55
    only heal something that you are
  • 00:50:57
    connected to
  • 00:50:59
    you can heal something you're just
  • 00:51:00
    detached from
  • 00:51:02
    so that was
  • 00:51:04
    healing on multiple levels both that i
  • 00:51:06
    had to inhabit my body which was
  • 00:51:08
    probably one of the biggest
  • 00:51:12
    steps in terms of healing
  • 00:51:14
    not being afraid of it but going into it
  • 00:51:16
    and then also
  • 00:51:18
    [Music]
  • 00:51:19
    learning how to read sensations for as
  • 00:51:22
    messages and not just
  • 00:51:25
    symptoms that you know we're making them
  • 00:51:27
    miserable yeah yeah i always say the
  • 00:51:28
    smartest doctor in the room is your own
  • 00:51:30
    body if you listen to it absolutely
  • 00:51:32
    absolutely so
  • 00:51:34
    the intuition piece came in incredibly
  • 00:51:36
    handy
  • 00:51:37
    when
  • 00:51:38
    i
  • 00:51:39
    was introduced to functional medicine i
  • 00:51:41
    wasn't really practicing it
  • 00:51:43
    um because i was doing steadily better
  • 00:51:46
    and then i were you trying some of it on
  • 00:51:48
    yourself
  • 00:51:49
    i was trying some of it on myself but
  • 00:51:50
    like it was it was you know i mean you
  • 00:51:52
    know how it is when you're like it's
  • 00:51:54
    like trying you know someone
  • 00:51:56
    wants you to play a piano piece you
  • 00:51:57
    can't even read the notes yet and it
  • 00:51:58
    just it's laborious so i wasn't um i
  • 00:52:02
    wasn't motivated
  • 00:52:03
    but then i go to the intro
  • 00:52:06
    to functional medicine conference
  • 00:52:08
    and
  • 00:52:09
    saw all these tools um
  • 00:52:12
    but then felt overwhelmed and then i was
  • 00:52:14
    motivated to practice intuition
  • 00:52:17
    and i really learned to use intuition to
  • 00:52:19
    guide me like
  • 00:52:20
    how do i choose what to do next um is
  • 00:52:23
    this the right diet for me
  • 00:52:26
    is gluten really you know is it
  • 00:52:27
    something that i can
  • 00:52:28
    return to or is it something that i
  • 00:52:30
    really need to stay off of strictly so
  • 00:52:33
    um
  • 00:52:34
    it began to
  • 00:52:36
    it made that navigation much easier for
  • 00:52:39
    me
  • 00:52:40
    and um and it's something that i
  • 00:52:41
    encourage my patients to you know to
  • 00:52:44
    develop
  • 00:52:45
    if they're interested it's it's simple
  • 00:52:46
    it just takes a lot of repetition and
  • 00:52:49
    quiet listening so you found you know
  • 00:52:51
    one of the causes was gluten right
  • 00:52:54
    and toxins you got from china that
  • 00:52:56
    you've yes worked on getting rid of
  • 00:52:58
    right was there anything else i did a
  • 00:52:59
    lot of detoxes
  • 00:53:00
    um so you know i learned how to balance
  • 00:53:03
    my hormones um i think my hormones were
  • 00:53:06
    really out of whack after that that
  • 00:53:08
    incident what does that mean
  • 00:53:09
    well my my estrogen and progesterone
  • 00:53:11
    levels were really low
  • 00:53:13
    so
  • 00:53:14
    um i
  • 00:53:16
    you know
  • 00:53:17
    for a while i actually took bioidentical
  • 00:53:19
    hormones to just support my system so i
  • 00:53:22
    could get strong enough just to help
  • 00:53:24
    balance out the immune system
  • 00:53:26
    and then as my
  • 00:53:28
    whole system got stronger
  • 00:53:30
    i was able to really
  • 00:53:32
    wean off of those and and
  • 00:53:35
    just last year even like 14 years later
  • 00:53:37
    i actually completely tapered off my
  • 00:53:39
    thyroid medicine as well
  • 00:53:41
    so i
  • 00:53:42
    didn't know that was possible yeah
  • 00:53:44
    amazing what happens when you learn how
  • 00:53:46
    to take care of your mind amazing yeah
  • 00:53:48
    yeah i mean functional medicine is an
  • 00:53:49
    incredible roadmap it's really about
  • 00:53:52
    thinking differently about disease and
  • 00:53:54
    it's what you said it's about
  • 00:53:55
    understanding the body is a system where
  • 00:53:57
    everything's connected
  • 00:53:58
    where there are root causes of things
  • 00:54:00
    that we can get to where there's things
  • 00:54:02
    your body needs like rhythm or the right
  • 00:54:04
    food to help it restore balance
  • 00:54:07
    and when you do that
  • 00:54:09
    for yourself it works and often you know
  • 00:54:12
    it's not something you even have to do
  • 00:54:13
    in a doctor's office a lot of things
  • 00:54:15
    that actually work to create balance are
  • 00:54:18
    things that
  • 00:54:19
    everybody can do whether it's eating
  • 00:54:20
    well
  • 00:54:21
    moving right sleeping absolutely
  • 00:54:24
    meditating
  • 00:54:25
    connecting you know being the social
  • 00:54:28
    support system and then sometimes you do
  • 00:54:30
    need help to get rid of some of the
  • 00:54:31
    drivers things like heavy metals or
  • 00:54:33
    infections like lime which you said you
  • 00:54:35
    had or mold if you're which i had and
  • 00:54:37
    almost died from a couple years ago
  • 00:54:39
    um allergens those those are the things
  • 00:54:41
    that actually you know you might need a
  • 00:54:43
    little help with but
  • 00:54:44
    if you're suffering out there if you're
  • 00:54:46
    listening and you're wondering you know
  • 00:54:48
    what's the road how do i how do i get
  • 00:54:50
    better you know i've been told that this
  • 00:54:52
    is just something i have to live with
  • 00:54:53
    that i have to manage that i take
  • 00:54:55
    medications for i encourage you to just
  • 00:54:58
    have hope because if if you are
  • 00:55:00
    suffering there is a road for most
  • 00:55:02
    people to recover and functional
  • 00:55:04
    medicine
  • 00:55:05
    is the gps system to figure out how to
  • 00:55:07
    navigate that road yeah and it really is
  • 00:55:10
    a powerful model it's not the answer to
  • 00:55:12
    everything but it is a far better
  • 00:55:14
    mousetrap than we were trained with in
  • 00:55:15
    conventional medicine and it's
  • 00:55:18
    what i've done for the last 25 years it
  • 00:55:19
    clearly is what helped you recover it
  • 00:55:21
    helped me recover and i wouldn't really
  • 00:55:23
    do what i'm doing if i didn't actually
  • 00:55:25
    understand the body in that way and
  • 00:55:27
    every day you know i i remember first
  • 00:55:29
    practicing functional medicine i wasn't
  • 00:55:30
    like for you but
  • 00:55:31
    i was like i would tell people to do
  • 00:55:33
    this stuff that was sort of outside the
  • 00:55:35
    box what i learned in medical school and
  • 00:55:36
    they'd have severe migraines you know 25
  • 00:55:38
    times a month or they'd be
  • 00:55:40
    having severe
  • 00:55:42
    irritable bowel or they'd have you know
  • 00:55:44
    an autoimmune disease and and i would
  • 00:55:46
    tell them to do you know change your
  • 00:55:48
    diet do this do that
  • 00:55:49
    and they call me back six weeks later
  • 00:55:51
    whatever and they were like i'm better
  • 00:55:52
    and i'm like you are really i say the
  • 00:55:54
    same i'm like what
  • 00:55:56
    that worked okay fine you know i was
  • 00:55:59
    like i really took me years and years to
  • 00:56:02
    expect
  • 00:56:04
    that people would get better because i
  • 00:56:05
    was like well i don't know what i'm
  • 00:56:06
    doing i'm just going to try this stuff
  • 00:56:08
    and
  • 00:56:09
    it seems to make sense and it's not
  • 00:56:11
    going to hurt them right and
  • 00:56:14
    people just recovered and it just was
  • 00:56:16
    amazing to me yeah i mean i had a woman
  • 00:56:18
    the other day who came in with
  • 00:56:19
    vestibular migraines which is a terrible
  • 00:56:21
    kind of migraine where your head is
  • 00:56:23
    spinning you're in vertigo it's like you
  • 00:56:25
    were saying you experienced she had
  • 00:56:26
    severe migraines 25 times a month she
  • 00:56:29
    had severe
  • 00:56:30
    other quote other symptoms so she was
  • 00:56:32
    seeing the neurologist for that but they
  • 00:56:33
    weren't worrying about her gut and she
  • 00:56:35
    was having severe bloating
  • 00:56:38
    fluid retention you know digestive
  • 00:56:40
    issues she had anxiety i mean she
  • 00:56:42
    couldn't even come in my office without
  • 00:56:44
    the door being open wow and she was
  • 00:56:47
    really smart young woman who wanted to
  • 00:56:49
    go to be a nurse practitioner she was a
  • 00:56:51
    nurse
  • 00:56:51
    and it wasn't in her head and she was on
  • 00:56:53
    all these antidepressants and
  • 00:56:54
    psychiatric medications and any anxiety
  • 00:56:56
    medications and vertigo medications
  • 00:56:59
    micromaniac you know the drill
  • 00:57:01
    and i'm like well and then medications
  • 00:57:03
    to counter those side effects of those
  • 00:57:05
    medications right and so you know
  • 00:57:07
    i just followed the basic map of how do
  • 00:57:09
    you help people restore health and
  • 00:57:12
    function and for her i was like well you
  • 00:57:14
    know she's got a lot of inflammation
  • 00:57:15
    going on i could see her she was swollen
  • 00:57:17
    she had fluid retention she had gained a
  • 00:57:19
    bunch of weight
  • 00:57:21
    and
  • 00:57:22
    you know i wasn't treating her migraine
  • 00:57:24
    i was helping restore her gut function
  • 00:57:26
    yes and i was helping her you know eat a
  • 00:57:29
    diet that was anti-inflammatory and i
  • 00:57:30
    was helping her
  • 00:57:32
    with certain nutrients she was low in
  • 00:57:34
    and
  • 00:57:35
    you know i never really had a patient
  • 00:57:37
    like this before you know that was that
  • 00:57:39
    severe that had vestibular migraines and
  • 00:57:41
    in functional medicine it doesn't matter
  • 00:57:43
    if you've never seen the disease before
  • 00:57:44
    because if you follow if you follow the
  • 00:57:46
    principles of
  • 00:57:48
    removing the stuff that's causing a
  • 00:57:50
    problem and adding in the stuff that
  • 00:57:51
    creates health the body knows what to do
  • 00:57:53
    it's super smart right the body figures
  • 00:57:55
    it out right we don't have to no and so
  • 00:57:58
    i i just you know fixed her gut she had
  • 00:58:00
    really bad i gave her stuff to clear up
  • 00:58:02
    you know sibo she had bacterial
  • 00:58:03
    overgrowth i should like fungal
  • 00:58:05
    overgrowth in her gut so i cleared all
  • 00:58:07
    that out i restored her gut with a gut
  • 00:58:10
    health shake which contained you know
  • 00:58:11
    polyphenols and cranberry and
  • 00:58:13
    pomegranate green tea and gave her
  • 00:58:15
    probiotics and prebiotics and you know
  • 00:58:17
    just fiber and things to help her gut
  • 00:58:20
    a few basic nutrients got her on an
  • 00:58:22
    anti-inflammatory gluten dairy-free diet
  • 00:58:24
    she came back six weeks later i didn't
  • 00:58:26
    recognize her i mean wow she all the flu
  • 00:58:28
    went out of her body
  • 00:58:30
    she was bright and alert
  • 00:58:32
    she was funny
  • 00:58:33
    and had not had a migraine and was you
  • 00:58:36
    know symptom-free her gut was completely
  • 00:58:39
    better and she was off the medication
  • 00:58:42
    that's amazing but i don't want to
  • 00:58:44
    discount also the fact that you
  • 00:58:46
    acknowledged her and validated her yeah
  • 00:58:48
    i mean which is a huge piece i'm like
  • 00:58:50
    you're not crazy you saw her right i
  • 00:58:52
    mean she was in bed and she i mean i
  • 00:58:53
    could tell she wasn't a malinger she
  • 00:58:55
    wasn't a whiner right but she get it's
  • 00:58:57
    easy to dismiss these patients and go
  • 00:58:59
    well it's just you know they're just
  • 00:59:00
    psychological whatever just give them
  • 00:59:02
    some meds and kick them off right but
  • 00:59:03
    then they're psychological because they
  • 00:59:04
    feel miserable right well that's very
  • 00:59:06
    important right right right i'm like
  • 00:59:08
    wait a minute like okay
  • 00:59:10
    your brain is right the difficult
  • 00:59:11
    patients are the ones who are really
  • 00:59:13
    suffering right that's why they keep
  • 00:59:14
    coming back that's why they're irritable
  • 00:59:15
    that's why
  • 00:59:16
    and you and your doctors called you a
  • 00:59:18
    difficult patient yeah i mean i call
  • 00:59:20
    myself a difficult patient and you want
  • 00:59:22
    to be in a difficult manner but
  • 00:59:25
    but it's the difficult way it's the
  • 00:59:26
    difficult relationships
  • 00:59:28
    that force us to grow i mean we have to
  • 00:59:30
    start asking the question like wait a
  • 00:59:32
    minute and i would say it's like any
  • 00:59:34
    other relationship right even if one
  • 00:59:36
    person is the one who's sort of being
  • 00:59:38
    dismissed and is kind of miserable i
  • 00:59:39
    mean both people in the relationship
  • 00:59:41
    know it's not something's not working
  • 00:59:42
    that's right so even before i got sick i
  • 00:59:45
    knew that the tools that i had in my
  • 00:59:47
    doctor's bag were really limited
  • 00:59:49
    i already knew that but that's kind of
  • 00:59:51
    the best i could do yeah but you didn't
  • 00:59:52
    know what else was out there right i
  • 00:59:54
    think you know i mean you and i both
  • 00:59:55
    have the experience of being knocked to
  • 00:59:57
    our knees
  • 00:59:58
    in order to figure out a different way i
  • 01:00:00
    don't wish that on all our medical
  • 01:00:02
    colleagues no but i do wish they would
  • 01:00:04
    understand that that the paradigm that
  • 01:00:06
    we learned is only part of the story and
  • 01:00:08
    that yeah
  • 01:00:09
    everything i learned in medical school
  • 01:00:11
    is useful and i use it and i rely on it
  • 01:00:14
    but there's another meta layer
  • 01:00:16
    of understanding how the body is
  • 01:00:19
    organized
  • 01:00:20
    because those are just the piece parts
  • 01:00:22
    like what does the puzzle look like when
  • 01:00:23
    you put it together that's what
  • 01:00:25
    functional medicine is and it's such a
  • 01:00:26
    powerful model it's what we do at the
  • 01:00:28
    ultra wellness center in lenox you know
  • 01:00:29
    i have uh three other doctors two pas
  • 01:00:32
    five nutritionists and we work with
  • 01:00:34
    people from all over the world we've
  • 01:00:35
    like you know probably over 70 years of
  • 01:00:37
    clinical experience together and it's
  • 01:00:39
    just amazing the kinds of things that
  • 01:00:41
    that people can recover from and now
  • 01:00:42
    you're doing that in your own practice
  • 01:00:44
    you've written this great book brave new
  • 01:00:45
    medicine which is a really fabulous
  • 01:00:47
    story about how you as a physician
  • 01:00:50
    understood that there's a different way
  • 01:00:52
    to heal your illnesses and your
  • 01:00:53
    autoimmune disease and all this weird
  • 01:00:56
    nonsense that we don't know how to deal
  • 01:00:58
    with in medicine right and sort of just
  • 01:01:00
    what does it look like the lived
  • 01:01:02
    experience
  • 01:01:03
    um you know to your point though i mean
  • 01:01:06
    um i um right at the end of my book
  • 01:01:09
    about this essay this famous essay
  • 01:01:11
    called arrogance back in i think was
  • 01:01:13
    1980 in the
  • 01:01:15
    the um new england journal of med
  • 01:01:17
    medicine editor at that time or he had
  • 01:01:20
    been retired ingle finger he was dying
  • 01:01:23
    from cancer and had written this uh very
  • 01:01:26
    provocative essay
  • 01:01:27
    where amy was talking about arrogance at
  • 01:01:29
    the time and i would say it's probably
  • 01:01:30
    arrogance is probably not the you know
  • 01:01:32
    not the vice of today i think it's more
  • 01:01:36
    um just not seeing right not seeing or
  • 01:01:39
    denial it's a little bit of hubris a
  • 01:01:41
    little bit of denial
  • 01:01:44
    um
  • 01:01:45
    and
  • 01:01:46
    he had posed the question what would
  • 01:01:49
    what would medicine look like if one of
  • 01:01:52
    the prerequisites for all doctors
  • 01:01:54
    entering medical school was that they
  • 01:01:55
    had a serious illness yeah like what
  • 01:01:58
    would it look like right
  • 01:02:00
    and so
  • 01:02:02
    yeah would there be more empathy would
  • 01:02:03
    there be more
  • 01:02:05
    belief i mean like this this one of the
  • 01:02:08
    central
  • 01:02:09
    questions in my life has always been
  • 01:02:11
    around belief yeah right like what is
  • 01:02:14
    true and what is not true how do we make
  • 01:02:16
    ourselves believe things if we don't
  • 01:02:18
    yeah um and
  • 01:02:21
    yeah and like how do how do we start
  • 01:02:24
    with that
  • 01:02:25
    like as a doctor like just believing all
  • 01:02:27
    patients
  • 01:02:29
    and that's really important because you
  • 01:02:31
    know
  • 01:02:32
    as physicians we were subliminally
  • 01:02:35
    trained to
  • 01:02:36
    have a dismissive attitude to many
  • 01:02:38
    categories of patients you know if you
  • 01:02:39
    had irritable bowel well that was in
  • 01:02:41
    your head or if you had chronic fatigue
  • 01:02:43
    or fibromyalgia or if you had
  • 01:02:45
    you know even more serious illnesses
  • 01:02:47
    like crohn's or colitis oh that was
  • 01:02:49
    psychological yeah it manifested
  • 01:02:51
    physically but you know these were
  • 01:02:53
    trouble patients right right
  • 01:02:55
    i mean which is so ironic and
  • 01:02:57
    unfortunate i mean for everyone i mean
  • 01:02:59
    like i know for myself and many of my
  • 01:03:02
    colleagues and friends that i
  • 01:03:03
    went into medicine to alleviate
  • 01:03:05
    suffering
  • 01:03:07
    and
  • 01:03:07
    you know
  • 01:03:08
    how much of it are we perpetuating and
  • 01:03:10
    you know one of the the themes also that
  • 01:03:13
    that comes up over and over again with
  • 01:03:15
    chronic illness and i know for myself
  • 01:03:17
    too is
  • 01:03:18
    you know reaching that point of
  • 01:03:19
    hopelessness or helplessness and
  • 01:03:22
    there becomes a learned helplessness on
  • 01:03:24
    top of that when you get punted from
  • 01:03:26
    doctor to doctor to doctor so are we
  • 01:03:28
    perpetuating illness as well through
  • 01:03:31
    this system and
  • 01:03:33
    you know i
  • 01:03:34
    so yeah would i want doctors to go
  • 01:03:36
    through this i mean hell no
  • 01:03:38
    but you know so i sort of turned that
  • 01:03:41
    question on its head like what would
  • 01:03:42
    medicine look like if
  • 01:03:45
    doctors nurses healthcare practitioners
  • 01:03:49
    had an immersion in wellness
  • 01:03:53
    yeah like what if doctors
  • 01:03:55
    right were taught to sleep well what if
  • 01:03:58
    doctors were fed well in their training
  • 01:04:00
    what if doctors you know
  • 01:04:03
    terrible what would it
  • 01:04:05
    look like what would medicine look like
  • 01:04:07
    if we it could have sleeping consider
  • 01:04:09
    weaknesses and residency training i know
  • 01:04:11
    that i know that and
  • 01:04:14
    but would we
  • 01:04:16
    would we have that experience then
  • 01:04:19
    to be able to translate to our patients
  • 01:04:22
    right i mean we're ultimately teachers
  • 01:04:24
    well that's what functional medicine is
  • 01:04:25
    it's a science of creating health yes
  • 01:04:27
    and when you do that disease goes away
  • 01:04:29
    as a side effect yes and you're right i
  • 01:04:31
    think you know if you look at most
  • 01:04:32
    healing traditions
  • 01:04:34
    a lot of shamans or healers went through
  • 01:04:37
    some crisis some health crisis some
  • 01:04:40
    trauma some some initiatory illness that
  • 01:04:42
    was sort of
  • 01:04:44
    helped you know
  • 01:04:45
    sort of select them to be healers
  • 01:04:48
    we don't do that anymore we just have
  • 01:04:49
    the hazing of medical school
  • 01:04:52
    but that makes us all kind of unwell in
  • 01:04:54
    a way and we sort of then normalize that
  • 01:04:57
    absolutely yeah yeah and and then we
  • 01:04:59
    sort of pass it on right it's a kind of
  • 01:05:01
    trauma
  • 01:05:02
    it is it's a kind of trauma and we pass
  • 01:05:04
    it on to our patients
  • 01:05:07
    so how do we break that cycle and you
  • 01:05:09
    know i would say one thing though just
  • 01:05:11
    to um
  • 01:05:12
    to bring up
  • 01:05:14
    related to that in terms of my healing
  • 01:05:16
    was
  • 01:05:16
    it was hard for me i mean even when i
  • 01:05:19
    found functional medicine
  • 01:05:20
    um i just it was easy i just had such
  • 01:05:23
    little energy that it was easy still for
  • 01:05:26
    me to
  • 01:05:27
    have uh hope i called it hope fatigue
  • 01:05:30
    right to try another thing to try again
  • 01:05:33
    and what i ended up discovering that was
  • 01:05:36
    easier
  • 01:05:37
    was to release so instead of sort of
  • 01:05:40
    going you know trying to think
  • 01:05:42
    positively trying to be optimistic which
  • 01:05:45
    were things that
  • 01:05:46
    um
  • 01:05:47
    surrender to it
  • 01:05:48
    absolutely i mean because it those
  • 01:05:51
    qualities feel like sunlight to someone
  • 01:05:54
    who's suffering from a migraine right
  • 01:05:55
    like i know i need that sunlight but it
  • 01:05:58
    is killing me right now yeah you know my
  • 01:06:00
    husband was this sort of embodiment of
  • 01:06:01
    resilience and confidence and optimism i
  • 01:06:04
    couldn't stand to be around him you know
  • 01:06:05
    it was stressful
  • 01:06:07
    from where i was
  • 01:06:08
    and so
  • 01:06:10
    what i ended up
  • 01:06:12
    stumbling across was oh my god like i'm
  • 01:06:14
    carrying around a lot of grief
  • 01:06:16
    okay yes i've got you know my lost
  • 01:06:19
    identities and time lost and all this
  • 01:06:21
    suffering but like
  • 01:06:23
    you know all this stuff came out right i
  • 01:06:25
    went to a grief ritual i didn't i didn't
  • 01:06:27
    know those things existed but you know
  • 01:06:30
    back
  • 01:06:30
    generations ago in cultures
  • 01:06:33
    those are like soul detoxes yeah right
  • 01:06:35
    like how do we do that that's right like
  • 01:06:38
    it's not a body i love that soul detox
  • 01:06:40
    how much are we carrying it is
  • 01:06:42
    subconsciously
  • 01:06:43
    programmed into the way our dna folds
  • 01:06:46
    you know into the way our
  • 01:06:47
    our neurons are wired
  • 01:06:49
    and so
  • 01:06:51
    you know and grief is in is
  • 01:06:52
    non-discriminant so like i thought i was
  • 01:06:54
    going for
  • 01:06:55
    my health you know just the loss of the
  • 01:06:57
    function of my body yeah
  • 01:06:59
    and
  • 01:07:00
    all this stuff came out cobwebs right
  • 01:07:03
    from childhood from you know residency
  • 01:07:06
    relationships in the past and
  • 01:07:08
    and then the shame the shame of having
  • 01:07:12
    these this mysterious illness the shame
  • 01:07:14
    of being a doctor who cannot figure it
  • 01:07:16
    out
  • 01:07:17
    and um
  • 01:07:18
    [Music]
  • 01:07:20
    that was really really healing so then
  • 01:07:22
    as as you say like as a side effect what
  • 01:07:25
    ends up filling up that space
  • 01:07:27
    is health yeah right it is oh i suddenly
  • 01:07:30
    become more optimistic i have more hope
  • 01:07:33
    because there's space for it yeah it's
  • 01:07:35
    not something that i have to will myself
  • 01:07:37
    in order to get because i couldn't do
  • 01:07:39
    that that's amazing yeah and so you've
  • 01:07:41
    taken all you've learned you've been
  • 01:07:42
    through you know so many different
  • 01:07:44
    cycles of struggle and you've recovered
  • 01:07:46
    and come back on top and you've written
  • 01:07:48
    this book and and you know what's
  • 01:07:50
    beautiful is you know it's really your
  • 01:07:51
    your story but it's an inspiring story
  • 01:07:53
    and it's a
  • 01:07:54
    it's it's a
  • 01:07:55
    sort of a window into
  • 01:07:57
    both sort of
  • 01:07:59
    how
  • 01:08:00
    in traditional medicine we kind of miss
  • 01:08:03
    the boat a lot of times and how you can
  • 01:08:05
    on your own become empowered to
  • 01:08:08
    find a brave new medicine
  • 01:08:10
    but you also share at the end of the
  • 01:08:12
    book you know 15 steps
  • 01:08:14
    that
  • 01:08:16
    are about healing about how to care for
  • 01:08:18
    your body and how to heal so in a way
  • 01:08:20
    you sort of
  • 01:08:21
    to make it really simple for people
  • 01:08:23
    in how to actually create health for
  • 01:08:25
    themselves can you take us through those
  • 01:08:27
    yeah so i mean a lot of the steps were
  • 01:08:29
    um
  • 01:08:30
    uh ones that we covered
  • 01:08:32
    and so the way that i um sort of
  • 01:08:36
    lived through the experience of my
  • 01:08:37
    healing journey
  • 01:08:39
    is you know was really through the
  • 01:08:40
    journal that i kept and the journal was
  • 01:08:43
    um
  • 01:08:44
    something that i'd kept since i was a
  • 01:08:46
    little girl and so when i began when i
  • 01:08:48
    sort of made that shift like i've got to
  • 01:08:50
    try differently go back to pathology 101
  • 01:08:54
    review inflammation
  • 01:08:55
    okay what's my first step like this is
  • 01:08:58
    going to be my experiment i'm an n of
  • 01:09:00
    one i'm my own doctor i'm my own patient
  • 01:09:02
    life is experiment
  • 01:09:04
    step number one ask new questions um and
  • 01:09:06
    so then you know number two i think was
  • 01:09:08
    the resetting my inner clock right
  • 01:09:11
    number three so i kind of um yeah i just
  • 01:09:14
    build it step wise
  • 01:09:16
    as i'm living through
  • 01:09:18
    uh my healing journey so it's a how-to
  • 01:09:21
    but it's sort of
  • 01:09:22
    it's an organic i mean it's really
  • 01:09:24
    beautiful it's simple like how do you
  • 01:09:25
    set your rhythm how do you sleep
  • 01:09:27
    yes how do you give yourself permission
  • 01:09:29
    to receive and how people help you right
  • 01:09:31
    right right which was yeah it was really
  • 01:09:34
    challenging
  • 01:09:35
    um because you know i stopped driving
  • 01:09:37
    for
  • 01:09:38
    quite a while
  • 01:09:39
    and
  • 01:09:40
    yeah most people were just like oh my
  • 01:09:41
    god that's just horrible you know like
  • 01:09:43
    how do you get a you know you can't even
  • 01:09:44
    get around
  • 01:09:46
    and you know what i started thinking
  • 01:09:48
    about like who can i carpool with who
  • 01:09:50
    can get a rifle it ended up being a
  • 01:09:52
    strange
  • 01:09:53
    community building yeah experience
  • 01:09:56
    and we can do it ourselves i can do it
  • 01:09:57
    myself right and then i realized also i
  • 01:09:59
    don't have to live my life so fast right
  • 01:10:01
    i can slow things down i can wait for a
  • 01:10:04
    carpool
  • 01:10:05
    um
  • 01:10:06
    so there's a lot of things i think that
  • 01:10:09
    happen with healing like for instance a
  • 01:10:11
    diet i might prescribe a diet that's
  • 01:10:13
    that's healing for myself or my family
  • 01:10:15
    or my patients
  • 01:10:17
    and maybe it's less about the diet per
  • 01:10:19
    se than just getting them to connect to
  • 01:10:21
    their food right right getting them to
  • 01:10:23
    connect to their bodies and they're
  • 01:10:24
    paying attention and they're treating
  • 01:10:26
    themselves with love like so how much is
  • 01:10:28
    that right um beautiful yeah yeah get a
  • 01:10:31
    daily dose of nature detoxify your house
  • 01:10:33
    and yourself
  • 01:10:35
    and it's really well laid out and very
  • 01:10:37
    simple it's almost like you've taken all
  • 01:10:39
    the concepts of functional medicine and
  • 01:10:41
    traditional chinese medicine and
  • 01:10:43
    everything you know about healing and
  • 01:10:44
    integrative medicine put into really
  • 01:10:46
    very practical
  • 01:10:47
    things and some of them are kind of
  • 01:10:49
    strange like
  • 01:10:50
    let your intuition tell your thinking
  • 01:10:52
    mind where to look next right so
  • 01:10:54
    now that's a that's a quote from that i
  • 01:10:56
    took from um
  • 01:10:58
    uh jonas salk right one of the inventor
  • 01:11:00
    of one of the polio vaccines
  • 01:11:02
    and that was another thing that was um
  • 01:11:05
    was
  • 01:11:07
    sort of reassuring to me when i when
  • 01:11:09
    sometimes i thought well i'm getting too
  • 01:11:10
    woo-woo out there but really looking at
  • 01:11:13
    scientists you know forefathers of
  • 01:11:16
    modern medicine
  • 01:11:18
    who
  • 01:11:19
    were
  • 01:11:20
    they they let their intuition sort of
  • 01:11:23
    guide their discoveries
  • 01:11:24
    so i was like oh
  • 01:11:26
    again it's not woo why are we calling it
  • 01:11:29
    it's actually very human yeah we've just
  • 01:11:31
    forgotten it in our culture and there's
  • 01:11:33
    so many other great things here like
  • 01:11:35
    heal your gut and the basics of a 30-day
  • 01:11:37
    diet reset which is super important
  • 01:11:40
    because diet drives so much disease as
  • 01:11:42
    people know yes and breaking old habits
  • 01:11:44
    and just
  • 01:11:45
    having pleasure and looking for root
  • 01:11:47
    causes i mean surviving love and loss
  • 01:11:50
    really really fantastic claiming
  • 01:11:52
    thank you finding your story i mean
  • 01:11:53
    these are just
  • 01:11:54
    real nuggets of wisdom around healing
  • 01:11:57
    that
  • 01:11:57
    you've really come to the hard way
  • 01:12:02
    and uh practicing pleasure
  • 01:12:04
    is my favorite prescription that's a
  • 01:12:05
    good idea it's amazing how many patients
  • 01:12:07
    won't do that unless a doctor prescribes
  • 01:12:09
    it to them yeah it's really true i think
  • 01:12:12
    we yeah we don't we don't prioritize fun
  • 01:12:14
    and play and joy and right it's so great
  • 01:12:17
    well you you just have shared such a
  • 01:12:19
    wonderful story about
  • 01:12:22
    how sick you could be
  • 01:12:25
    how sick we get and how much illness
  • 01:12:27
    there is and your own road out of it
  • 01:12:30
    um i think it's inspiring for so many
  • 01:12:32
    people and i i think i really
  • 01:12:34
    feel like that's really why you do what
  • 01:12:36
    you do it's why i do what i do it's why
  • 01:12:38
    we spend time
  • 01:12:39
    teaching and sharing because there are
  • 01:12:41
    so many people who suffer unnecessarily
  • 01:12:44
    who suffered needlessly and there is a
  • 01:12:46
    way forward so thank you for sharing
  • 01:12:48
    that thank you so much for um having me
  • 01:12:50
    and yeah i would just you know this this
  • 01:12:53
    taboo about doctors not disclosing their
  • 01:12:55
    health problems um
  • 01:12:58
    yeah it's um
  • 01:13:00
    there are a lot of doctors suffering out
  • 01:13:01
    there too it's so true yeah i think you
  • 01:13:04
    know my advice to doctors listening is
  • 01:13:06
    to tell your story share with your
  • 01:13:07
    patients absolutely don't have this you
  • 01:13:09
    know doctor-patient relationship which
  • 01:13:11
    is
  • 01:13:12
    sort of very distant and estranged
  • 01:13:15
    be be a human let them know who you are
  • 01:13:18
    and right that always works
  • 01:13:20
    right it builds a relationship it helps
  • 01:13:22
    them know that you've suffered through
  • 01:13:24
    it and right i mean even if you haven't
  • 01:13:25
    suffered you can share something
  • 01:13:27
    so absolutely thank you for sharing your
  • 01:13:29
    story and everybody should get brave new
  • 01:13:31
    medicine a doctor's unconventional path
  • 01:13:33
    to healing her autoimmune illness it's
  • 01:13:36
    been out since september 1st 2019.
  • 01:13:38
    it's a wonderful story very inspiring
  • 01:13:40
    and very practical
  • 01:13:41
    um so thank you for joining us
  • 01:13:43
    absolutely thank you and you've been
  • 01:13:45
    listening to the doctor's pharmacy this
  • 01:13:46
    is dr mark hyman if you love the show
  • 01:13:48
    please leave a comment please share with
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    your friends and family on facebook or
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    twitter or social media and
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    if you don't already subscribe please
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    subscribe wherever you get your podcast
  • 01:13:58
    and we'll see you next time on the
  • 01:13:59
    doctor's pharmacy
  • 01:14:01
    [Music]
  • 01:14:04
    hi everyone it's dr mark hyman so two
  • 01:14:07
    quick things number one thanks so much
  • 01:14:09
    for listening to this week's podcast it
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    really means a lot to me if you love the
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    every week i'm going to send out a list
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    of a few things that i've been using
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    to take my own health the next level
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    this could be books podcasts research
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    that i found
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    supplement recommendations recipes or
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    even gadgets i use a few of those and if
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    today
Tags
  • Chronic illness
  • Functional medicine
  • Integrative medicine
  • Thyroid disease
  • Chronic fatigue
  • Healing journey
  • Alternative medicine
  • Holistic health
  • Dr. Mark Hyman
  • Dr. Cynthia Lee