Ascend Health Show Season 2

Nick:
Welcome to the Alleviant Health Show. I’m Nick Angelis. I’m a nurse anesthetist and I’m one of the owners of Alleviant Health Centers of Akron. And today I’m with Barbara Vetter, a licensed professional clinical counselor. And we’re going to talk about relationships almost as if this is Dr. Phil or Oprah or one of those type of shows. Well, it should be a little bit more interesting and informative. Maybe we’ll have some good stuff for everyone. So the question I want to start out with is an easy one. Why are relationships so hard like? There are so many different shows about it. Everyone’s obsessed about it. Every song you hear on the radio is about relationships. Why are they so difficult to just connect with someone?
Barbara:
I love that question, Nick. That’s so great because relationships are very complicated. They’re complex because we’re complex people. We’re not just one dimensional. We’re very multidimensional people. And maybe I liked something one day, but I don’t like it today. I’m feeling a little different about how I see something. And so then for you you’re like, Well, I bought you flowers yesterday and today you want chocolates? I mean, how do I know what to do and how to respond to you? Because you’re changing all the time. So they’re very complicated.
Nick:
And I would think, well, obviously on day three I’ll buy chocolate flowers and I’m set and then I would be so, so happy with this great idea I have. I’ve solved it. I’ve solved the riddle. Now I’ll be glorious. And then the next day it’s something different.
Barbara:
It’s so true. And then what happens? Our emotions might get we might get annoyed or angry or mad because we thought we solved the riddle and found the formula to getting along. And the formula changed right in the middle of things.
Nick:
Wow. So with that, would you say a lot of poems are when we keep on trying to dive and dodge and duck and figure out what the other person wants and make ourselves relevant to that? Or is it Obviously it’s both, but or do you see more often where people say this is the way I am, you have to accept it if you’re going to accept me. The whole concept of you don’t deserve me at my best unless you accept my worst. And those sort of things that sound great when you first listen to them and then you slowly realize, Oh, that’s kind of a toxic way to live life.
Barbara:
Good question. The dive and dodge question So in session, I work really hard to help people feel safe because when you feel safe, then you’re going to share and we’re going to get some depth out of your soul, out of your emotions. If you’re not feeling safe in your relationship, you’re going to put shields up. You’re going to put walls up, the other person’s going to start to think you’re shallow because, well, why don’t we go deep? Why can’t we talk about anything besides the weather? And they’re not really understanding that. They’re not making the atmosphere safe. And so you’re always on the defensive. You’re dodging sort of maybe questions that feel like they’re interrogations instead of conversation and then nobody wants to be interrogated. So then we start backing up, backing up, backing up. And we’re not connecting on a interpersonal level. It’s just become surface because of fear. Wow.
Nick:
So then many times when people argue, they’re probably saying, I want to get deeper. These are my needs. I want to connect with you, but it’s just frustration that ends up with the opposite because I’m sure many times arguments are actually something. This may sound counterintuitive. Arguments are something that brings a couple closer because it’s that I’m being vulnerable. Here’s my need. It’s not being met. Can we solve this together? So I’m sure that there is some concept of where that conflict breeds intimacy, but more often it’s simply a misunderstanding of, okay, what I really want is to be connected with this person. But what I’m showing is this dissatisfaction with the relationship.
Barbara:
The arguing is an interesting concept because it can bring you closer together. And when I have people say I hate conflict, then what my mind shifts in. What I’m really hearing them say is I’m not good at understanding negotiating. I’m not good at negotiating a conversation. So I end up feeling less than and I’m not feeling safe in the conversation. I don’t know how to negotiate with my partner. They always win. I always lose. So instead of it being a win win situation, it ends up being either you won and I lost or I won and you lost or lose lose where we both lost and we divide and we go in our corners and we don’t know how to reconnect and we don’t know how to recover. So recovery skills are really important in relationships because I’m not really concerned if you have conflict and if you have an argument, it really I celebrate that. It’s just do you know how to recover from differences and then heal when you’ve been offended?
Nick:
That makes sense. So it’s almost that concept of stagnation where if we’re not safe, as you said, we may say, well, maybe if we keep everything the same and nothing changes. And then there won’t be any storms of life and I can make this work. But then just like with when blood isn’t flowing correctly with tissues, stagnation just breeds rot and gangrene. And you think that you’re standing still, but you’re probably actually not working at all at the relationship.
Barbara:
Another point on the stagnation is that emotions are terms can get stagnant. We might just use vocabulary, you know, like mad, sad or happy and we forget other words like I’m discouraged, I’m frustrated, I’m dis enheartened things are happening where I feel overwhelmed. And when you use words that are deeper than just happy, sad or angry, you can go farther with that soul connection and the heart connection and communication can have more risk involved, but it brings about a sense of depth that you have to dive into to get to depth because if you just skim the surface, you’re that’s okay for a time. I mean, light conversation, we really need it for a time and we want to learn to navigate through light and deep because if somebody always wants to go deep, it can be a trap and it can lead you to I got to get away from this person because I don’t have anything deep to say. And so we have to learn to ebb and flow between surface depth shallow and your comfort level. Right?
Nick:
And it can be exhausting to you. You want to leave an interaction with someone where you both feel good about yourselves. And so if you’re like, okay, I better steel myself for this intense conversation. And then because obviously being in health care and having a lot of experience in both holistic health and anesthesia, I get Facebook messages every day about people saying, hey, I think I might have coronavirus. I’ve got this. And obviously you can’t keep a friendship going on. Let me save your life today and let me save your life tomorrow. And many relationships are like that as well, where you have this savior complex. And that’s not to diss that approach obviously at our clinic at alleviate doing both chronic pain and mental health, psychiatry counseling, we have a lot of spouses bringing their loved ones and their resilience and their ability to not be codependent to keep the other person accountable, but also to support them and to just go through extraordinary measures that no one else probably in their life knows about except for us where we see them interacting with us just being there for their spouse. I mean, that can be very challenging finding that balance.
Barbara:
So I use a term and I don’t know if I coined this myself or if I read it somewhere right.
Nick:
Here on Wdky-tv Boveda. Copyright 2020.
Barbara:
Thanks, Nick. I call it healthy detachment. You you learn to detach in a healthy way from even if you’ve had a good time together and it’s time to kind of buckle down and start going back to work and get ready and do the evening laundry or pack my lunch for the next day, you have to detach from the good time that you had all day today together. And sometimes that can cause a conflict with couples because they don’t know how to healthy step away. So unconsciously they might create an argument just because, Hey, I got to start work. I have to look over these notes for tomorrow, right? And the other person’s like, But but we were having so much fun. You mean I have to, like, go do the dishes or pack my lunch for tomorrow? I don’t want to. And I have found many phone calls come on Monday because Sunday night didn’t end well. And so I started pondering that and I coined that term how do we healthy detach? And one way I came up with is to say, wow, we really had a good time today. You know, I enjoyed going to that restaurant. We got our favorite meal, but I’ve got a little bit of paperwork to do. Would you mind if I kind of excused myself and withdrew so we can, you know, kind of get on with a little bit of work mode for a couple hours, Right. And then when each person’s connecting and feeling safe to detach, they don’t have to create a negative reason to detach.
Nick:
No, that makes sense. So what you’re saying is there has to be enough safety in the relationship to say we’re going to detach tomorrow. We can reattach that. This doesn’t have to keep it’s almost like where we talked about stagnation So there can be a positive stagnation where you’re so afraid of losing that moment, that emotion, that connection that you’re like, Well, let’s go to the movies and then we’ll go eat and then we’ll go watch another movie. And then we’ll. Go do this together. So maybe a good way to look at it is the saying the honeymoon is over isn’t necessarily a bad thing that perhaps we should think of it as, Oh, good, the honeymoon is over Now we can incorporate this person into our everyday regular life that instead of the beach vacation and the pictures look so great on Instagram that now somebody can rinse the dishes after I wash the dishes and we can participate and build an empire together and be involved in each other’s lives in a way that gives ourselves autonomy and yet makes us connected like the couples that live in. They might be married for 5060 years and one dies and a few months later the other one dies. Or it’s sometimes a very good thing where they’re just so connected but not codependent where they truly are one.
Barbara:
Yeah, you’re totally catching it. And that leads me to the statement about a skill. Partnership is a skill. Teamwork is a skill. Well, sometimes people will think, well, you know, I should be able to get along with this person. I married them and we dated. We did fine. And then they find the kids come and complications arrive and they’re ill prepared and they don’t understand that just because you ask for help and need to come in for some counseling, some therapy, some consultation, some skill building doesn’t mean they’re weak. It actually shows strength because you’re asking for support and help. How does a partnership run? How does this work? How do we do teamwork? And when you learn skills, the victory comes a little bit quicker, a little bit easier because you know what to do and how to recover.
Nick:
I like the concept of skills where that instead of being someone who your clients will come to you to say, okay, here’s the bad things that happened this week. I need a listening ear and empathetic person to talk to. It’s almost as if you’re a coach that, okay, well, here’s what happened in the last game. Here’s the replay, here’s what we’ll do next time. And I really like that approach of when you look at it as a way to grow and a way to be better at relationships, it’s a much more positive view as opposed to let’s look at the past and ruminate it once a week. So and I think I like that too, because that’s a lot of how our society is, where we’re always just focused on what happened and how can I get over it. But instead it’s sort of like, well, here’s a mistakes that we made. Here’s how we can do better next time and moving forward. Because I know for myself, when you’re talking about conflict avoidance and not being able to negotiate for me when I have that frustration because this whole audience is here for my personal therapy session here today. Of course, it’s that concept of pride that I should have this skill set. I’m very good at maneuvering, at controlling my emotions, at realizing this is what this person needs. But sometimes you have to realize, okay, I messed this up or I don’t currently have the skills to deal with this in a positive manner and that can be really healing, I feel.
Barbara:
Yeah. So well said. And emotional competence is a learned activity. Back to the words of angry, sad and happy. If I tell you and you use the word pride, which that’s often what gets in the way and I’ll kind of soften it and and use the word ego like, okay, well my ego is feeling insecure right now because maybe you asked me to do something and I didn’t do it because I wasn’t exactly sure how you wanted it done. Right? So when pride comes up and the walls come up, if one person knows how to get the atmosphere safe, it can get that other person’s ego to calm down where they’ll say, You’re right, I didn’t do what you asked me to do. I wasn’t sure where the supplies were or for that. And then the truth starts to come out instead of dodging and pivoting and trying to put up defenses because that’s what gets in the way is the defensive behaviors, right?
Nick:
So in some ways you’re almost like an emotional trainer where physical trainer the concept is that’s tone these muscles so that if you trip and fall while running, your muscles are toned, you might not get that injury. And it’s the same thing emotionally where you will have hiccups, life will happen, but the resilience and the recovery is much smoother because you’ve already developed these skills. And I suppose some of that is just realizing where we are and being okay with that while pursuing forward because I think that balance is so difficult for people to having an accurate self awareness of Here’s where I am and here’s where I need to be. And yet finding that balance between, okay, I’m not who I want to be, but at the same time I’m not. Ashamed of who I am.
Barbara:
When my son was about 16, he came home from high school and I said, Stevie, how’s your emotions today? And he he looked down and he looked up. He goes, Mom, I don’t understand the question. And so the question on emotions is pretty complicated. And sometimes the feminine spirit might be fine with, okay, we can talk emotions and then the masculine spirit’s like, Well, let’s go shoot some hoops. I don’t really want to talk emotions right now and getting that equality isn’t natural, right? I would say to to get equality with emotions you need like a supernatural understanding and that takes it does take skill and practice and that’s where therapy can be such a positive thing because what people will do is they’ll use negative behavior to cover up negative emotions. And just because you have frustration, overwhelm and anxiety doesn’t mean you have to, you know, grab for a drink or do something that is toxic for you, overeat, whatever stress you might have. If you learn to go into the stress and check in on yourself and check in on the stress, then you don’t have to grab for things that are going to anesthetize the stress. You could use it and learn from it and get the skills. Okay. Because there’s two kinds of stress. One toxic stress, which is despair and distress. And then there’s use stress which is healthy and positive. So we need a certain amount of stress in life in order to accomplish things and to move forward, to grow and to be active, to be motivated. We need stress so we can’t get away from it all the time. And we need to learn to either go through it, around it, over it, sit with it, understand it and that is it does take practice to do that.
Nick:
Well, no, I think that concept of sitting through stress is very important. It’s similar to grief where, you know, if you don’t process grief, it will transfer itself to other areas of your life similar with trauma. And so these concepts stress, trauma, grief, they’ll have to be worked through. There is you have to go through it. There is no work around because then it just manifests in different ways. And at least if we’re self-aware and we see the stress coming, we can recognize it. Once we bury it, then especially in relationships, it’s very tough to elucidate out, okay, here is the emotion I’m feeling or here is the reason I’m reacting because it might and it might manifest physically too. That’s why a lot of our practice is pain management. And many times I always believe this as a nurse anesthetist, but I see it even now. I’m more involved with mental health that for many patients this health has a component that is completely psychological and that if you can fix that part of it, the pain will sort of disappear on its own. And it’s a strange concept. But and not to get too much into the receptors and all that, but there’s compelling evidence that stress is good for us, that the endocannabinoid systems, the way our dopamine receptors work, that they all need some acute surprises, meaning that if we’re chronically dealing with an issue it just wears it affects our cortisol levels, it wears us down, we get anxious. I think the statistic was from Amazon that there’s been a 33% increase in people searching for books about anxiety in the last few years, and it’s all because of that chronic stress. But that concept of I don’t know what’s going to happen today is sometimes good actually, you know, from primal times where today I have to find some food to spear and then I’ll eat. Like to us that sounds incredibly stressful. Like, what do you mean that I can’t just go out to eat? But that concept of sometimes we need some some surprises in our life that that’s actually good for us. And in relationships it’s the opposite where we want to say this is how this person will react, this is how I will react. And I think it goes back down to safety, as you were saying.
Barbara:
And there’s the term we’ll just deal with it. And what does that mean? You know, just deal with it. There takes a process of looking at it, checking in, seeing, well, what is my emotion? Okay, The stores are all out of toilet paper. Okay, we’ll just deal with it. And that hurts me if if I have anxiety over something legitimate, which we want to legitimize all of our emotions. And the other thing that’s interesting with emotions because that that is my wheelhouse is that we don’t always know why we’re feeling a certain way and it. Take some processing to uncover that. Like, okay, I’m anxious, I’m stressed, I’m tired. Those are a little bit intangible. So we don’t want to just ask the why questions. Well, why are you stressed? Nick, Why are you anxious? I don’t know. Right. And it’s okay to not know why we’re stressed or anxious. We actually want to take some time and honor that feeling of anxiety because chances are we have a good reason. We just it just might be hidden even from ourselves as to why we’re stressed. So if we’re not taking the time to uncover that and dig deep, we could miss some valuable information about stress.
Nick:
Right? It’s sort of like all of your analogies about water that many times I’m the sort of person who will be like, Oh, this doesn’t matter. And it’s almost like little rocks that we’re putting into the water of our souls. And eventually, as with any body of water, you keep on adding things to it. It’s going to get shallower. You’re not going to be able to tell, Is it much under the surface? What kind of depth do I have to respond to an unusual situation? And so I think a lot of what you’re saying today is that we just have to uncover what’s at the root, what’s underneath the surface. It’s almost like with a lot of what I do. Okay, This is your symptom of pain. This is good. We can get to the source. Then I can tell you if I can fix you or if you need to go to this practitioner to fix you. And so I think if we look at our feelings and what we’re going through in relationships as a symptom almost clinically, not that we’re disassociating from our situation, but just understanding, okay, great. This is a strong emotion. What is it telling me? What is it trying to teach me about what’s going on inside of myself?
Barbara:
That’s that’s where you end up with effective problem solving skills instead of hiding, running, escaping, isolating yourself. When you have an anxiety or stress or pain and pain can be a teacher and it can help us check on what might need some attention. Right? And not knowing how to give it attention is what gets people in trouble.
Nick:
Absolutely. And I know we’re running out of time. But one point on that that I’ve noticed and this is actually in the last few days that I’ve come to this realization is that for some people, pain is a teacher, but it’s become their only teacher. So when they run out of things to learn, they subconsciously go back to pain. They choose pain for themselves because they know I’ll get and again, this is subconscious, but it’s like this is how I’ve learned things in life. This is where all of my wisdom has come from was through pain and trauma. And so I think unwittingly it’s almost like the analogy of the Phenix where you don’t always have to hit rock bottom and burn up in order to regenerate. In order to resurrect that, it’s much better to learn through not only to learn through sorrow, but to learn through good experiences, to learn as you were saying, where clients can come to you and get some of these new ways to deal with life and relationships.
Barbara:
Yeah, I love that. In my book Renewed Mind, I do have a journal template that you could go through the four emotions I call it the caps caps your cognitions, your affect, which is your feelings, your P for physical and your s for spiritual. What are you reaching for? So there’s some processes in here that can help you get to those emotions that you might not know what to do with otherwise.
Nick:
Great. And I saw we put your number and website on the screen, so if any of this resonates with you, you can check out Barb Vedder’s website and call you. You do a lot with couples, obviously counseling and it’s the same with us at our clinic. We have psychiatry, therapy, pain management and a lot of it is just again getting to the source of the problem that sometimes you have to sit with your pain, you have to sit with your emotional or physical pain, not for extended periods of time, but long enough to understand where is this coming from? This isn’t symptom management where every week it hurts and you come back and it hurts a little bit less. But simply, even if it’s a painful process, how can we dig to the root and unearth what’s going on?
Barbara:
It’s not a weakness to ask for help. It’s actually a strength to go and ask for help because we can’t know everything so other people can support us in that journey.
Nick:
Well, I think I’ve learned a lot more than I knew half hour ago. So thanks again for joining. Thank you. This has been the Alleviant Health Show. If there’s still more learning that you need to do, you can check out all of our other shows. There is a medical disclaimer show so that every episode I don’t have to tell you that maybe you shouldn’t use a show that you watch on TV or the Internet for your whole basis of health. But we thank you very much for joining us today.
Nick:
Hello and welcome to the Alleviant Health Show. I’m Nick Angelis. I’m a nurse anesthetist and one of the owners of Alleviant Health Centers of Akron. And today I’m with Dr. Adriana from Integrative Health Management. How are you doing today?
Adriana:
I’m great for an early morning.
Nick:
Me too. But at least this time, it’s not like when you came to visit my practice and had to drive an hour or so. There is.
Adriana:
That’s okay too.
Nick:
The only thing I miss about doing the show this way is that typically when I’ve done Zoom shows, as did many in March and April, there’s that 5 or 10 minute period in which we’re saying like, Can you hear me? Is this on? Are we doing this right? And there’s mumbling and deep thought and trying to get it all working. So it’s unfortunate we have to skip that part today.
Adriana:
That’s all right. We got. I think we got it down. I think we’re good. We’re on.
Nick:
That’s great. So we first started talking about doing a show together when you sent me an email about probiotics. And it’s a passion of both of us. As strange as it might seem that a microbiome is something that we’re really focused on. Me as a nurse anesthetist you originally as a podiatrist now into integrative health, but can you speak a little bit about that, the importance of sort of managing your gut, how that leads to so many other facets, whether it’s energy, medicine or even for me, I’ve seen a lot of respiratory and pulmonary issues that can be augmented by a probiotics, even though that doesn’t sound like something where the bacteria in your gut have to do anything with your lungs.
Adriana:
It has a ton to do. There’s so much more research coming out and there’s a lot we don’t know. It’s really only been within the past, I think about 10 to 12 years that the whole leaky gut if if you’ve heard of that, I’m sure everybody has by now true leaky gut, you would be in the hospital. I mean, you’d be in sepsis, meaning you would be quite ill. So we coined this term as leaky gut, but we’re not really leaking. It’s more like erosions in the stomach, little, little pockets that are causing an issue. And so that has to be repaired. And the more there’s many other things you can do to repair. But probiotics, I’m sure everybody’s heard of probiotics and it’s become this new coin thing that we talk about. But it’s actually a very, very simple fix because the diet that we eat and the way we go around our world and all the toxicity, especially things like Advil guys. So really, if you’re going to take anything, try to take aspirin. It’s not quite as erosive to the stomach as Advil, ibuprofen, all in the same family. People that are chronic ibuprofen users. It does not only does it degrade the stomach, it puts you at more of a cardiovascular risk. So that’s just a side note. But all these things that we’re eating, doing, taking medications, they over time erode the stomach and they cause this kind of leaky gut thing. And so then it causes this mix up in bacteria in our stomach and these good guys and bad guys are there fighting and the bad guys are kind of winning so that they have connected to the respiratory system. Now there’s a whole gut to lung connection. I’m sure many of people have heard the whole guts to brain connection. So if you’re having a hard time thinking, focusing stomach doesn’t feel good bloating gas, there’s a lot of different reasons for that. But one of the very simplest fixes when somebody comes to me and says, well, you know, I can’t afford to really work with you or you know, can you just give me a little suggestion? Probiotic is the place where I start. And they say, Well, what kind can I get? I’m just going to go get something off giant eagle shelves. Well, no, no. You really have to look at a probiotic. That is a broad spectrum, meaning it has a lot of good guy bacteria in it. So we can balance your gut out because so many conditions now are affiliated with the mixture of bad guy bacteria and there’s a way to test this. So I have a great test that I do. It’s you play with your poop, you got to send it off. It’s kind of funny, but you can do all that in the comfort of your own home and then it does give me a printout of what’s going on inside the gut biochemically And where are your bacteria and what are these lack of bacteria or too much bacteria associated with like Parkinson’s or heart health or what else is on there? So many different categories on there. I won’t spend time, but see, that’s one way that we can start replenishing those good guys so you’re less likely to develop those conditions. Or if you have them, they start to decrease like rheumatoid arthritis, autoimmune disorders, all these things they have linked to this, you know, good guy, bad guy, not enough of those guys floating around in the stomach.
Nick:
Absolutely. And if you look at studies, even in mouse studies, it’s the same thing where they’ll augment their diet, change their gut, see these huge personality changes, see these differences in disease states, often just these slight little augmentations. And like what you said about the bio diversity of the probiotics, it’s sort of like, okay, so let’s say you live with someone and you have a Nissan versa and then they need a car so you’re not going to get the same car because if you both have the same car, you’re going to have a big box that won’t fit in her car. It’s not going to fit in your car because it’s the same car. So and sorry that I continually come up with these completely random analogies, but they help. That’s why diversity is needed. You can’t just say, Oh, I read a study, this is the one. This is the bacteria that will cure my anxiety or help me with my restless leg because there are studies for various strains of bacteria that help with various issues. But it’s more importantly, it’s more important to look at holistically of you need all these weapons, so to speak, because some of them might be. More sensitive, just like in medicine, how they’ll do cultures and find out what antibiotic is best for this organism. I feel it’s the same thing with probiotics that let’s not get so into the weeds that we try to be extremely precise. I know just the other day we were talking about the energy of the disease or perhaps you fix the problem, but because you haven’t changed your identity around it, it still manifests itself in your body. So yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that’s.
Adriana:
Something that I wanted to touch on if you don’t mind, because a lot of people, you know, well I did everything you said and I’m still not better. There is a lot that goes into disease. We are Nick and I are scientists. We’re doctors. You know, we look into things. We look for solutions. People always look for tangible items, things we can see things we can handle. An MRI report that tells us it’s right there. That’s the problem. There’s a whole other component that that this is a new maybe a new concept to you. But we have a field around us. It’s kind of like, you know, when you it’s electromagnetic. If you’ve walked on a carpet before and you got a zing, you have your heart is electromagnetic. There’s there’s electricity around you. So you have this field. And so when we have traumatic experiences and I’ve seen this time and time again when people have traumatic experiences, it gets stored in certain parts of our body, it gets stored in our nervous tissue, it gets stored in our cells. People that are very stressed, the whole umbrella of stress, it actually sits in the gut. So sometimes I do other techniques if things aren’t moving around. A simple technique of just an energy medicine clearing does miraculous things for people. I’ve had multiple patients I can name two already that just did two two healings on them and their stomach pains gone when they had spent $3,000 worth of studies and found nothing in the gut. So when you’re finding nothing and the diagnostic tests are normal, there is something else going on that may be a little out here, a little beyond your brain, but they very much exist. And if people want more information about that, happy to email so you can read and research for yourself. There’s more and more studies coming out now with acupuncture, with all these things that are dealing with things outside of the box, so to speak. And that’s why I incorporate outside of the box items because they work miracles a lot of times.
Nick:
And both of us have practices where we specialize in those patients who said the MRI is normal, the x ray is fine. I still have this pain. I still have this overwhelming depression. And for those who don’t think outside the box, I’d remind them that one of the things that we have at our clinic, which is FDA approved, is transcranial magnetic stimulation. So it’s literally a magnet on your head that treats anxiety, depression and OCD. And so we literally because it’s a very powerful device, we see in just a few sessions the anxiety, the depression, the PTSD changing. And so if at first you think, well, that’s silly energy medicine, magnetic fields know we have an FDA approved device, it’s just a magnet. And for 70% of people it will radically change their depression. And so before we say where’s the scientific proof, we have to realize that there’s still very little that we understand and we have to be okay with seeing that we can’t find this on an MRI or in the case of leaky gut, do a lot of anesthesia for endoscopies, for colonoscopies. And there’s all these concepts, especially in alternative medicine of, oh, there’s this matter hiding in your colon and that’s making you sick, or there’s these holes between your bloodstream and and when you look at it like literally look inside of a person, you’re not seeing that. So we have to realize a lot of this is on the molecular level, a lot of us to relate to fields of medicine that we’re still still in the very beginning. It’s still the frontier of what we can do for the body. Even as you mentioned, brain fog, because we’ve both been talking obviously to a lot of patients post-COVID. And one of the things that modern medicine is very bad at is that concept of how this fatigue I can’t figure it out or I’m just not feeling right and they might send it to our psychiatrist or obviously, you know, me being a nurse anesthetist, sometimes patients end up with surgery because we can’t find it. Let’s look inside and see if we can find out what’s going on. And it’s just something that you have to really deal with holistically.
Adriana:
Yeah, when we can’t there’s so many different levels. I think that’s the best way to describe it is like you go to the doctor, you get your MRI and that’s negative and then then you go do something else. And that didn’t quite work. There’s different levels of our beingness and who we are as people. We’re not just the body. There’s more to us than that. And so when we look for science to explain everything, there’s where we can go beyond science a little bit. I’m sure everybody has had those experiences where you’ve thought of somebody and they called you. Well, how do you explain that? Science can’t explain that necessarily. When you call somebody on your cell phone, you call somebody. It in Italy. How do you see that little signal going all the way across? You don’t There’s a lot of things we don’t see but that are still there. And that’s in the realm of mysterious but however we want to call it. But there’s ways to now we have ways to start dealing with that mysterious things that we don’t necessarily see. So it gets tricky for people to understand this, but start opening your mind to it because it’s there and there’s enormous amount of solutions for a lot of issues. And then there’s other things we may be not not the topic for today, karma and all those things, but there’s so many different reasons why somebody’s getting better or not getting better. But there’s always a solution and there’s always something that can be done. Sometimes we get stuck and we get told you have a diagnosis and this is it. No, there’s plenty more. There’s plenty more after that that can be looked at.
Nick:
So definitely a lot of it.
Adriana:
Nick and I are here.
Nick:
Right? And a lot of it is faith and trust. Like in our practice, one of our issues is we do take insurance, but insurance is inherently something that you can’t trust. It’s not uncommon at all for them to say we will cover this service and you get surprise billing where it’s like, well, we lied. So here’s the $600 bill that you need to pay immediately. And so we’ve tried our best to kind of augment that, realizing if there isn’t trust, if we can’t guarantee what this is going to do, what’s the process? Let’s be transparent about cost. Patients simply don’t get as well. Like without that sort of like I trust my care into your hands and it leads to if you trust your practitioner, then you will also do your part to get better. Otherwise you have this standoffish like won’t believe it until I see it and it gets complex because even the saying that we’ve heard a lot with a lot of controversies about health right now, I believe in science. Well, science is a concept of scrutinizing everything. So it’s not a blind faith, but it’s sort of like, well, take this step, we’ll peel the onion, we’ll see what’s next. But we have to work together and it has to be a mutual decision of here’s what your options are. And I mean, I’m a bit more of like, here’s what it’ll cost for you to get better and just making sure that the process is one that. Is looking toward complete independence for the patient. Meaning is there a way that you won’t need me at some point?
Adriana:
So yeah, and insurance is. Thank you for bringing that up because a lot of clients come to me with the same thing of insurance. Insurance. Don’t forget that you’re paying in the back office for that. You’re paying every month. However, however much it is 100, 200, 300. Some people are paying 700 every month for how many years, whether you use it or not. So insurance is using that money to pay for your things and then some because if they don’t cover all of that and your bill is 600 to 2000 or 3000, hey, because your service wasn’t covered, don’t forget you’ve already paid all that into that and you’re paying extra. So sometimes in the long run, if if you find somebody that can solve your problem or or there’s a high likelihood we’re going to get you better and it’s going to cost you 300 or 400 bucks, pay it, you know, because in the long run, then your problem solved. And you’re I, I see so many people that for five years they’re like, I’ve been dealing with this for five years. I’m like, Great. How much have you paid in five years with your monthly insurance payment plus the balances extra that they didn’t cover when maybe this could have been solved in six months and you would have paid 1000 versus 5000. So you always have to put that in perspective.
Nick:
Right? And sometimes I feel it takes these sentinel events, whether it’s a pandemic or even the Black Lives Matter or things of that nature, where all of a sudden the way you think something was working, something catastrophic happens and you realize, oh, this this was all a facade. This actually doesn’t work the way I thought it was like how I thought the world worked where you go to your doctor, you go back in another month and people are suddenly realizing, but am I better? Is this actually working? It’s sort of like so not as much anymore. I’m trying to get better at this, but I used to use a lot of Groupon and sometimes I realize a great reason this company needs to use Groupon and 90% off still means I’m wasting my time with this. You know, no matter what the final cost is, as we get older, we realize that time is more valuable than money. And so going to a doctor’s office over and over and getting only incrementally better or even the expectation that as I age, my health will deteriorate. That’s not necessarily true.
Adriana:
It’s not There are people there are people that are 95 that are amazing. But those people, those clients that I view that I’ve had that were older, I can tell you they tell me they’ve taken very good care of their self themselves. They they eat well. They’re like my my father and mom were farmers and we we grew our you know, every we grew our vegetables. They ate really good food. And so here’s your here’s your result. And so they have very little ailments at 95 and I’ve had two that are on no medications and doing great so that has to that says something. Genetics is a small component of this. Genetics is you know, all the epigenetics now because it’s not genetics really make up about 4 to 10% of conditions. That’s what they’ve concluded. The rest of it is allostatic load. How many things are we throwing on our on our backs with food, stress, anxiety, all these things that are traumas that happen in our life that we’re not cleaning up and dealing with that are now manifesting into the system.
Nick:
Absolutely. So when 23 and me first came out at that time was doing more alternative medicine as well as anesthesia, and the concept was like, finally we can find the exact polymorphisms of each gene and find out what’s wrong and couple that with the right supplement. And in some cases that did work, it was surprising that in many cases it was like, look at all this data we have because I know you, for example, are really into testing and in some cases like great, I know exactly what’s wrong, I know exactly how to fix it. It I’m not better yet. So it’s a bit more complex than simply here’s a gene, here’s a solution. And as you know, there’s plenty of studies showing about genes being augmented, being turned on and off, whether it’s through mindfulness, even from probiotics like we talked about earlier. So it’s not as simple as you have this deal with it or you don’t have this and you’re fine.
Adriana:
Genetics are genetics can be altered, guys. Yeah, I know that sounds out there, but it can stress enough can alter a gene. It’s amazing. There are some things I can do to slowly repair those. There’s you can even repair those. There’s there’s lots. The body is a very, very powerful thing and it can do a lot of stuff. So the other thing that’s just coming to mind though, if you want to touch on, is hydrochloric acid too, along with the probiotics. Sometimes probiotics are great, but if you’re not producing enough hydrochloric acid, that means you’re not digesting your food. And that’s another really, really big common problem that I see. So that’s how do you.
Nick:
Sure. How do you suggest that? Because obviously the mainstream medicine approach is let’s dilute the stomach acid and make you feel better. Which itself can lead to magnesium depletion and over time a host of other problems just because we’re not absorbing every nutrient that we need to. So do you more give patients potassium to increase the acid in their stomach or is it more just hydrochloric acid capsules taken away from probiotics so you don’t kind of destroy what you’re trying to start or. Yeah. Work out for you.
Adriana:
Testing for hydrochloric acid. I don’t do that in my office. There are places that do it and it’s not fun. You have to The way that they do is you swallow a capsule. It’s kind of a Wi-Fi. It sends a signal. So it measures how much hydrochloric acid your stomach is producing, How much acid is your stomach producing? Because you have to digest your food somehow, right? It’s not good if you don’t digest your food. The back door in is you can take hydrochloric acid tablets and if you’re up to you’ve taken one, you’ve taken two, you’ve taken three, you’ve taken four, you’re at five, you’re at six and you finally feel a little burn in your stomach. That means you’re deficient. Typically, on average, most people us as people, we decrease our hydrochloric acid production after the age of 60, it starts to decrease. So we have to keep that up. One way to do it kind of naturally celery juice is really great at helping. Otherwise you can get digestive enzymes, which everybody really needs to be on digestive enzymes, especially if you’re eating a really bad diet that has the digestive enzymes, brands that I use that have hydrochloric acid in them. So then it helps you to digest your food. That’s probably the simplest way. So that’s another thing I add next to the probiotic. So you take, you know, take them apart from each other. You take the digestive enzymes with your food to help you digest your food because purification and food sitting in your gut and your intestines produces toxins if it’s not digested. And that’s no good. Right?
Nick:
So I agree, though I tell every patient, even if they’re just seeing for my anxiety or getting Ketamine infusion for fibromyalgia or chronic pain that. So your body is working hard. It’s apparently not working efficiently because you wouldn’t be seeing me if something was out of balance. A simple step we can take is at least take some of that digestive work off of your body and at least augment it in that way. Because one of the worries with anything natural alternative is like, is this actually going to move the needle? Is this going to help me? Could it possibly hurt me? And digestive enzymes are certainly one where it’s that same concept where they’re not expensive at all. There’s a lot of different brands and most of them do have several different enzymes and feel that usually works the best too. And of course there can be a lot of thought put to it. Sometimes I. Sort of do the opposite of most practitioners where I’ll say, Well, here’s a brand. It’s inexpensive. Try it after you finish that bottle, we’ll have a better idea of do we need the best high quality? But again, usually for digestive enzymes I feel cost isn’t really the factor, it’s just how can you quickly incorporate this having a little bit in your purse or whatnot so that you can continually remember to take this with your meals or in the case of some of the enzymes that can break up the film on your microbiome, how can we help you remember to take this outside of meals and make this a sustainable part? Because usually start obviously a lot of what we do is mental health and pain. So supplements is a very small part of it. So say let’s start very small and make it sustainable. And if you graduate from that, either I’ll refer them to you or we’ll see what the next step is.
Adriana:
Yeah, you just start a habit. At first people were like, How am I going to take all this? You do. You start. It becomes a routine day one, Day two you start it starts becoming second nature. You know, you got to take this in the morning. I’m in such a routine now. I get up, I take my supplements, I wait a little bit, I drink my celery juice or my lemon water and then I eat. So I’ve just developed a process and that’s just how it works, you know? So those are really important pieces. And I think another thing to bring up with probiotics is I’ve had some clients do me and come and say, Doc, I’m so Oh my God, I took these. I’m so gassy. Well, two things are happening there. Maybe it’s not the right probiotic for you, number one. And number two, there may be a process that happens because your bacteria is the good guys and bad guys are so off in there. And once we give it this, we send an army down there, they start battling that doesn’t often feel so good in the stomach. So I tell people, okay, take a day or two off and then restart. Give it give what you took a chance of a day or two. Let them fight the battle. And then usually things pass within a day or two and you’re back to normal. But don’t be shocked if that happens. That means your gut is probably off and we’re doing a good thing. You just kind of have to you have to move through it, Right? So that’s another point.
Nick:
Yeah, definitely. Because it’s like you said, it’s about the sustainability. It’s not here’s a supplement and because it’s on your shelf, you’re going to get better. Just like we said, it’s not my insurance pays for this. I go every month, I’m going to get better. It’s more like, okay, the first step is coming to the appointment or buying the product or whatever, but then how can we make this such an important part of your life and also make sure that you’re not obsessing over it. I had a patient and so we do the Spravato nasal Ketamine It’s a pharmaceutical product, but at the same time it’s made so that you take it once a week for quite some time For some patients who might be suicidal, it’s a very long time. For others it’s more of a okay, you’ve hit a wall, let’s do this for a few months and then let’s get off of it. But it’s that same concept where we had a patient saying, I don’t know how I’m going to come every week now I’m finally functioning off to start a job and I said, Well, don’t come back for a while. Let’s focus on your job. Like now you’re not going to be at home ruminating about your depression and your pain. You can actually use your mind and focus on a job and try to do the best. So let’s not spend so much time and effort on self-care and getting better that you’re not functional. The same with therapy. You know, we have counselors and the ones that really need to come to therapy all the time because of the same concept. This new job don’t know how I’ll fit it in and said Don’t fit us in, concentrate on your job. Let’s make sure this is sustainable so you’re not spending so much time that you’re having these therapy sessions saying, Oh, I don’t know, I’m going to do I don’t have any time, but I’m spending an hour with you talking about it. So a bit more of this practical sense of making sure that. Helping your health and getting better is important, but not to the point where you’re actually hurting yourself by continually judging yourself like, Am I eating enough organic? Did I do this right? Did I spend enough time in prayer and meditation?
Adriana:
I love that word ruminating because we do that so much. You can be at both ends of the spectrum where you’re not doing anything and you don’t give a crap about what’s going on and screw it. And then there’s those people who are obsessed about eating organic and taking their supplements and oh my gosh, this happened. Oh my gosh, this happened. That’s that’s an energetic thing that happens. That’s an addiction. So addictions are they’re medical like you think of cocaine addiction. Addictions are also in thought. We get obsessed about certain things. That’s not great either because that can still create problems in the system. So I do love that word. Don’t don’t be obsessed with things. Just be like neutral, like, okay, I’ve made some progress. I’m going to I’m going to back off a little bit maybe for a couple of weeks, see how I do. I’m not going to sit here and obsess about what’s going on or obsessed that I might not be able to let go. The goal for both of us is we just want you to get better And at some point, yeah, you hope that you don’t need us anymore. We’re just there as a stepping stone for however long that takes to get you there. And everybody works at a different rate. So what we do doesn’t It can happen overnight, but a lot of times it’s not. It depends on where somebody is, how open they are, how receptive they are, how resistant they are. All these things play a role and that’s the rate at which you you will get better, faster or slower.
Nick:
So I think we should call this show rumination and probiotics.
Adriana:
Yeah, I love that word. Love it.
Nick:
No, we’ve purposely just talked on a couple of different topics and made this conversational. Not that I’m really capable of doing anything scripted anyways, but that sort of sums it up that we can get so inside of ourselves about our health that we actually make it worse by our efforts to be perfect. And sometimes that’s an American culture thing. We want to be the best. We want everything to be perfect. We want this control. So realizing, hey, you might be at 70% health and it’s just a small part of your life that’s so much better than being tip top shape. And yet there’s no depth to you because all of your energy, every part of your mind, soul, spirit, body is just so focused on peak physical performance as if you know we are unworthy unless we meet a certain standard of health.
Adriana:
Oh, the unworthiness. That’s another topic. The other topic How many of us? Yeah. So definitely it’s just you already are perfect as you are. Let’s just get you to the best state that you can be. And there’s so much around that. It’s not always black and white. It isn’t. It’s never black and white really. So both of us work on that and don’t don’t obsess. And let’s say, okay, but get yourself to the point that, you know, you need to you want to get better. That’s I think where a lot of people are and they’re ruminating in not doing anything and that’s not great either.
Nick:
So but yeah, absolutely. So then our last topic and I was thinking of this when we were talking about addiction, how we can be addicted to better health. And honestly, both of us have some shiny things in our office that’s sort of like, Wow, this is really innovative and this is a novel technique and I’m going to do this and it’s going to change everything. And it’s so important, as I said, to kind of put things in the context of health as opposed to like, here’s the magic bullet. Yeah. So can you tell us a little bit more about what you do in your office? Obviously you start out as a podiatrist and having so many fun topics that, you know, we don’t really care about our history and our expertise, but why don’t you just for the last minute here, tell us a little bit about what you can offer at your office.
Adriana:
Yeah, absolutely. So I converted from being a foot and ankle surgeon. I no longer do that because people need more. I provide quantum biofeedback therapy. It’s a device that’s FDA registered device that looks into the body, gives me clues as to what’s going on without poking prodding you I practice functional medicine, so based from there I can look into environmental toxins, things other doctors aren’t capturing for you if you’re not getting better. And I also do really amazing energy medicine. It’s called chronic healing. It’s cleaning the body up from all that stress, the anxiety that we carry. And it works miracles for a lot of people at the rate that they are willing to accept. So those are I combine those things and, you know, looking at the body as a whole and getting you better and cleaning out all that stress so that you can have clarity for your physical being and your emotional being as well. Absolutely.
Nick:
And what’s your phone number and website again?
Adriana:
Oh, yeah, sure. The phone number is (440) 438-3138 and the website is w-w-w dot i h m o h i o.com. ImOhio.com.
Nick:
Absolutely. Well, thanks for joining us, everyone, for another episode of the Health Show. It’s so great to talk to you today. Don’t use your toaster in the tub. Hi, this is Nick Angelis. I’m a nurse anesthetist in one of the owners of Alleviant Health Centers of Akron. And the reason I’m talking about toasters and tubs is that this will serve as a medical disclaimer for all of our shows. So most podcasts and especially medical shows spend about 2 or 3 minutes every episode saying the same thing Don’t use us or Google or blog as personal medical advice. And that’s very true, especially since the show is very practical by nature rather than just making small talk with a lot of practitioners in the Wadsworth and Akron area, we get right to the issues, talk about some practical solutions and that may or may not be appropriate for you. You may want to come in and make an appointment. So rather than saying that for every show, this show is about that. And to further explain, I want to explain what we do at Alleviant Health Centers of Akron. And again, sometimes this comes up in shows and sometimes it doesn’t, depending on how eagerly I want to pick the brain of our guest. So this show is about me finding someone who’s smarter than me, who has expertise that I do not, and us both talking and learning from each other. So if it seems that I’m hearing things for the first time, it is this is not a scripted show. This is simply information gathering on my part. And you’re welcome and privy to that as well. So at alleviate health centers of Akron as a nurse anesthetist, I do pain management. Most of this is with neuropathic pain, meaning that you may have a normal MRI or your x ray looks normal, but your nervous system just isn’t reacting the way it should. And so for that we primarily use Ketamine infusions to help with fibromyalgia, sciatica, chronic regional pain syndrome. And on the other aspect of what we do also anxiety, depression, OCD, PTSD. With that we have a full comprehensive psychiatric team. Our medical director, Dr. Molina, who every patient sees before I touch for anything. And we also have therapists because many of the problems require a holistic approach and talking about them actually helps us move the needle to find out what’s the root cause. So that’s what we’re about. We also do TMS or transcranial magnetic stimulation. It’s part of our holistic model of finding ways beyond just pharmaceuticals, although that can often be a part of your care. And again, our philosophy is to work very closely with other practices, which is why most of our guests are people who I’ve referred patients to and who have referred patients to me. And together we really get the best results for our challenging patients. So thanks for watching. And remember, this really isn’t one of our more interesting shows. This is simply a disclaimer so that I don’t have to say these things on all of our other shows. Thanks for watching.