Latest / Pharmacy Podcast Network / The Return to the Wise Body: Hormonal Intelligence and Psychedelic-Informed care for Women with Stephanie Karzon Abrams | The Holistic Pharm

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The Return to the Wise Body: Hormonal Intelligence and Psychedelic-Informed care for Women with Stephanie Karzon Abrams | The Holistic Pharm · Pharmacy Podcast Network

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Speaker 1: You are listening to the global network of podcasters dedicated
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Speaker 1: to the pharmacy profession. Welcome to the Pharmacy podcast Network.
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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the Holistic Pharmacy Podcast. I'm your host,
0:33
Speaker 2: Marina books of and I'm a functional medicine pharmacist in
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Speaker 2: New York. I'm also a clinical herbalist and an integrative
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Speaker 2: health coach specializing in mindfulness and empowerment. I'm on a
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Speaker 2: mission to transform the way we approach healthcare by bridging
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Speaker 2: the wisdom of traditional medicine with modern practice, and in
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Speaker 2: this podcast, I will be highlighting guests who do just that.
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Speaker 2: I'm constantly inspired by them and I know you will
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Speaker 2: be as well.
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Speaker 3: Hello everybody, Welcome back to the Holistic Pharmacy Podcast. I
1:06
Speaker 3: have a very special guest, and I'm at a very
1:09
Speaker 3: special event today. I'm at Gali Laias Gathering in Brooklyn,
1:14
Speaker 3: New York, and we're coming to you live with my guest,
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Speaker 3: Stephanie Carzone, who is a clinical neuropharmacologist, a researcher and
1:24
Speaker 3: entrepreneur and the founder of Beyond Consulting. And today we're
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Speaker 3: going to be exploring the emerging fields of psychedelic medicine,
1:33
Speaker 3: plant medicine, integrative medicine, women's health, neurology, and probably much
1:38
Speaker 3: much more, including advocacy for all of these things. So,
1:41
Speaker 3: without further ado, welcome Stephanie.
1:44
Speaker 4: Hi, thank you, Thanks.
1:48
Speaker 5: This is so exciting.
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Speaker 3: So Stephanie, let's dive in, and why don't you tell
1:54
Speaker 3: us a little bit about your background and how you
1:57
Speaker 3: got into this field of medicine.
1:59
Speaker 6: A long story that I'm going to try to shorten.
2:02
Speaker 6: So I studied neuropharmacology. As you mentioned, I had this
2:05
Speaker 6: really cool opportunity to do an internship in the ICU
2:09
Speaker 6: really early on during my undergrad and the group that
2:12
Speaker 6: I did my internship with was focused on traumatic brain
2:15
Speaker 6: injuries and I ended up staying with this group all
2:17
Speaker 6: the way through my graduate studies and beyond, and it
2:21
Speaker 6: was my first introduction to an integrative care team. I
2:23
Speaker 6: was working with pharmacists, psychologists, neurologists, and tensivists and I
2:28
Speaker 6: was like, this is great. This is where I'm going
2:29
Speaker 6: to work when I graduate. This is where I'm going
2:32
Speaker 6: to be. Something led me to decide to apply to
2:36
Speaker 6: a medical device role for Johnson and Johnson. It was
2:39
Speaker 6: really random, but it wasn't random because it's what brought
2:42
Speaker 6: me to California from Montreal, which is where I'm from.
2:44
Speaker 4: And I learned some.
2:45
Speaker 6: Really important skills in the healthcare industry in terms of
2:49
Speaker 6: business development and therapy awareness. And after six years of
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Speaker 6: being with Jane Jay, I really wanted to go back
2:56
Speaker 6: to the mind, to the brain.
2:58
Speaker 4: When I had.
2:59
Speaker 6: Chosen my internship in the ICU, I was contemplating two opportunities,
3:04
Speaker 6: women's health or neurology.
3:06
Speaker 4: And the only reason I went with the ICU.
3:08
Speaker 6: Role is because they got back to me faster, and
3:11
Speaker 6: it was just one of those things. I was like, Okay,
3:12
Speaker 6: they have an offer, I'm going to do this. But
3:14
Speaker 6: women's health was always top of mind.
3:17
Speaker 4: Especially as I noticed that a lot of.
3:18
Speaker 6: Women who experienced a traumatic brain injury or concussion would
3:24
Speaker 6: later experience fertility issues, menstrual cycle abnormalities essentially dysregulation of
3:31
Speaker 6: what we call the HPA axis, and hormonal health cortisol health.
3:35
Speaker 6: So when I left Jane Jay and wanted to study
3:38
Speaker 6: the brain the mind go back to my study of drugs,
3:41
Speaker 6: I thought, could psychedelics be an answer for people who
3:45
Speaker 6: are healing from a brain injury and for the women
3:48
Speaker 6: who are experiencing all of these hormonal abnormalities. And then
3:52
Speaker 6: I just followed the little breadcrumbs, joined a research team,
3:57
Speaker 6: joined a nonprofit as a research director, started to consult,
4:01
Speaker 6: and everything that I had learned from Jane Jay about
4:04
Speaker 6: market development and therapy awareness, I was able to use
4:07
Speaker 6: as strategy for rolling out these psychedelic therapies into clinical practice.
4:14
Speaker 6: And so that's kind of the abbreviated version. But yeah,
4:18
Speaker 6: just really led by my passion and my interest and
4:22
Speaker 6: my own personal experiences. Is a woman someone who had
4:26
Speaker 6: experienced psychedelics and was very fascinated by all of it.
4:30
Speaker 6: A woman who's been told a million times, okay, let's
4:32
Speaker 6: change a birth control change birth control, change of birth control, right,
4:36
Speaker 6: and just looking for you know, better solutions for myself
4:39
Speaker 6: and for all of us. And I'm also a musician
4:43
Speaker 6: and I have a music label, and that's just another
4:45
Speaker 6: really important, you know, part of my life. And I
4:48
Speaker 6: try to bring music and this work of science and
4:52
Speaker 6: psychedelics together as much as I can. And yeah, that's
4:56
Speaker 6: the story.
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Speaker 5: Wow, thank you so much for sharing this. A lot
5:00
Speaker 5: of moving pieces in there.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, imagine there's a lot of breadcrumbs to kind of
5:04
Speaker 3: reach forward.
5:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, the bread crumbs are everywhere all the time.
5:09
Speaker 5: Yeah.
5:10
Speaker 3: So I was just going to ask and comment on
5:13
Speaker 3: the fact that all of us are likely experiencing some
5:16
Speaker 3: sort of health challenge or know somebody that experiences something
5:20
Speaker 3: or has been hurt by the healthcare industry even or
5:25
Speaker 3: definitely not helped by it all that much, and so
5:29
Speaker 3: many of us professionals and patients alike coming to this
5:33
Speaker 3: for some personal reasons. So I'm curious for you, what
5:37
Speaker 3: was it in your personal life and professional life that
5:40
Speaker 3: led you to this intersection between neuropharmacology and psychedelics and
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Speaker 3: women's health specifically.
5:47
Speaker 6: Yeah, So, as I alluded to it a little bit earlier,
5:50
Speaker 6: I think I found myself again speaking to my physician
5:53
Speaker 6: again about my PMS. It was just every so often
5:59
Speaker 6: there'd be these weird flare ups, acne, bloating, discomfort, mood trouble, sleeping, headaches,
6:05
Speaker 6: and it was always the same answer of let's change
6:07
Speaker 6: your birth control. And so this time I went to
6:09
Speaker 6: a functional medicine physician or doctor and she suggested a
6:15
Speaker 6: blend of Chinese herbs that are really well known in
6:17
Speaker 6: traditional Chinese medicine. And I was like, all right, let's
6:21
Speaker 6: try it. I didn't know that it was going to
6:23
Speaker 6: change my life. I thought, you know, maybe it'll help,
6:26
Speaker 6: but it changed everything, you know, in a really impactful way.
6:30
Speaker 6: There are women who suffer from PMDD and PMS far
6:34
Speaker 6: worse than I was, and the fact that you know,
6:38
Speaker 6: this changed so much for me. I'm just hoping that
6:41
Speaker 6: there are other you know, therapies out there, medicines, natural medicines,
6:44
Speaker 6: and even psychedelic therapies that could help women who are
6:47
Speaker 6: struggling you know, every cycle. So that was you know,
6:52
Speaker 6: a first kind of inkling. And then obviously my experience
6:56
Speaker 6: in the ICU too with women and brain injury, really
7:00
Speaker 6: trying to understand what is left over after the brain
7:04
Speaker 6: injury heals that causes dysregulation on a hormonal level, on
7:10
Speaker 6: a mental health level as well, and so we end
7:13
Speaker 6: up calling these functional neurological disorders. Right, So it's like
7:16
Speaker 6: the injury has healed, but there seems to be something
7:19
Speaker 6: that's disconnected and not you know, functioning properly. And what
7:23
Speaker 6: psychedelics do is collapse the brain networks. Parts of the
7:27
Speaker 6: brain that don't operate you know, usually together or operate
7:31
Speaker 6: in segregated ways. Become connected, and so the boundaries kind
7:35
Speaker 6: of dissolve in these brain networks and there's a reorganization
7:39
Speaker 6: of activity. And we know now that psilocybin acutely activates
7:45
Speaker 6: the HPA axis, which is the hypothalmic pituitary adrenal axis,
7:49
Speaker 6: which is important for our stress response, right, And this
7:54
Speaker 6: is especially relevant for women who are transitioning into midlife
7:57
Speaker 6: and menopause, where the HPA act sis activity does become
8:01
Speaker 6: dysregulated and it is hard to manage our stress. And
8:05
Speaker 6: we do have this kind of like reactive way of
8:08
Speaker 6: treating these things, right, And so the way I'm looking
8:11
Speaker 6: at it is, could we go in more proactively with
8:14
Speaker 6: these therapies, or if we can't go in proactively, can
8:17
Speaker 6: we at least go in with something that you know,
8:19
Speaker 6: can actually solve the core issue at hand, which is
8:22
Speaker 6: way more than just biological, right, These important female health
8:26
Speaker 6: transitions are not just biological. They're neurological, they're spiritual, they're existential.
8:31
Speaker 6: We are constantly becoming new people, right, and we try
8:35
Speaker 6: to anchor onto who we were before. Trying to navigate
8:39
Speaker 6: an existential crisis like that with some Zoloft is just
8:44
Speaker 6: really inadequate it's just like, it's really not what we
8:48
Speaker 6: should be doing. Yeah, it's not going to address what really,
8:54
Speaker 6: you know, the core of what's important here with an
8:57
Speaker 6: important transition like that, and psychedelic therapies can and so
9:01
Speaker 6: I guess my message with Galilea is that you don't
9:05
Speaker 6: have to practice with psychedelics, but we've reached a point
9:07
Speaker 6: where you certainly need to know about them, and there
9:10
Speaker 6: certainly isn't an excuse for shutting down the conversation. So
9:14
Speaker 6: if you have a patient or a client in front
9:16
Speaker 6: of you and you think that a psychedelic therapy, you know,
9:20
Speaker 6: would be appropriate, you know, guiding them to the research
9:23
Speaker 6: or an educational you know, resource, or making a referral
9:27
Speaker 6: to a therapist that does do kedemine assisted therapy or
9:30
Speaker 6: a therapy center in a state where it is legal,
9:34
Speaker 6: or whatever you want to do, just being able to
9:36
Speaker 6: create the space for the conversation and provide adequate, trustworthy,
9:41
Speaker 6: reliable information and at the very bare minimum harm reduction.
9:46
Speaker 6: There's so much out there in terms of harm reduction
9:48
Speaker 6: strategy communities that I don't think it's an excuse at
9:52
Speaker 6: any point now to say I don't want to compromise
9:55
Speaker 6: my license. This is it's in the literature we are publishing.
9:59
Speaker 6: There are legal pathways, we have decriminalized, we have legalized
10:03
Speaker 6: in certain areas. The conversation should exist because I think
10:07
Speaker 6: that these therapies are very uniquely positioned to accompany women
10:12
Speaker 6: as they navigate transitions, whether they're extra challenging, a little
10:16
Speaker 6: bit challenging, everything in between, I think they can be
10:19
Speaker 6: incredible tools. And so that's why Galilea exists. It started
10:23
Speaker 6: as just a group of women's health experts, a consultative group,
10:28
Speaker 6: if you will, to help providers and provideer groups. And then,
10:31
Speaker 6: as I was telling brit a little bit earlier, I
10:34
Speaker 6: was like, I want people to be able to access
10:36
Speaker 6: this information for free. So let's create a community. And
10:39
Speaker 6: so in January we founded a community that has surpassed
10:41
Speaker 6: one hundred professionals.
10:43
Speaker 4: We're on What's.
10:44
Speaker 6: Up, we have virtual meetings, we have meetups like these ones.
10:48
Speaker 6: We're starting a webinar series co September, and we just
10:52
Speaker 6: want to increase the ability to access important information. And
10:56
Speaker 6: also we're not the ones with all the answers. Everyone
10:59
Speaker 6: in this and everyone who's joining, each and every one
11:02
Speaker 6: of you are so brilliant and have so much to
11:04
Speaker 6: bring to the table that this community is really you know,
11:08
Speaker 6: we're all kind of teaching each other here and we
11:10
Speaker 6: can all learn from each other. And I'm noticing people
11:13
Speaker 6: bring up, you know, different cases and asking for oh
11:17
Speaker 6: do you know you know, like do you have a
11:18
Speaker 6: referral in this state? And the collaboration is really starting
11:21
Speaker 6: to come together in a really nice way.
11:23
Speaker 4: So we'll see, we'll see where it goes. Yeah.
11:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love the idea of this communal wisdom, yes,
11:30
Speaker 3: and the creativity and the inspiration and navigating some of
11:35
Speaker 3: these challenges from what you mentioned about the clinical complexity
11:41
Speaker 3: of women's health in general, through the hormones and the
11:44
Speaker 3: life stages that women go through and being cyclical creatures.
11:49
Speaker 3: It's not just the twenty four hour cycle, right that
11:52
Speaker 3: we go through. We go through so many and so
11:55
Speaker 3: I can imagine there's also challenges with the research because
11:58
Speaker 3: of that to conduct search on women for that reason,
12:02
Speaker 3: and also that advocacy around changing policies and making these
12:07
Speaker 3: things more accessible or educating people on this or making
12:14
Speaker 3: sure that we are respecting the context too of when
12:17
Speaker 3: we're introducing this, so like where exactly does it fit
12:21
Speaker 3: in a standardized conventional model. So how would you even
12:25
Speaker 3: begin to navigate some of these challenges.
12:27
Speaker 4: Yes, that's a big question.
12:28
Speaker 6: I think education is the core piece, being able to
12:32
Speaker 6: share what we do know and even making it very
12:35
Speaker 6: clear about what we don't know, you know, And there's
12:39
Speaker 6: even conflicting data in the literature. Now, for example, when
12:43
Speaker 6: you look at the literature to try to understand in
12:46
Speaker 6: what direction estrogen is influencing serotonin, we know that more
12:53
Speaker 6: estrogen usually means more serotonin receptor sensitivity, increase serotonin production,
13:00
Speaker 6: more serotonin available. Okay, So like that makes sense, right,
13:04
Speaker 6: because estrogen rises and falls twice in the cycle. When
13:07
Speaker 6: estrogen is low, our mood tends to kind of get crummy. Okay,
13:11
Speaker 6: so that kind of makes sense. We have we have
13:14
Speaker 6: data on that. But now there's this reasonable, you know,
13:17
Speaker 6: plausible idea that if serotonergic psychedelics can be influenced by estrogen,
13:25
Speaker 6: does that mean that we should cycle sink the psychedelic
13:28
Speaker 6: therapy or experience, right, And so the problem here is
13:31
Speaker 6: that we don't quite know how estrogen is influencing the
13:35
Speaker 6: response to a psychedelic therapy like psilocybin, a serotonergic psychedelic right.
13:42
Speaker 4: So some data shows that.
13:43
Speaker 6: Low estrogen rats have a higher response to psilocybin, and
13:48
Speaker 6: the way they measure that in the research is a
13:50
Speaker 6: head twitch, so it's kind of interesting. But then there's
13:54
Speaker 6: also conflicting data that shows that low estrogen might provide
14:00
Speaker 6: a lesser strong response to the psychedelic So that's conflicting.
14:06
Speaker 6: And the problem here is that we're not including enough women.
14:11
Speaker 6: We're not studying the cycle specifically. We're usually excluding the
14:16
Speaker 6: cycle as a confounder. And so this work really advocates
14:21
Speaker 6: for more women in studies. But also, let's look at
14:25
Speaker 6: the cyclical response. Let's look at the hormonal response, because
14:28
Speaker 6: if estrogen alters the search energic landscape, it's plausible to
14:32
Speaker 6: think that it's going to also alter the psychedelic experience.
14:35
Speaker 6: And that doesn't just go for serotonin. Estrogen modulates glutamate,
14:39
Speaker 6: and glutamate is the most important neurotransmitter. It's our brain's
14:44
Speaker 6: GO signal, and glutamaturgic neurotransmission is extremely important across our
14:49
Speaker 6: mental well being, our hormones, our stress response, and is
14:54
Speaker 6: very much tied up in our response to psychedelics. It's
14:57
Speaker 6: a neurotransmitter that gets modulated not just by ketamine. Often
15:01
Speaker 6: we make glutament synonymous with ketamine. But there's a study
15:05
Speaker 6: that demonstrated that ayahuasca even sustained high levels of glutamint
15:09
Speaker 6: after two months.
15:10
Speaker 4: And so what am I saying.
15:12
Speaker 6: Is that we need to fund this research because there
15:14
Speaker 6: are too many questions.
15:15
Speaker 4: Now.
15:16
Speaker 6: Until we get the research, we can listen to a
15:18
Speaker 6: women's lived experience.
15:20
Speaker 5: Right.
15:20
Speaker 6: We can ask our patients and our clients, how do
15:23
Speaker 6: you feel during your luteal phase? When do you feel
15:26
Speaker 6: most resourced in your cycle? Let's use that high energetic
15:31
Speaker 6: window as your anchor point, right, so that you know
15:33
Speaker 6: that you can always return to that state when you're
15:37
Speaker 6: not feeling one hundred percent yourself. But then we can
15:39
Speaker 6: use this cycle as a guide for our sessions, right,
15:43
Speaker 6: not just to track your client's cycle, but to say, Okay,
15:46
Speaker 6: if you're less resourced in your luteal phase and you're
15:49
Speaker 6: more sensitive, maybe that's not when we dig in to
15:52
Speaker 6: do deep, deep integration work. Maybe that's not when we're
15:55
Speaker 6: going to be doing parts work right. Maybe we'll wait
15:58
Speaker 6: for a more energetic when like ovulation or the follicular
16:02
Speaker 6: phase to do longer sessions. Right, And so using it
16:06
Speaker 6: as a guide like that is really amazing, and then
16:08
Speaker 6: also educating your clients. Being able to name the fact
16:13
Speaker 6: that psycho awareness is important really lifts a lot of
16:16
Speaker 6: shame because when we can't show up one hundred percent
16:20
Speaker 6: every week, you know, as moms, as partners, as employees,
16:25
Speaker 6: as founders, right, I think we're really hard on ourselves
16:29
Speaker 6: and there's a lot of guilt and shame that we carry.
16:31
Speaker 6: So that psycho education is therapeutic, you know, being able
16:35
Speaker 6: to say that this is normal. And maybe to us
16:38
Speaker 6: that's really obvious, but to a lot of women it's not,
16:40
Speaker 6: and so that validation is really important. So I really
16:44
Speaker 6: do believe that we should be collecting a lot more
16:46
Speaker 6: reproductive history and menstrual history in the intake process. I
16:51
Speaker 6: created a women's health adendum that I'll share with you all,
16:55
Speaker 6: but you can kind of pick and choose, you know,
16:57
Speaker 6: what you want to include in your intake form, or
17:00
Speaker 6: you can supply it just like as an addendum to
17:02
Speaker 6: your intake form currently. And I think that getting that
17:06
Speaker 6: information is key. I think it will improve outcomes. And
17:11
Speaker 6: I think just knowing where she's at, you know, and
17:15
Speaker 6: meeting her there no matter what it looks like is
17:18
Speaker 6: very very supportive and will make a world of a
17:20
Speaker 6: difference in how you offer care.
17:22
Speaker 5: Yeah, I completely agree.
17:24
Speaker 3: I think we need to offer this kind of education
17:28
Speaker 3: and awareness. That's where everything really starts from, because there
17:33
Speaker 3: is still a lot of stigma. There's still a lot
17:35
Speaker 3: of unknowns, like you were alluding to, and we need
17:39
Speaker 3: to be the ones as practitioners to start these conversations
17:43
Speaker 3: and getting excited about this and getting into this field
17:47
Speaker 3: to be the ones that lead. And so what would
17:51
Speaker 3: you say to somebody listening right now who is open
17:54
Speaker 3: and curious to start to include this in their practice,
17:58
Speaker 3: Like what should they be doing? And are maybe some
18:00
Speaker 3: of the safeguards as well they should have in place?
18:02
Speaker 6: Yeah, journaling is so simple, but how many of us journal?
18:08
Speaker 4: Okay? Cool? I like journals.
18:10
Speaker 6: Sometimes it's like the mood needs to strike and I
18:13
Speaker 6: just started tracking my dreams because I'm a very lucid
18:17
Speaker 6: dreamer and sometimes I'm like, how am I not writing
18:19
Speaker 6: all of these down?
18:20
Speaker 5: You know?
18:20
Speaker 6: And you could start to really notice things, And so
18:23
Speaker 6: I think journaling about Yeah, right, do you journal?
18:26
Speaker 5: Yeah? Yeah, I do a dream practice as well.
18:28
Speaker 4: It's cool, that's cool.
18:30
Speaker 6: Yeah, So so simple, right, just writing a few words,
18:33
Speaker 6: even in the morning or in the evening, about how
18:36
Speaker 6: you feel. These these uh cycle trackers like flow, these
18:41
Speaker 6: are great apps.
18:42
Speaker 4: You can really start to.
18:44
Speaker 6: Get a very clear picture, you know, after just a
18:47
Speaker 6: couple of cycles. And I think at the end of
18:49
Speaker 6: the day, you know, it's not about the psychedelics. It's
18:52
Speaker 6: not about you know, this psychedelic or that psychedelic or this.
18:54
Speaker 4: Plan or this herb.
18:55
Speaker 6: It's really about the ritual and just the connection to self,
18:59
Speaker 6: can I to your surroundings, you know, and just being
19:02
Speaker 6: very much in tune. I think that alone is the
19:06
Speaker 6: perfect place to start, is creating this attunement where we
19:10
Speaker 6: can actually listen to our bodies, because I think what
19:13
Speaker 6: we grow up with in our society is how to
19:15
Speaker 6: mask all of the discomforts.
19:17
Speaker 4: Right, you have a.
19:17
Speaker 6: Headache, you take an advil. You have a stomachache, you
19:19
Speaker 6: go take some you know, pepto. You know, we're always
19:22
Speaker 6: just trying to suppress, suppress all of the feelings. And
19:25
Speaker 6: of course we don't have to like live in discomfort.
19:28
Speaker 4: But if we.
19:28
Speaker 6: Start to ask our question, like, oh, why do I
19:31
Speaker 6: get a headache every month? You know during this week,
19:35
Speaker 6: it seems really obvious to say, Well, of course it's
19:37
Speaker 6: related to the cycle. But I think that just the
19:39
Speaker 6: way we're conditioned, a lot of people, it just kind
19:42
Speaker 6: of passes them by, And so I think that's a
19:45
Speaker 6: great place to start. I think understanding. You know, if
19:48
Speaker 6: you take any medications, interactions are important. Even natural medicines,
19:53
Speaker 6: humble herbs as I like to call them, are very potent.
19:56
Speaker 6: You know, that Chinese medicine blend that I talk about
20:00
Speaker 6: was a mix of white paeony, don qui, gensing poia,
20:05
Speaker 6: which is a mushroom like you know, licorice root, mint,
20:10
Speaker 6: ginger like all but all of them together regulated me
20:14
Speaker 6: in this incredible way. You know, no more acne breakouts,
20:18
Speaker 6: no more uncomfortable bloating, no more headaches, no more mood swings.
20:22
Speaker 6: And so that's very curious, right, what's these powerful little herbs.
20:26
Speaker 6: But they do interact, you know, with other medicines. They
20:29
Speaker 6: do obviously have a lot of power in our bodies
20:32
Speaker 6: and our brains and our minds. So just being aware,
20:35
Speaker 6: you know of what we're already taking. And also just
20:38
Speaker 6: remember that a lot of these herbs are supplemental. You
20:40
Speaker 6: don't have to take them every day, right, you should
20:43
Speaker 6: try to get as much as you can from your food,
20:45
Speaker 6: from your nutrition, and then if you're you know, willing
20:48
Speaker 6: to sit with a psychedelic or if you want to
20:50
Speaker 6: engage in like a microdosing protocol, there's a lot of
20:53
Speaker 6: preparation that goes into that. And even in small doses,
20:56
Speaker 6: they can be very altering. You know, their nonspecific amp fires,
21:00
Speaker 6: they can bring things up in very very small doses.
21:04
Speaker 6: I was just talking to some colleagues this morning about this.
21:07
Speaker 6: In very very small doses, ten micrograms LSD is very powerful.
21:11
Speaker 6: It's a very powerful antidepressant. And there is some research
21:15
Speaker 6: that came out of the University of Auckland where people
21:18
Speaker 6: were taking doses of ten to twenty mics with major
21:21
Speaker 6: depressive disorder and seeing this relief that they had just
21:24
Speaker 6: never experienced with anything else. And that wasn't even conjunction
21:28
Speaker 6: with therapy, so imagine when you combined it with therapy.
21:31
Speaker 6: So just being aware that the small doses are mighty,
21:35
Speaker 6: that integration is how you sustain your practice, and you
21:41
Speaker 6: don't have to follow a protocol. You can be very intuitive,
21:44
Speaker 6: you know, you can wait for your body's signals. You know,
21:47
Speaker 6: to inform when you might want to take a microdose
21:51
Speaker 6: or go sit with a medicine, And it doesn't have
21:53
Speaker 6: to look like anything like it just you can. You
21:56
Speaker 6: can do it in a clinic if you want to,
21:58
Speaker 6: you know, fly away and Costa Rica and do it
22:00
Speaker 6: in the ceremony.
22:01
Speaker 5: You can.
22:01
Speaker 6: I just think that the education and the preparation and
22:04
Speaker 6: the integration are kind of these non negotiables however you
22:07
Speaker 6: wish to engage with them.
22:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, those are definitely key areas, and I'm really glad
22:13
Speaker 3: that you brought all of those things up because you know,
22:16
Speaker 3: I see so many people just shy away from the
22:20
Speaker 3: discomfort the uncomfortability of like these what we per seem
22:25
Speaker 3: as negative symptoms or emotions, and so when that's not processed,
22:31
Speaker 3: nothing is going to heal you. So you can take
22:34
Speaker 3: the psychedelics, you can do all of these miracle medicines
22:39
Speaker 3: and journeys, but unless you do the inner work and
22:43
Speaker 3: align yourself and integrate into your real life experience all
22:48
Speaker 3: the things you're learning, you know, things aren't probably unlikely
22:52
Speaker 3: to change.
22:53
Speaker 5: So this is a really key.
22:55
Speaker 3: Area, and I think it's worth it to understand, Like,
22:59
Speaker 3: how can conditioned we are by society to reach for
23:03
Speaker 3: the quick fix or like you know, even go and
23:06
Speaker 3: fly to Costa Rica to experience something. But you know,
23:10
Speaker 3: unless you're willing to sort of like even dismantle and
23:15
Speaker 3: remantle your whole life, you know, likely you'll be missing
23:19
Speaker 3: some pieces.
23:20
Speaker 5: So I see medicine as this.
23:24
Speaker 3: Holistic concept where there is a hierarchy, but we're so
23:29
Speaker 3: used to like these standardized protocols and guidelines and algorithms
23:33
Speaker 3: and like, if this happens, you do this, But there's really.
23:38
Speaker 5: So much more than what they offer.
23:41
Speaker 3: And so what you're speaking to I think really integrates,
23:44
Speaker 3: Like you don't need this herb or this psychedelic necessarily,
23:48
Speaker 3: but having that in your toolkit, having a practitioner to
23:53
Speaker 3: walk you through some of these things, and also not
23:56
Speaker 3: expecting that Okay, there's one answer and there's one practitioner,
24:00
Speaker 3: and there's like this one thing that's missing from your life,
24:04
Speaker 3: but just learning from every little like we talked about earlier,
24:08
Speaker 3: breadcrumb and just picking up whatever you can and then
24:13
Speaker 3: seeing well, how does this apply to me, How does
24:15
Speaker 3: this integrate into my life? How can I continue to
24:18
Speaker 3: practice these lessons and not just forget about it and
24:20
Speaker 3: move on to the next thing.
24:22
Speaker 4: Totally, totally.
24:23
Speaker 6: There's something that we talk about with Gallet We call
24:25
Speaker 6: it the return to the wise body. And I think
24:29
Speaker 6: you kind of touched on that, is that there's this
24:31
Speaker 6: inner knowing and intuition of what we need. But it's
24:35
Speaker 6: a skill that we have to relearn because we've been
24:38
Speaker 6: deconditioned around that, you know, not to really like listen
24:41
Speaker 6: to our body and not to interpret the different signals
24:44
Speaker 6: that our body is giving us. And then there's another
24:47
Speaker 6: side to this too, because as psychedelics become more and
24:50
Speaker 6: more part of our modern you know, clinical practice, as
24:54
Speaker 6: plant medicines gain popularity, right like who people are ordering
24:58
Speaker 6: you know, San Pedro off of say, and I just
25:01
Speaker 6: heard about I just heard about this this little unsanctioned
25:07
Speaker 6: mushroom dispensary in British Columbia in Victoria that is selling
25:10
Speaker 6: more eboga than mushrooms.
25:13
Speaker 4: At this point.
25:15
Speaker 6: And what I think we have to remember is that
25:18
Speaker 6: before all of the clinical trials and the peer view
25:21
Speaker 6: and all of this, there is this ancestral wisdom. And
25:26
Speaker 6: I think we tend to say that we're building on it,
25:28
Speaker 6: we're building on this foundation, but it's not just that
25:31
Speaker 6: we have to continue to build with it, because that
25:34
Speaker 6: wisdom hasn't evaporated. These people are still practicing with these
25:38
Speaker 6: plants very much. So there's so much that we can learn,
25:42
Speaker 6: and we mustn't, you know, kind of cast it aside
25:46
Speaker 6: in this different silo.
25:47
Speaker 4: We must weave it in.
25:48
Speaker 6: And we also must remember that all of us come
25:51
Speaker 6: from lineages of women who essentially revered ecology as theology.
25:58
Speaker 6: There's so many practice is with plants and other rituals,
26:03
Speaker 6: you know, coming of age traditions. There's so much that
26:07
Speaker 6: has been passed down, But then there's so much that
26:09
Speaker 6: has been forgotten, and I think that it's worth exploring.
26:13
Speaker 6: You know, what our ancestors used to practice with and
26:17
Speaker 6: what traditions did they, you know, incorporate into everyday life.
26:21
Speaker 6: And just remember that we have this knowing that it
26:24
Speaker 6: always existed long before society tried to tell us what
26:28
Speaker 6: was good what counts as evidence? Right, We we actually
26:33
Speaker 6: knew things. So I think as women, we are highly
26:36
Speaker 6: intuitive beings and we have an opportunity here to start
26:40
Speaker 6: advocating for ourselves way more than we have ever before,
26:43
Speaker 6: having more agency when we speak to our providers, and
26:46
Speaker 6: if our providers aren't meeting us there then finding other
26:49
Speaker 6: providers that are more integrative. And another thing that I
26:51
Speaker 6: would really love to see is just welcoming spirituality back
26:55
Speaker 6: into medicine. Our existence is highly spiritual. We are born,
27:00
Speaker 6: we live, and we die and that is a marvel.
27:04
Speaker 6: It's a miracle, and we've just medicalized all of it.
27:07
Speaker 6: And I think that psychedelics are opening the door for
27:10
Speaker 6: this next generation of practitioners to practice with more spirituality.
27:14
Speaker 6: Like my brother is an orthopedic surgeon and sometimes he's
27:18
Speaker 6: in the er and he has to give ketamine to
27:21
Speaker 6: patients right dislocated shoulders, repair bones. He prepares them for
27:25
Speaker 6: their ketamine and tells them how they might feel with
27:28
Speaker 6: the ketamine, what the dissociation's going to feel like. But
27:31
Speaker 6: then he'll kind of assess, you know, if this person
27:34
Speaker 6: could maybe handle a little bit more of an explanation.
27:37
Speaker 4: And he's had some.
27:38
Speaker 6: Incredible experiences where a gentleman like returned like weeks later
27:43
Speaker 6: to say that he had never he hasn't touched any
27:45
Speaker 6: substances since my brother treated him with ketamine. And the
27:50
Speaker 6: ketamine wasn't as a psychedelic therapy, it was just as
27:53
Speaker 6: an anesthetic in the er, and I thought that was.
27:57
Speaker 4: Just a really beautiful story. My brother was really touched.
27:59
Speaker 6: And I think that, you know, just these small little
28:03
Speaker 6: details in practice, like he's not a psychedelic therapist, but
28:06
Speaker 6: just knowing and understanding how these medicines work could really
28:10
Speaker 6: change how we practice. And I can see a few eers,
28:15
Speaker 6: you know, kind of steering away from Benzo's and maybe
28:18
Speaker 6: now favoring ketamine and you know, addressing a.
28:22
Speaker 4: Couple of things in one visit. Maybe.
28:25
Speaker 6: But yeah, maybe it's like a very idealistic thing to say,
28:28
Speaker 6: but I do think that plant medicine and psychedelics part
28:31
Speaker 6: of our generation now is giving the opportunity to kind
28:34
Speaker 6: of reshape how care is offered, especially when it comes
28:37
Speaker 6: to women.
28:38
Speaker 5: Yeah.
28:38
Speaker 3: Absolutely, thank you so much for sharing that sweet anecdote.
28:42
Speaker 3: I mean, I think we all probably have stories like
28:44
Speaker 3: this that we have experienced or heard from others.
28:48
Speaker 5: And it's very inspiring.
28:51
Speaker 3: Too to know that people are experiencing such profound effects,
28:56
Speaker 3: even just from one dose or one sitting with a
28:59
Speaker 3: plant medicine. That speaks to what you talked about earlier,
29:02
Speaker 3: that these things are powerful. They're not just like Okay,
29:05
Speaker 3: your grandma's old wives tale it speaks to the wisdom
29:09
Speaker 3: of the women's lineages and us healing, like you said
29:13
Speaker 3: in sisterhood, in community and through these rights of passage too.
29:17
Speaker 3: And I think it's important to talk about how we
29:20
Speaker 3: don't take these medicines out of their context, out of
29:24
Speaker 3: their cultures, out of like the soil and the foundation
29:29
Speaker 3: where they were always meant to be, because again, we
29:32
Speaker 3: don't want to fall into that extracted role like this
29:35
Speaker 3: is the active ingredient, and this is what I'm going
29:37
Speaker 3: to market and this is what I'm gonna turn into
29:39
Speaker 3: a pharmaceutical product or whatever. So how would you say,
29:44
Speaker 3: you know, we can navigate this specifically and be ethical
29:49
Speaker 3: in our practices of offering these medicines.
29:52
Speaker 6: Such a loaded, loaded question, I will I will say this.
29:56
Speaker 6: I think that the medical model should exist. I think
30:01
Speaker 6: there's value in isolating actives. However, the question is how
30:08
Speaker 6: do we continue to show respect from the source, right,
30:11
Speaker 6: and the ecosystems that birthed these medicines and the wisdom
30:15
Speaker 6: and so I always say that we don't have to
30:18
Speaker 6: supply the demand, right. So of course we're seeing companies
30:22
Speaker 6: like Compass Pathways right coming out with their own psilocybin
30:26
Speaker 6: probably next year that they've patented, and that's going to
30:30
Speaker 6: follow the same REMS risk mitigation strategy as spravado. Right,
30:34
Speaker 6: the esketamine from j J, it's going to be offered
30:37
Speaker 6: as you know, a four to six hour session.
30:40
Speaker 4: It's going to be regulated.
30:41
Speaker 6: It's for this you know condition, et cetera, et cetera,
30:44
Speaker 6: and people are just going to want to access it, right,
30:47
Speaker 6: and people who can access it might start to say, well,
30:50
Speaker 6: if I can't access it, I'm going to go find
30:52
Speaker 6: a natural source, which I.
30:54
Speaker 4: Think could be a good thing.
30:55
Speaker 3: Right.
30:55
Speaker 6: To see these treatments come through FDA and be deemed
30:59
Speaker 6: a safe could really open the eyes and the minds
31:04
Speaker 6: of people all around who might want to access them
31:06
Speaker 6: in another way. But these ecosystems, like if someone wants
31:09
Speaker 6: to go sit in ceremony with the indigenous right or
31:13
Speaker 6: go to the jungle and sit in a practice, these
31:15
Speaker 6: ecosystems are going to get stressed, you know, all of
31:18
Speaker 6: a sudden. Now it's ecotourism, and there's like buses that
31:22
Speaker 6: are arriving in Peru and all these places, and these
31:26
Speaker 6: ecosystems might not.
31:27
Speaker 4: Be able to support that load.
31:29
Speaker 6: And so I say, we don't have to supply the demand, right,
31:33
Speaker 6: and they don't have to you know, welcome all.
31:35
Speaker 4: Of these people.
31:36
Speaker 6: Like, of course there's an opportunity to heal the world,
31:39
Speaker 6: but I just think that we have to tread very
31:41
Speaker 6: very carefully to not destroy these ecosystems, these people, these lineages.
31:47
Speaker 6: And for the medical side, I also think it's the
31:50
Speaker 6: same thing, because if you start trying to scale a
31:53
Speaker 6: psychedelic therapy, I think you dilute it completely. You dilute
31:57
Speaker 6: the care, you dilute its effect and its potential benefit.
32:00
Speaker 6: And so I see these medicines more like surgery than
32:05
Speaker 6: you know, dispensing pills at a pharmacy. They're transformational therapies
32:09
Speaker 6: that don't really fall in that category. And so that
32:12
Speaker 6: might mean that not everyone gets to offer them, you know,
32:15
Speaker 6: and it also means not everybody gets to access them.
32:18
Speaker 6: And that's a controversial thing to say, but I just
32:21
Speaker 6: think that right now that's what's necessary, and there are
32:24
Speaker 6: so many different ways to access them, and you just
32:27
Speaker 6: kind of have to find your way, and natural is
32:31
Speaker 6: not necessarily better than synthetic. I think synthetic solves a
32:35
Speaker 6: lot of issues, especially the one that you're talking about
32:38
Speaker 6: kind of protecting the soil, protecting the people. You know,
32:41
Speaker 6: we can't keep extracting from the Sonoran toad, right, so
32:46
Speaker 6: peyote is endangered. So it's going to take a very
32:49
Speaker 6: big effort to offer that protection. But what I hope
32:53
Speaker 6: is that we can kind of leverage what is coming
32:55
Speaker 6: out of the medical model to open the eyes of
32:58
Speaker 6: the rest of civilization. All of those who you know,
33:00
Speaker 6: look at LSD and only see madness right and not
33:03
Speaker 6: see the potential, or you know, they think that plant
33:06
Speaker 6: medicine isn't powerful, or they don't understand it. I think
33:10
Speaker 6: that maybe the regulatory pathway could kind of help convince
33:14
Speaker 6: people otherwise and inspire them.
33:16
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you for that perspective.
33:19
Speaker 3: I think it's really important, and we've brought up a
33:22
Speaker 3: lot of challenges, but I think, you know, once we
33:25
Speaker 3: have everything on the table, then we can choose the
33:28
Speaker 3: best path forward. And having these conversations is a really
33:32
Speaker 3: good start. And I want to start bringing this podcast
33:35
Speaker 3: episode to a close, but I want to bring back
33:39
Speaker 3: something that you poined, which is to be well is
33:41
Speaker 3: to be wild. I heard you say that on a
33:44
Speaker 3: previous talk, so could you talk about what that means
33:48
Speaker 3: and where that fits in with this integrative and psychedelic
33:51
Speaker 3: model for women.
33:52
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that we're we've reached a point in
33:55
Speaker 6: time where women, I mean all people are kind of
33:58
Speaker 6: taking their health and wellness into their own hands and
34:00
Speaker 6: they're walking these roads without guardrails. I mentioned the example
34:04
Speaker 6: of you know, ordering microdoses on signal or being in
34:08
Speaker 6: like a WhatsApp group or something, and I think that
34:13
Speaker 6: health and wellness today requires a little bit of this wildness,
34:17
Speaker 6: you know, this this risk taking to step outside of
34:21
Speaker 6: the system. That's certainly what's happening. People are saying, I'm
34:26
Speaker 6: not waiting for the research. I'm not waiting for a
34:29
Speaker 6: research paper to tell me that I can take psilocybin,
34:32
Speaker 6: you know, or that I could try this psychedelic I'm
34:35
Speaker 6: just going to go try it on my own, whether
34:37
Speaker 6: that is microdosing or like traveling to a far away
34:40
Speaker 6: place to sit in ceremony. So I think that's really
34:43
Speaker 6: what it is for me. And it's also what I
34:46
Speaker 6: mentioned earlier about remembering that knowledge and knowing are not
34:50
Speaker 6: the same. Knowing is something that is carried in through
34:54
Speaker 6: generations across lineages, that has passed on that pre dates
34:58
Speaker 6: all of the science and clinical trials that we have
35:00
Speaker 6: today by millennia, and the women who held ceremony, the
35:05
Speaker 6: women who offered plaid medicines, who supported the people of
35:10
Speaker 6: their villages, of their families. They weren't you know, misguided,
35:14
Speaker 6: they weren't reckless, they weren't unscientific. They were actually paying
35:17
Speaker 6: very close attention. And so again that wildness is remembering
35:21
Speaker 6: that that's still within us. We are like, you know,
35:23
Speaker 6: walking little Russian nesting dolls, where that wisdom is carried
35:28
Speaker 6: through and it takes imagination, it takes curiosity, but that
35:32
Speaker 6: is that is that is what I believe. I think
35:34
Speaker 6: that wellness today requires wildness. And someone sent me something
35:38
Speaker 6: the other day that was, like the last thing we
35:40
Speaker 6: need right now are more behaved women. We need we
35:44
Speaker 6: need women to push back and and so that's that's
35:48
Speaker 6: to be well is to be to be wild too.
35:51
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I would have to agree.
35:52
Speaker 3: And I've been seeing this rewilding, especially rewilding for women
35:56
Speaker 3: concept a lot lately and it really really speaks to
35:59
Speaker 3: me as well as an herbalist, and I think.
36:01
Speaker 5: This is the perfect way to close the podcast.
36:04
Speaker 3: So I think I want to really thank you for
36:07
Speaker 3: the opportunity, this experience that we're collaborating on, this beautiful interview,
36:11
Speaker 3: the work that you're doing, and if you have just
36:14
Speaker 3: one more minute left, I'd love to do like a
36:17
Speaker 3: rapid round that I usually do with all. Okay, okay,
36:21
Speaker 3: So what's the number one thing somebody can do right
36:24
Speaker 3: now to improve their quality of life?
36:26
Speaker 4: Go outside?
36:28
Speaker 5: Perfect? Question two? What's your favorite meal?
36:33
Speaker 3: Oh?
36:34
Speaker 6: My goodness, Mediterranean food, anything my dad cooks.
36:39
Speaker 3: Okay, make sure to send this episode to him, okay.
36:43
Speaker 3: Question three, what's a fun hobby or something surprising that
36:48
Speaker 3: people don't know about you.
36:50
Speaker 6: I'm kind of like a water woman, like scuba diving, surfing.
36:55
Speaker 6: I was a slalom water skier. I grew up in Montreal.
36:57
Speaker 6: That's like a big sport there.
36:59
Speaker 4: Wow yeah, okay, awesome.
37:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Stephanie thinking, Okay, thanks for coming. I want
37:05
Speaker 3: to offer up this space for you to share where
37:08
Speaker 3: people can learn more about your work.
37:10
Speaker 5: What's next for Galileo, what's the future? Hold? What's the mission? Sure?
37:14
Speaker 4: Thank you?
37:14
Speaker 5: Contact you? Thank you?
37:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you.
37:16
Speaker 6: I want to start by saying that we're getting involved
37:19
Speaker 6: in a ketamine therapy and postpartum study. If you're not
37:23
Speaker 6: familiar with the DIVA Collective. It's led by Melissa Whippo.
37:26
Speaker 6: She's in the Bay Area. She's an incredible therapist. She's
37:29
Speaker 6: a clinical director at CIIS Oakland. I've joined her as
37:34
Speaker 6: an investigator. Our fiscal sponsors Chakruna. Yes, I'm really excited.
37:40
Speaker 6: We need to fundraise, So if you have connections, if
37:44
Speaker 6: you have be able to introduce us to I would
37:46
Speaker 6: love that. It is my mission to make this project
37:49
Speaker 6: also my PhD project, and so I'm even more invested.
37:52
Speaker 6: So if you if you have any ideas or connections
37:55
Speaker 6: to make, please find me. This is going to be
37:57
Speaker 6: our first Galilea also affiliated research. So I'm very excited
38:02
Speaker 6: that it's this you know, profound and grand because I
38:05
Speaker 6: think it's very very important. If you don't know, ketamine
38:08
Speaker 6: is a fantastic option for a new mom who's navigating
38:12
Speaker 6: postponeum depression and disconnection. You can also talk to Ellie
38:16
Speaker 6: over there about it. She's also an expert in this field.
38:19
Speaker 6: We have two incredible research interns that have joined Galilea
38:23
Speaker 6: recently and they're helping us write white papers. They are
38:27
Speaker 6: helping us write all kinds of blogs and articles for
38:30
Speaker 6: our substack not just on psychedelics, because Galilea is really
38:33
Speaker 6: about all of women's health and medicine, and we're converting
38:36
Speaker 6: it into digestible education. If there are people you know
38:40
Speaker 6: in your community who would love research internships, we would.
38:44
Speaker 4: Love extra hands.
38:45
Speaker 6: Galilea Health dot community is our web page for the
38:49
Speaker 6: community vertical and there is our substack, our Instagram, our WhatsApp.
38:54
Speaker 6: Please join the WhatsUp if you haven't already. It's a
38:56
Speaker 6: growing group of professionals. As I mentioned, we have meetups,
39:00
Speaker 6: we have events, we'll have our webinar series. It's a
39:03
Speaker 6: great place to meet fellow practitioners and even develop a
39:07
Speaker 6: bit of like a referral network, bounce ideas off of
39:10
Speaker 6: each other.
39:11
Speaker 4: You can find me.
39:13
Speaker 6: My email address is Stephanie at Beyondconsulting dot life. Send
39:16
Speaker 6: me an email and very responsive. I think the rest
39:19
Speaker 6: will put in the show notes.
39:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, thank you, thank you and the benefit of
39:24
Speaker 3: doing it in personal Oh yeah.
39:27
Speaker 2: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the
39:29
Speaker 2: Holistic Pharmacy Podcast, and I truly hope you enjoyed the show.
39:34
Speaker 2: If you learned something useful in this episode, please consider
39:37
Speaker 2: giving the show a five star rating. And a sincere
39:41
Speaker 2: review so that more people can find it or share
39:43
Speaker 2: it with a friend directly. To get in touch with me,
39:46
Speaker 2: you can find me on social media by looking up
39:49
Speaker 2: my name Marina books Of, or email me at Marina
39:53
Speaker 2: at rawfork dot com. Take good care and see you soon.
40:00
Speaker 6: At the Fund of the Fact of the n