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141. Can Postpartum Depression Be Solved with a Pill? · Radically Genuine

• Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (00:01.511) Welcome to the Radically Genuine Podcast. I am Dr. Roger McFillin. On August 3rd, 2023, the FDA approved the first oral treatment for postpartum depression. People should know that SSRIs have not been proven safe or effective for postpartum depression despite its widespread use and misrepresentation of the drug as protective against postpartum depression. The drug they did approve is zuranolone sold under the brand name Zurzuvae. Sean, what's with those names? It's those marketing teams. They come up with these really recognizable names for everybody to remember. That's ridiculous. This is a neuroactive steroid drug used for the treatment of postpartum depression in adults. So we've discussed SSRI's impact on fetal development previously with maternal fetal medicine physician, Dr. Adam Urato. but we have not really addressed the complicated nature of postpartum health for women. Sean, I thought it was in our best interest that we actually had a mother come on the podcast. There's something about our credibility in this discussion. You know, three men, even when we had Dr. Urato, who's an expert in this area, three men discussing this is quite uncomfortable to be honest. Yeah, telling your wife to suck it up and toughen up is not the best course of action. No, certainly. Nor turning to as a ran alone would not be a great recommendation either. But I came across Katie Galvin on Instagram, who's a former speech language pathologist turned women's functional nutrition practitioner, holistic life coach and postpartum doula. I loved her Instagram because I love the things she was talking about, which is the reason that we have her here today. She specializes in fertility, pregnancy, postpartum. and perimenopausal health. Like many who are speaking out against the harms of the standard allopathic medical model, she experienced some emotional and physical health challenges postpartum with her two kids. I loved her evaluation of this drug approved for postpartum depression that recently came to market. Additionally, I think she can speak to the complexity of postpartum depression and anxiety and how we can effectively support. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (02:26.855) mothers. So I would love to welcome Katie Galvin to the Radically Genuine Podcast. Katelynn Galvin (02:34.556) Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be here. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (02:38.311) Yeah, if you're willing, Katie, I'd love to just start with your story because it certainly seems this was not your initial path to walk down this road. You were a speech pathologist. And so life circumstances, life events appeared to steer you on another road. Katelynn Galvin (02:56.476) Yeah, so this is, I think, one of those how most of us end up in this field is kind of a pain to purpose story through personal necessity. I had always known that I wanted to be a mom since I was 15. And up until then, I had been, you know, very, you know, doing the things that were expected of me. I went to college and got my, my master's degree, got a good job, got married, bought a house. And then like the next logical step was having that baby that we knew that we wanted. And I... was a speech language pathologist. I was working two jobs. I was working both for a school district and also for a contracting company that worked in skilled nursing facilities and in hospitals. So I kind of got both sides, the medical model and working with children. And I, as soon as I had my daughter, my pregnancy overall like went really well. I remember kind of feeling a little bit tired, but everyone tells you it's normal to be tired when you're pregnant, which to an extent is true. But after I had my daughter, it was just like, real life record stop. I just felt like my entire life started slowly falling apart. I felt like my body no longer belonged to me. I had so many symptoms right after I had my daughter that I just knew intuitively were not right. And the main symptom that I had right out of the gate was an inability to sleep. And when I say that, I mean, it was severe insomnia. I would go to the max extent. three days without sleeping at all. And then I would kind of just like pass out. It was rough. It was so rough. I had no idea what was going on. I had like heart palpitations. I was like dripping sweat and just remember like shaking. I had a hard time like eating food like I physically could not stomach it. And so I just remember telling my husband, something is not right. And I was like, there's no way I'm gonna make it until my six week appointment with my OBGYN. I need to get in now because something is not right with my body. So I went and I saw her and. She had me fill out that ridiculous postpartum questionnaire that's like, are you crying more often than normal? And I'm like, well, yeah, like I've been through a lot, you know? You're adjusting to a new baby, you're sleep deprived, and you're just, motherhood changes you physically and emotionally and psychologically, spiritually, hormonally, and it is a huge adjustment. So it's like, well, of course I'm crying more. And I think because I was honest, I got that diagnosis of you have postpartum anxiety and depression. Katelynn Galvin (05:16.092) And I told her, and to her credit, she did run some labs because I said, you don't understand. I don't feel like it's here. It's like physically something is not well in my body. And so she ran labs, like all two standard panels and said, your labs are normal. This is postpartum anxiety and depression. And so she told me that I can give you some Xanax to help with the panic attacks while you get in to go see a primary care physician. And prior to having my babies, I had always been what I considered a very healthy individual. I didn't even have a primary care physician. I went from like my pediatrician to no doctor because I really didn't feel like I needed one. And so kind of the same thing. I went to a primary care physician after waiting over a month to get into one. She spent all of maybe 10 minutes with me and was like, you have severe postpartum anxiety and depression. Here's your prescription. You know, go fill it. Come back in six weeks kind of thing, and hopefully you'll be better. I was not better after. And not only that, when I kept telling her like, this isn't working, we tried increasing my dose, that didn't work. She was like, you have treatment resistant depression. You need a psychiatrist. So I went to a psychiatrist and I ended up completely not even recognizing myself. I was on, still on the Xanax. I was on an SSRI and then he added in, Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (06:25.679) Cheers. Katelynn Galvin (06:41.724) mirtazapine for me, which is a very heavy duty type of medication. And it's commonly prescribed for veterans who have PTSD, among other things. And there were just, I remember being like, okay, my body is still feeling exactly the way it was before, before I even got on medications. I'm doing what they're telling me. I'm taking the medications and I feel even worse. I had so many more complaints. And I just, I had my like, I'm done moment, which is, you know, not necessarily hard to talk about, but I think a lot of people aren't ready for that type of discussion. Like usually when you're bringing up the flip side of these medications that we're told are safe and effective and they're helpful and they, you know, they work. Anyone who brings to light that there are some very real serious side effects and that they don't work for a lot of people who take them is either stigmatizing or shaming people. But I feel like that part of my story really needs to be told because my I'm done moment. I remember. My husband was in the room behind me with our daughter who was about nine months old. And I remember I was in our bathroom on the floor of our bathroom in the fetal position. And I'm hearing him saying, babe, I got to go. Are you okay? And I just remember thinking, I am so not okay. I was in full withdrawal from the Xanax because I had decided with no help from any of my medical providers, these were not working. The psychiatrist said, well, we'll talk about how you can get off of these when I think you're ready. And I was like, these aren't working for me. So I'm just going to do it on my own, which again, I don't recommend now, but I was so desperate to like feel better than I was feeling and like feel like myself again. And so I had started this process of taking myself off of these medications and basically went into full withdrawal from Xanax. I was in the fetal position. I just had tears pouring down my face. I was dripping sweat. I had just. vomited, was having like full out shakes and just panic attack and like, my gosh, like here I am this young mom, feeling completely alone, feeling trapped in my body because I did what my doctors told me to do and it didn't work. Like now what? And I had always been a very competent, high achieving, independent, you know, young woman and was successful in my career and was doing the best that I could for my daughter, but I did not feel like myself. And I just finally said no. Katelynn Galvin (09:06.844) this is not me. And it was like that moment, I drew that line in the sand and I said, I don't care what I have to do, but this isn't working and I'm going to figure this out for myself. And so that's when I really kind of dove all in and started researching. And I was honestly, what ended up happening was I kind of became the practitioner that I needed, that I wished I had had when I was going through that experience. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (09:29.767) Okay, let me ask some questions about your, your interactions with the OB -GYN and the primary care physician. When they were explaining to you the diagnosis of postpartum depression and anxiety, did they give you information about what they expected the drug to do? How long you should be on it? What were some potential side effects? Any adverse reactions that you should look out for? and any alternative conceptualizations or treatments that may be available, including further investigation into other medical conditions. Katelynn Galvin (10:11.004) They told me if I wanted, I could read the inserts if I was, because I had initially said in my mind, I said, I do not want medications. And I told both of them that I was very adamant, but at that point I was desperate for some sort of symptom relief, but there was something intuitively inside of me and just how I am that I did not want it. And so I had so much like hesitancy around taking it anyways. But no, I had everything that I learned about those medications. I learned myself. I had. essentially no informed consent. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (10:43.207) When you said to them that you didn't want to take the medication, what other options were available for you according to them? Katelynn Galvin (10:51.772) I had mentioned, because through my own research, I was like, can I try like a certain diet or do I need to take out gluten or anything like that? And it was kind of like, well, it won't hurt, but it's probably not gonna work. One of them had mentioned, because I had been doing my own research on some of these things, because I was waiting like a month to just get into somebody and figure something out. And she had said, I told her, well, what about taking omega -3s? And she was like, that probably wouldn't hurt. You can take it if you want to, but basically that's not gonna be enough. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (11:21.351) So really your only option is to take an SSRI and they already had you on a benzodiazepine, which is addictive, right? Are you breastfeeding? Katelynn Galvin (11:30.172) No, I wasn't. That was another part of what holistically like the postpartum experience. It is so well, all human experience is so dynamic. There were so many inputs and factors at play, but I was not breastfeeding at that point. So other than the SSRIs and the benzodiazepines, they were like, you can go to therapy. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (11:50.535) Okay, those were your only options. And it's just really important for me to state to our listening audience that you cannot consent unless you are informed. And if the doctors aren't informed, how can we consent? In this particular situation, they didn't even try to offer informed consent. They're either ignorant to the adverse effects of the drugs and the substantial risks. Katelynn Galvin (11:51.868) Those are my only options. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (12:15.847) Or they don't really care enough to take the time to let their clients know either way. It's a violation of ethics and violation of law. They were putting the responsibility upon Caitlin to do her own research into the drugs to determine whether or not she wanted to take them or continue them. And unfortunately that's typical. And that's Stan. Have you ever read the inserts? They're ridiculous. It's impossible. Yeah. It's, it's a joke. It's, it's actually, it's infuriating because. Katelynn Galvin (12:37.788) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (12:44.135) You would think that if you sat down with a doctor to have a conversation, you said, listen, I prefer not to go the route of pharmaceuticals. What other options are there? They might have a list of some alternatives. Like you talk to this type of person or we can go this route, but that's going to be this, this and that. So as long as you're prepared for that type of course of action, let's go explore. This is what needs to change. So, Katie, why don't you take us down the next steps in your life? What happened then after this? Katelynn Galvin (13:15.068) Well, after this, when I had my I'm done moment, I had reached out to one of my mom's acquaintances who was a, what we would term a naturopath, and kind of started discussing alternative options. At that point, I wasn't 100 % sure how I felt about things like functional testing and financially wise, I just felt like let's see what I can do nutrition and lifestyle wise before we dive into that. And so she just talked to me about nutrition and changing your diet and... trying certain supplements and things like that, which again helped, but even though it was more of a natural form, it's not really addressing all of the root causes, right? So it's still like when you take a supplement, you are still technically like manipulating the body into something that was caused by something else. But it was a great start and I really did start to see so much symptom improvement. And again, just based on what she was telling me through doing my own research, I think the very first book that I picked up on, you know, how do you wean yourself off essentially of these medications was a book called The Mood Cure. And it was about using amino acids to kind of help, you know, balance yourself out. And so that was what I tried. And again, this was all trial and error with myself. I was, you know, like a, an internet sleuth. I was like in these back channel forums on, on Google, finding all of these people talking about, you know, psychiatric medication withdrawal and that it's a real thing. Because when you mentioned to your doctors, they're like, no, it's just your anxiety and depression coming back. You need these medications. That's what that is. And so yeah, after I did that, I started feeling better. I had really made some pretty decent changes to just my nutrition, thinking about, you know, fueling your body with foods. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (15:01.255) Katie, can you, can you tell us a little bit about where your nutrition was after the birth? Cause you mentioned you couldn't really eat anything. You had the insomnia, but what was your typical, like diet and what did, what were those specific changes that you started pursuing? Katelynn Galvin (15:14.94) Okay, well, bless my parents. They owned a bakery. So my mom actually, because I was just struggling so bad, would bring over, you know, soups and stews and like things like, you know, warm foods like lasagna or salads are just really easy things for me to grab. So by all, you know, the standard American diet, I was not eating fast food. We were not eating a ton of processed, highly refined foods and things like that. But even still, you know, you're... You can have the best nutrition in the world and be eating the best food, but if your digestion is off and you can't absorb the nutrients, that's another issue too. And so because I was just in so much internal chaos, even though I was necessarily like eating foods that could have nourished my body, I wasn't absorbing them. But the primary nutrition changes that I made were for me personally, and now knowing what so many of my symptoms actually were, which was an undiagnosed thyroid condition, come to find out I had postpartum thyroiditis. And I was in full -blown hyperthyroid when all of that was going on. So it was like everything made sense. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (16:19.591) How was that not discussed early on in this process? Like as a potential, why wasn't that investigated? That would have been one of the first tests. Cause after the birth of my son, my wife had her thyroid tested repeatedly during the entire process and then afterwards also. Yeah. So what happened there? Katelynn Galvin (16:29.724) Yeah. Katelynn Galvin (16:36.156) Yeah, well, so when I asked my OB -GYN to run labs, I had already had in my head like, this sounds like thyroid because I had researched. Well, conventional standard of care for thyroid is they test your TSH, which is thyroid stimulating hormone, which tells us nothing about what your thyroid is actually doing. It's saying brain is telling thyroid, make hormone. It doesn't tell us what thyroid is actually doing and if it's actually doing that and how well. and let alone testing for antibodies, which is how people typically get a diagnosis of like an autoimmune thyroid condition. But I do think that this is something that is so missed because women are at a 28 % increased risk of an autoimmune condition within the first year postpartum. And one in seven women at some point in their lifetime will be diagnosed with some form of thyroid condition. So when I asked her, she ran TSH, but because my TSH was normal, They don't even run T4. And there's so many other thyroid hormones. That's the standard of care. I think now women are becoming so much more informed and they're advocating for themselves. So I think if they really dig in and tell their provider, I'm demanding that you run a full thyroid panel, I think that's becoming more common. But again, the burden is on the patient, which is also why I don't like that term, right? Because I do think there is a huge, huge danger to outsourcing your health to these health authorities. So when you say the burden was on, the patient to inform themselves, I do agree and part of me thinks that that is a good thing because when you outsource your health and you trust any authority outside of yourself, you are at their whim. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (18:13.095) That's such a good point. How did you ultimately get that diagnosed? Katelynn Galvin (18:16.54) So I technically never got like a formal diagnosis, but the naturopath, when she ran a full thyroid panel was like, your thyroid is not happy. And she basically told me like, you should go back to your doctor to at least let them know. And that was another thing because I was like, she's telling me I'm hyperthyroid, but then there's the whole thing of conventional normal versus optimal lab ranges. And so they were like, but it's fine. And I'm like, well, I don't feel fine. And I'm demanding, cause I had so many... symptoms, I'm still not feeling as good as I could. I'm demanding that you do a thyroid ultrasound and they found nodules, but of course they weren't big enough to do anything about it. And when she was like, well, your options for hyperthyroid are radioactive iodine pills. So let's, we don't know why it's not working. So let's just kill it. You know, let's just get rid of that thing. You don't need your thyroid. Or if the nodules got big enough and there was an issue, eventually I could have had part of my thyroid removed. And so now looking back, I'm like, thank God, thank God I didn't. And thank God that the conventional model for that for my particular issues that I had was let's just wait and see because it gave me time to find other alternatives. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (19:23.783) So what were those alternatives? Katelynn Galvin (19:25.692) Yeah, so it really is addressing your life holistically. Like there are so many factors. Like I said, there's so many inputs. There's nutrition. There's things like your light exposure. There's your sleep. There's your relationships. There's like, how are you talking to yourself? What thoughts are you thinking? So many things. There's, do you have community support? Are you, you know, are you, did you have birth trauma? Like there's so many things. So really like, what the options are is figuring out what your body uniquely needs and what it's trying to tell you because the whole issue with this is that symptoms are demonized as being wrong and being bad, but really, they're our body's way of communicating with us and telling us, hey, we need your attention on something. And so taking a pill to just shut that communication off is not actually healing anything. And no one tells you that when you stop taking those medications, everything that was still there that was causing those symptoms, is still there for you to fix. So really your options are being radically honest with yourself or beautifully honest with yourself. How is your nutrition? Like what are you controlling that you can control? How's your nutrition? How's your sleep? How are you talking to yourself? Like are you going outside? Like essentially like are you giving your human body all of the essential necessary inputs that it needs to function the way it was designed to function? Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (20:54.567) No, it's interesting is my wife comes from a Taiwanese background. And in that culture, there's that period of 30 to 45 days. It's called like the sitting moon. So after our son, she asked, she had some trauma to our son was born six weeks early. it went against what her birth plan was. Of course she had this idea of what it wanted to be. And then it was emergency. They had that not happen. They both could have potentially lost her lives. It was a preeclampsia situation. Katelynn Galvin (21:04.604) Hmm. Katelynn Galvin (21:21.724) you Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (21:22.503) cord wrapped around his, his neck twice. It was just, one of those situations that was completely disruptive, but when she finally came home and then he was able to come home, she didn't go outside for the entire 40 days and she didn't shower. it was about her body healing, getting back to some sense of normalcy. And because we were in that period of chaos with the COVID situation, her mom wasn't able to come out to visit us. And she probably would have spent a lot of time on the nutritional. portion of it because she loves to cook and she loves to take care of family that way. So we identified someone in the area that focuses on postpartum nutrition meals that are more in line with that culture. And we had food delivered to the house and had that not happen, I don't think I would have survived. And the food was for her, but it gave her what she needed to try and recover. And, Katelynn Galvin (22:01.756) Yes. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (22:15.303) Amazingly, she did get a little bit better, but she had some of that postpartum anxiety. There's no doubt in my mind that what she was going through was, was that period of trying to adjust to that uncertainty. Yeah. Very common. Yeah. And the, and the problem I have is, is talking about human emotions as if they're a psychiatric symptom, like there's something wrong. Like, how are you not going to have anxiety? You have a baby, a child that you're Katelynn Galvin (22:32.924) Hmm. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (22:41.383) completely responsible. And there was for her there was no community during that period also, because those that were going to be there to support her were unable to. Yeah. And this is the challenge for me with the psychiatric industry is, and it's not just the psychiatric industry, it's the entire medical model, the allopathic Western medical approach to this, these labels, and essentially they're labels, they really have no explanatory value. So you're not Katelynn Galvin (22:48.316) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (23:07.015) You're not experiencing sleep problems, mood problems, and anxiety because you have postpartum depression. There's reasons why you're experiencing that. Caitlin, in your case, there was a genuine physical problem and a lot of women are exhibiting this. It's like really difficult on the body. There's a lot of hormonal changes. And that's if you have a perfect situation, right? Where, you know, your husband can be at home. Katelynn Galvin (23:11.836) You have close part of the press. Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (23:35.815) You have family support, you have friends, people can be around, take care of you. You might be able to take naps, you know, sleep is fine. Like if the per even in the perfect scenario, your body has gone through a lot. So to label it in this manner, I think is just so nefarious and such a problem with the way that we support women that we just, we accept that there's this postpartum depression disease. Some people get it and you go and you take these drugs and that's how you get through it. Katelynn Galvin (23:52.668) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (24:04.359) And I can't believe we're still at this point in our own evolution that we buy this junk. Yeah, the proper language should be postpartum healing. And healing takes a long time for your body to get back to what is going to be your new homeostasis because you've given birth to a child. You're not going to go back to what it was when you were in your pre -pregnancy days. Like it's adjusting to so many new things and that's a learning period for a new mother. KDS. Katelynn Galvin (24:12.86) Yes. Katelynn Galvin (24:30.684) I was gonna say, sorry. I was gonna say I absolutely loved that you shared part of your wife's culture with like the sitting moon. And we are, the Western culture has completely lost the plot when it comes to postpartum. Like that period of time is not seen, it's not valued, it's really not heard, which is like what you shared at the beginning. Like your wife's friend wasn't really telling her how bad it was, right? So like women are experiencing this rite of passage, this like sacred transition. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (24:33.383) Now go ahead. Katelynn Galvin (24:58.108) of motherhood completely alone. And we were never meant to do that. And so, so many other cultures around the world, like you said, like at the minimum observing like the five, five, five rule right after you've had a baby, which is five days in the bed, five days on the bed, five days around the bed. And then we have these other like cultures that just have these absolutely beautiful practices. Like even in like Indian Ayurvedic tradition, like sometimes the mother, the new mom will spend three months back home with her family and they are. cooking for her, they're massaging her, they're helping her take care of the baby, they're helping her adjust. And for the most part, people don't have that here in Western culture unless you are privileged and able to have a postpartum doula or like you said, maybe you live in a multi -generational home and you do have access to things like that and to family. But I think you guys hit on this key piece that people really and especially. Conventional doctors do not understand really, they really don't understand the unique physiology behind not just prenatal but the postpartum period. Like there are four key changes that happen to a woman's body in the postpartum period. Like you have nutritional changes, like most moms, about 50 % enter the postpartum period already depleted of key nutrients, specifically minerals. There's nervous system changes just because that period of time you're more susceptible to stress and your hormones were a certain way during labor and delivery that make you a little more susceptible to increased stress. We're a little bit more hypervigilant in that time, which makes sense from like a biological evolutionary standpoint, right? Like you just had this baby, like you want to make sure that you are protecting and keeping that baby safe. So of course you're going to be a little bit more prone to being hypervigilant. There's changes with the digestive system postpartum. And then there's changes hormonally, of course, and hormones are usually the thing that gets the finger pointed at them, typically the sex hormones, but the drop in estrogen and progesterone after you've gone into labor to postpartum is the most dramatic hormone drop that a woman will experience in her entire life, but that is a natural hormone drop. So that is not the problem, because if it was, every single postpartum woman would develop postpartum anxiety and depression, but they don't. Katelynn Galvin (27:16.86) What happens is because we do have those nervous system changes and we're more prone to the effects of increased stress, we get things like too much cortisol, not enough oxytocin. That has a downstream effect. That affects thyroid production. That's gonna affect how all of your other hormones function, your insulin, right? So there really is, there's so many inputs, like I said, but it really does stem from an... through no fault of our own, right? It's like, you don't know until you know, and then when you know better, you can do better. But like me, I didn't know these things until afterwards, and I got curious, and I researched that there were so many things specifically that I could have done to nourish my postpartum body, and even going back through pregnancy and trying to conceive, that could have really bolstered my reserves. Because like you said, pregnancy is a, you didn't use this term, but it's a very metabolically expensive task. Like your... base metabolic rate increases up to 2 .5 percent or 2 .5 times your typical amount when you weren't pregnant. So it's like on par with Olympic athletes who are literally like pressing the limits of human endurance. How many pregnant women are actually nourishing themselves like Olympic athletes? Because that's essentially what you are. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (28:28.103) Yeah. None of them. And that you, the way that you phrase that made me think of the conversation we had with Lily Nichols. Is she a registered dietician nutrition? She talked about the nutritional deficiencies for women postpartum and how they basically need to be eating almost like three times what they think they should be eating to get to that point where they're nursing their bodies. And then also if they're lucky enough to breastfeed to, to feed the baby also, because your body's going through such a period of. Katelynn Galvin (28:34.364) Mmm. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (28:57.479) insanity, it needs all those nutrients to do the, do the job. Katelynn Galvin (28:58.908) And that's it. And that's a whole other thing with pregnancy, especially like society. I feel like women are just getting hit everywhere. It's like, don't get too big during pregnancy. Like that's not good, but don't be too small. Cause then your baby's not gonna grow. But then they're like, you, I think when I was pregnant with, I think it was with my daughter. I literally, there was some BS that I had read online that basically said like, you just need the equivalent of an extra tablespoon of food to feed your baby up to a certain point. And I was like, my God, no, that is so not right now. I'm like, at the minimum, when you are pregnant with a single baby, Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (29:09.671) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (29:26.887) Hehehehehe Katelynn Galvin (29:31.228) you need like it's like 2600 calories to 3000 calories depending on individual needs like if you're even more stressed or if you're maybe breastfeeding an older child you need even more calories and then postpartum it's like 2800 to 3000 calories or more so it's like women have no concept of what it actually takes from an energy caloric standpoint to sustain not just your body but that baby that you're growing in order to have more positive Postpartum outcomes not just for you, but for that baby. So much is in our control, even though they want you to think that it's not. So much is in our control. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (30:07.783) Katie, we get on this podcast, we have these conversations with really intelligent, well -meaning people like yourself, you know, who really speak to the complexity of all of this. And I always just sit here and wonder, how did we get to this point with our physicians? These really bright, smart people who we need to trust. They have such a prominent role in our society. And it just seems time and time again, they are so limited in their understanding. of genuine health, like how to restore health. And they seem so, I use the word brainwashed because they all say the same exact thing. And for as smart as these people are, their unwillingness to kind of think outside of their limited training and to accept as everything that they were told must be absolute fact and truth. And they use that word science, like science has become a weapon. Well, the science doesn't support it. The science doesn't support it. Or that's not what we know. Or that's what we think. And I've spent a lot of my career now as a psychologist kind of examining science, especially in the past five years, really understanding what science means. And it is just a search for truth. And there's an empirical process for that. And then the science that we're actually relying upon and these doctors are relying upon is extremely distorted and corrupted. And the... The abstract and those conclusions often don't fit the data. I mean, this is going to be a nice segue into the drug for postpartum depression. But I wonder if you just kind of have the same questions I do about how these smart people have kind of fallen under this trap and continue to practice in this manner despite the pretty accepted and legitimate harms associated with it. Katelynn Galvin (31:37.308) Okay. Katelynn Galvin (32:03.292) I do. I have a lot to say about this and part of it is a little bit nuanced. So one, I definitely, I agree. I think that medicine, the way it is currently is a very broken system, but I also know, or have at least been told by others that part of a medical doctor's training is essentially like, you are the authority. Like you can't let the patient see a sweat. You can't let them see that maybe you don't know because then you have liability if you make a decision and you get called out on it. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (32:05.479) Hehehehe Katelynn Galvin (32:32.668) So part of this is like, you know, that their instruction like plays to the ego, right? And so the ego unchecked will do what the ego does. It doesn't like being questioned. So I think there's that piece is, you know, because I experienced it in throughout my, it's like, they don't like when you ask questions, especially if the questions you're asking, they don't know the answer to, no doctor wants to look at you and say, I don't know. So I think there's that piece. The second part is I found myself, which I think is part of why I stayed, I don't want to call it stuck because my journey was my journey. It worked out perfectly. It led me here. But there was a part of my journey where I blamed my doctors. I was like, you're just bad people. Like you said, you're so intelligent, but are you really? How do you not know this? Why do I have to do it? And then I kind of got stuck in that, if you're familiar with the drama triangle or the victim triangle, sometimes people call it. I got stuck in that one, like the rescuer phase of I'm gonna tell all these women that doctors are the problem and I'm gonna help them see why conventional medicine sucks and why it's so bad, you know, because I had been stuck in that victim side of it where it's like, poor me, all of this was done to me. Like I was prescribed these medications, it didn't work. Like no one told me these things. And then it was like, I realized, I said, wait a minute, kind of what you said, like this is how these doctors are trained. This is brainwashing, like at its finest, at the top level. And it's just, a lot of them, I think, do actually know that the way that they're trained and the way they're doing things aren't working. How could you not when your patients don't have good outcomes? And it's like, I'm doing the things that my book told me to do and darn it, like these people aren't getting better. So I think they do know, but it's like, how do you confront yourself and be with yourself when you realize so much of what you went to school for and probably have hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt for still is a lie. And then the other piece that I see is, Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (34:07.111) Mm. Katelynn Galvin (34:21.948) the medical model is actually not broken. It is designed to do or it's doing what it was designed to do, which is make money and keep people sick. And so that's kind of my thing is it's like you can, I just want to encourage moms who may be listening to this and being like, but like, what do I do? Like it's the system's fault. And yes, that very well may be true. There's societies to blame all of these things, but when we get stuck in blame and we outsource again, waiting for someone else to come in and rescue us, you're going to be waiting forever because. The conventional medical model, it generally takes, I think it's 17 to 20 years for like new research, new research, to actually trickle down to where practicing doctors can use it, right? Whereas if you step outside of that model, a lot of it really is just common sense, right? Like what does the human body need from a physiological standpoint to thrive? If we're not checking those boxes, let's start there. Yeah, but it just, I don't, it's a myriad. of things and I have kind of stepped away from dedicating my energy to like blaming and shaming the system because yes, it is a problem, but I don't want mom sitting and waiting for someone to come fix that because they're gonna be waiting forever and there are things that they can do right now to start feeling better and take that power back and not rely on the system or a doctor to do it for them because when it comes down to it, like if you want to feel good, you are the only one. that is going to be able to change your life. No one else can do it for you. They can tell you every single thing to do, but you're the one that has to decide. It's important enough to you. You're uncomfortable enough right now where you are and you're done that you're willing to step into the discomfort of changing your life. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (36:01.639) Yeah, I've heard that that Valley that you fall into as like the trough of disillusionment. It's like where you're so frustrated with things. But I honestly think one of the, and we've spoken about it here in one of our way earlier podcasts about what the American culture is, is we're a nation of immigrants, right? So we have people that fled other countries. We left grandma behind. We left all that generational wisdom behind and we moved to a new country and we started families and we didn't have that family to look back on and like, how do we do this properly? How do we heal? Katelynn Galvin (36:06.14) Mm. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (36:30.855) And we look to the medical system as the solution and the medical system is what the medical system is. But we're in this period now of exposure and awareness to alternative approaches. It's easier now to get access to that information through conversations like this. Like I didn't know anything about Taiwanese culture and the sitting moon. It was just because I was exposed to it. And now I know that that is a better approach to, to postpartum than going to a doctor when you're in a healing phase. And you need to recover and nutrition is a big part of that and letting your body return to some type of normalcy before going out and doing anything too strenuous because your body can't handle it at that point. Like all those things come from conversations and exposure. And I don't think doctors are being exposed to it. There are some doctors that are probably grew up in a culture similar to that. And they're aware of that. Let's do this type of stuff before you go down this path, but those are few and far between. Katelynn Galvin (37:31.548) It's really a remembrance of going back to what culturally ancestral generations have done. And I mean, I don't, I don't know. I don't want this to like get you like, I don't know what gets bombed on Instagram anymore or anything, but like look at the way that the conventional medical model was designed. Like all you have to do is look up the Rockefellers and look up the Flexner report. And that will tell you everything that you need to know and look at who's funding these studies. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (37:37.703) Totally. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (37:54.151) Yeah. This kind of feels like the Wizard of Oz to me. Right? Who rang that bell? I mean, we're always walking down the path and we want to get the wisdom from the great and powerful Oz. And that's what we've done. And I think you speak so brilliantly to us giving up our own independence and our own authority. Katelynn Galvin (37:59.096) We're going down the yellow brick road. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (38:23.591) to that medical authority, that they're the wizard and they're going to give us the information and then we have to follow exactly what they do. And then we look behind the curtain, you know, and it really is just fraud. It's fake. We've removed ourselves from our spiritual connections, our connection to nature, that the body in itself is really beautifully designed to heal. And the symptoms that we experience are those messages. And those messages we're supposed to pay attention to, they're not diseases in itself. They say there's something that we have to pay attention to physically, emotionally, spiritually with our lifestyle. And when I look at most young mothers, postpartum or even when they have toddlers, sleep deprivation is such a powerful force. I know how cranky I am if I don't get my seven and a half hours of sleep, you know, let alone going three days. Katelynn Galvin (39:21.788) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (39:21.799) without sleeping and you know, I work with some of my clients, you know, well, they're going five days, five hours a night or four hours a night. What does that add up? You know, mood thought processes, even in you're vulnerable to like visual and audio auditory hallucinations. And then the medical world, that's just going to be labeled as a psychiatric condition, right? And they're going to, what, give you an anti -psychotic. They're going to try to give you some type of tranquilizing drug to sleep where you're not going to get restorative sleep. You know, it's just going to start the process of making it all worse. And unfortunately, I know that's, I am so convinced at this point that if you follow many of these standard recommendations, you're now entering into this process of becoming a patient for life. You're not ever solving the problem, but it seems like we have, this is where I'm positive about this, is we have this like expansion of consciousness and awareness that has occurred, certainly post COVID, where now people are so aware, of the wizard behind the curtain. It was just fake, right? It was just some guy behind a microphone saying things that aren't even real. And we're in this like post 1945 to 2020 kind of period where they said ignore everything that's ever been learned throughout human history. You know, ignore that real medicine occurs in nature. Ignore your spirituality. Ignore your connection to your community. Ignore your body. You know, come to the doctor and we're going to give you this pill. And we have given so much power to this authority. And I struggle, you know, Sean, I struggle. Like I don't think shaming people is the way to get out of it, but sometimes my anger around this, because, you know, there is such idiocy, such ignorance that you continue to repeat the message over and over again. Sometimes I'm on the phone. I shame a doctor. Yeah, but I always like that saying and I've said it to you before is like the angry man has much to say and no ears to listen. So like you got to find a way to have like a balanced conversation with somebody to just bring some critical thought into it and like, and ask, ask questions to them so that they can come to the own conclusion that they're wrong because the things that they say are not not valid. But I'm gonna ask Katie for her opinion on this. Katie, the thing I speak out most about is antidepressants, SSRIs and Katelynn Galvin (41:47.452) Thank you. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (41:48.935) I serve women and childbearing years and women who want to have a child. And their doctors will tell them to stay on an SSRI while they're trying to get pregnant. And we know now it is very clear that that affects fetal brain development, fetal development in general. That baby is going to be born dependent on an SSRI. It's passed through the breast milk. Yeah. I wrote some things down because I knew I needed to talk about this. Just to reiterate some of the things we learned from Dr. Adam Urato, SSRIs influence serotonin levels, which is a key factor in neuroembryonic development. And their use in pregnancy has been associated with adverse effects on the developing embryo. SSRI Prozac in particular, which is kind of universally kind of used as the first line antidepressant, significantly changed placental gene expression. Newborns exposed to SSRIs and utero have more than double the risk of poor neonatal adaptation. Placental transfer of SSRIs is substantial, suggesting a possible direct toxic effect on the fetal lungs and the central nervous system. What do we do? I'm not a medical doctor, I'm a psychologist. If I know this information, why don't they know it? If I need to inform my clients because I serve them and it's the highest ethical standard to do it, why am I letting them off the hook? Well, Adam urata talked about this and he said he asked other medical doctors why he why they won't tell their clients or patients to go off the SSO right and it's because they don't know how to get them off the SSO right and they know it's going to cause more problems and they just don't want to have to deal with that because they don't know how to properly deal with it against the law. Yeah, it's criminal. Yeah. The one thing that kind of stuck out to me during that conversation with Adam urata is like postpartum putting Katelynn Galvin (43:50.492) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (43:57.895) mothers on these medications. And if you actually read some of the warnings, it says, this could impair your ability to drive a vehicle. And he was like, drive a vehicle. You're caring for a newborn child. Like that requires a level of attention and dedication. And you're talking about driving a vehicle, like, especially for a mom who might be home alone without a husband there or other family members. Like that to me just is like, duh. It's insane. Let's transition to Zerzeve. Katie. Katelynn Galvin (44:22.396) Yeah. Katelynn Galvin (44:25.884) Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (44:28.103) You you dedicated some time on on Instagram to this. You know, tell me your thoughts, your conclusions. Katelynn Galvin (44:36.796) I think my conclusion was already made when I read the conclusions and the, you know, conflict of interest statements on both of those studies. That to me right there said, okay, this is a hung trial here, essentially. It was a mess. I don't think it was a one large enough study. They had barely any long -term follow -up. They have no long -term safety data on this. They essentially are experimenting guinea pigging on... pregnant women who are already in a very vulnerable state. The first study that I read, every single researcher in that study declared a conflict of interest of some sort. They were either granted research grants, personal fees, which they were essentially paid off is how I interpreted that. There were people from the company that designed this drug that helped design the study and were part of it. There were researchers who had pending patents related to this. It was just a mess. And I'm like, okay, so these are the people that stand to make all of the money from this drug being prescribed are designing this study and just telling you that it works, that it's a good thing. And it just, I had so many questions and there's a black box warning on this thing, again, for like severe central nervous system depression. Again, like you can't drive with this one. It's not. approved for breastfeeding or not recommended during breastfeeding due to limited safety data. There were so many side effects for the women that took this and it just, it was a mess from start to finish in terms of how I interpreted that. And the primary mechanism of this is it works on your GABA receptors. So I'm like, are there not other things that are available that would also do that, that don't have the same side effects? And again, I don't think that's not... I still don't think that like, well, let's just do something that infects, affects GABA receptors. I think it's like, well, let's get to the root cause and, you know, do that. We don't just want to band -aid it with something natural, but at the very least do something that doesn't have these severely negative side effects, if that's what you're looking for. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (46:46.951) I came armed with facts today. I went and went through that paper this morning. So know what's fascinating about that study? Okay, first of all, it was only studied for 45 days. Katelynn Galvin (46:48.956) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (47:00.711) the placebo got a lot better. Like there was a dramatic decrease in the depression score that they used, which was the Hamilton Depression Scale. Both the drug and the placebo had a fairly significant drop in the first three days. So I just kind of wanted to look about what are the problems with this drug, because if we have a... placebo that is going to improve on this measure, right? And the measure is a problem, right? I'll admit the measure is a problem. But if you took the Zersave, you may experience serious side effects such as decreased ability to drive or do other dangerous activities, decreased awareness and alertness, sleepiness, confusion, increased risk of suicidal thoughts or actions, and a risk of harm to the fetus if you are pregnant. The most common side effects were sleepiness, drowsiness, dizziness, diarrhea, feeling tired, weak, having no energy, common cold, urinary tract infection. So here you go. You are already sleep deprived. You are experiencing postpartum depression and anxiety. We don't know why, nor do we care, but we're going to give this drug that is very similar to a placebo. You might want to kill yourself and... You know, you're not going to be able to breastfeed. You might be, you can't drive a car and you might be sleepy and drowsy. So now you go to the Hamilton depression rating scale. And of course there's some questions around sleep. So if you were having trouble sleeping before, and now you have this drug that makes you drowsy, that's going to change how you rate that. There might be the statistical difference. So if I'm an ethical doctor, right, and there's not many anymore, unfortunately. Katelynn Galvin (48:58.268) Mm. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (48:58.567) and I had to provide informed consent, here's what informed consent looks like off of that clinical trial. So, Kate, I know you're really struggling, but I do have this pill right here that I think could help you in the short run, in the short term, without any of the dangerous side effects of Zerzovay. It's a placebo, of course, but it's been proven to be effective. In the meantime, we're gonna spend some time with you. Instead of following up in 30 to 60 days, I want you to come in every week. Okay. And we're going to check in. You also have our number here. If there's any emergencies or concern. And I think it's really an important time if you to have family support around you and not to be left alone too long. I mean, that's a lot with a baby right now and you're struggling. We're going to find together, you know, get your body right again. This is a period of a pretty rapid. transition, there's a lot going on, it's tough in itself, and we're not even talking about all the emotional challenges of being a young mother and trying to take care of this baby and bonding with this baby. If you did that, just that, your outcomes are going to be pretty strong. And so that's science. Instead, these doctors are going to prescribe Zersaveve because the drug rep told them to. and they said it outperforms placebo, it is statistically significant, which doesn't mean shit. It doesn't mean there's any clinical relevance to it. And it's unbelievable how the placebo leads to this consistent drop in scores on that Hamilton depression scale. And so I don't know in good faith, in good honesty, with high ethical practice, adhering to the law. caring for that person who's sitting in front of you, that you can act on behalf of these drug companies, become a legalized drug dealer and do such harm and still be able to sleep at night. And that's why I get angry about this. And I think we have to be able to be clear because this is criminal behavior and it creates harm. These are our brothers, our sisters, our mothers. Like, come on. Katelynn Galvin (51:18.46) Yeah, I agree. And going back to what you said too about the SSRIs having profound effects on like fetal development, if you look at what happened, like your central nervous system, your nervous system regulation and your attachment to your caregiver, when you are a newborn baby, that's what you have. That's what sets you up for life. And so the fact that women are being put on these medications, that one don't work for all extents and purposes, or at least no better than placebo in a lot of cases. that have very real side effects, I think that it definitely is a huge ethical question. I think it comes back to like, do all of these providers know? If they know, do they care? Because if they're getting money to essentially, like you said, prescribe, put a certain amount of patients on a certain amount of this drug in order to get money back, I think that's the question. And the ones that are suffering for it are new mothers, their babies, and ultimately society. Society is built on mothers, it really is. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (52:19.143) It is. it wouldn't be here without mothers. No, he wouldn't. Well, hold on. We're working on some things. I don't want to send you down that path. I, what, what also gets me upset are these outcome measures they use as a, to determine the effectiveness of the drug, a real outcome measure for a woman who's struggling with postpartum anxiety and, Katelynn Galvin (52:23.004) Yeah, no. Yeah, we're kind of a big deal. Katelynn Galvin (52:30.076) Ugh. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (52:48.295) depressed mood, you know, you'd really be trying to measure quality of life issues. You know, how are you bonding with your baby? What's your energy level at? Do you, what's your belief in your ability to kind of get through this and manage day to day tasks? You know, what's your nutrition like? What's your social support and exposure to your community? How are you bonding with your baby? These things are like really relevant and critical questions. And those aren't on a postpartum depression outcome measure, the HAMD. They're treating it like it's any other depression. And I don't even think that's a good measure. It's not an adequate measure. In life, we're going to go through really challenging times, and our default network is resilient. I don't think the quality of our existence means the absence of struggle. So if you're just trying to measure something that struggle, I think that's just not, that's an inadequate assessment of what this really is. I want to know, can you tolerate the struggles? There's some meaning behind it. are you going to be, do you think you're going to be okay? Because those are tough. Those are tough months in the beginning. Definitely. I mean, the first year is really tough. Let's face it. Right. And imagine if you have to go back to work or, you know, you don't have any support from your partner at home. or your parents live on the other side of the country. Like this is culturally where we're talking about where things have changed dramatically in the past 40, 50, 60 years. And that's part of this capitalistic culture that we're in where we're driving women into the workforce and men too to support their family. We don't have any of that leave here in the United States, right? Who are we serving? Many are serving the corporation, right? And it is a cultural issue really that we're... experiencing. And until we really change the culture, I don't think there's going to be change. Like that the medical system, you're right, Katie, it's definitely not broken. It's highly lucrative, extremely lucrative. And doctors are seeing so many more patients. And they don't have any of that personal connection with their patients anymore. They spend quick eight to 15 minutes, 15 minutes is on the long end, right. And they're pushed to have to go on to the next Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (55:07.527) patient that comes in and they're following guidelines. Those guidelines are pushed by these medical organizations that are funded by the special interests. And so it is it's a broken system for us. But it is a system that does serve the wealthy, it does serve the elite. And because of the high cost of medical education, the doctors themselves are beholden to it. And we've eliminated all these private practices, they've been getting bought up by the large hospitals. Yeah, I'm trying to remember the statistic off the top of my head. It was something like 77 % of doctors are now owned by some larger entity and private practices are almost non existent anymore. So in many of my my social media, I end by saying resist. And on my sub stack articles, I'll say resist. And what I mean by that is you have to resist the system that creates harm. I know that I would much more. support a young mother going to see someone like Katie at this point than the standard OBGYN. in a heartbeat. Yeah. And so that's part of this resistance. Katie, I want to learn more about the work that you're doing right now. How you stay up on kind of the science in this and your philosophies, your beliefs. How do you support mothers? What do you think are the solutions to this? Because we're really good at highlighting the problems here on the Radically Genuine Podcast. Sometimes we do get stuck on what are the solutions other than, to me, radical honesty, informed consent, medical freedom, and in supporting people to move outside of the system. But what other solutions exist? Katelynn Galvin (56:35.228) Yeah. Katelynn Galvin (56:50.012) Yeah, I mean, I think it starts with kind of what we talked about earlier with taking radical responsibility and empowering yourself, like putting yourself in the driver's seat and refusing to settle. And also like you, everything in life, I feel like the main thing that you highlighted there too was just this dehumanization of the human experience and kind of whittling us down to numbers on paper or like check boxes on a, you know, a rating scale or something like that. There is completely lost or maybe never had. the mind, body, spirit, truly holistic approach. There is no acknowledgement of the dynamic exchange and expansiveness of the human experience. And so I think it starts by really seeing women and encouraging women to see themselves in their humanity. And like you kind of mentioned before too, like... how learning resilience and learning that yes, life is not always comfortable. Whoever told you that life is fair and that there should be no struggle and things should just be like all glitter and rainbows all the time lied to you. That is not part of the human experience, right? And so learning how to support ourselves and be with ourselves and how do we regulate ourselves and hold ourselves through these types of human experiences that are going to happen in life. is so important. How do you build your resilience from a body perspective? How do you really hone in and dial in your nutrition? How do you hone in your sleep, your light exposure, your relationships? How do you make sure that you're feeling fulfilled and you're prioritizing joy in your life? Do you allow yourself your full human expression? Do you suppress those emotions that we've labeled as a society as being bad or shameful? Like, Do you give yourself permission to feel your feelings, to feel sad, to feel anger and to fully sit with them and not just sit with them, but like allow them and accept them without judgment. This is kind of my philosophy is it truly has to be a holistic approach. Yes, dialing in those inputs that are going to have an effect regardless of your thoughts. Like nutrition is going to have an effect on your body chemically, regardless of what you're thinking about. Katelynn Galvin (59:02.94) to an extent might affect your digestion. But you know, and then sleep, like sleep is going to have a biological effect on your body, regardless of other things going on. So like, how do you dial in those things? But then there's like this mind aspect, like how do you, how are you talking to yourself? What are your thoughts? Like I think it's, on average you have anywhere from, I mean, depending on the source, like 12 ,000 to 60 ,000 thoughts a day, some even say upwards. How many of those thoughts are negative? How many of them are positive? Because your thoughts have chemical effects in your body. Like thoughts create emotions, emotions create behaviors. So there's that. And then I think in terms of the spiritual piece, it's like, how do you see yourself in this like beautiful tapestry of the world? Like, do you see yourself as just this, you know, individual who is like really struggling, no one cares about you, you don't have a purpose. Like those types of things are going to have a profound effect on your health. Like health is... all of it, it's everything. It's not just the eating right, the sleeping, the sun exposure. Those are big pieces, but that's not all. And so I feel like some of the work that I do with moms, like, yes, I do think there is a time and a place for functional lab work, for actually getting a baseline on what's going on with your physiology and addressing that. But it's like underneath that, because you can, like I said before, have the best diet and all of these protocols, but... You don't want to stay on supplements and on a protocol forever either. And most of the time when women are even going outside of the system and they are seeing a doctor of functional medicine or they're seeing an alternative provider, whatever it is, they're still, if they're not getting better, you've got to go deeper. They need to explore their inner world. Like where are they still feeling things that hold a very low frequency in their body, like shame and guilt? Where are they suppressing anger? Like if you look at the work of Gabor Matei, he was basically saying that suppressed emotions, especially anger, will have physiological effects in their body and they cause disease. And so that's kind of my view is how do I take this woman in front of me and see her in her wholeness as a complete human being who is with all of these other things in her life and how do I help her? Katelynn Galvin (01:01:21.148) be empowered, realize she has agency, and make the changes that she needs to make in order to have the outcomes that she wants. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:01:30.919) Well said, I mean, and to the point of emotion, seeing what they are, they are energy in motion and they are meant to be experienced. They are meant to flow through the body. Other cultures speak better to this stuff. you know, certainly like more indigenous cultures, Eastern cultures and so forth, that our emotional experience is part of our health. And a, if, if we don't have a balance that exists in our life, including an allowance of the emotions that are natural. to be experienced, they are prerequisites to disease. They do create our body in a dis -ease state. And so that's what's taken out of our modern medical system is that we no longer see the person as a holistic being. We see them as just a set of symptoms to be drugged. And it's unfortunate. I think the pendulum is starting to swing and maybe I'm being a little bit naive because we have these conversations all the time. And maybe it's on my algorithm, but I do believe that there, there certainly is an awakening and boy, Katie, you were great today. I mean, you articulate this stuff so well. Really honored to have you on the podcast today. Where can people find you and are you open to taking on new clients for any of our listeners in any type of coaching model or work that you're doing? Katelynn Galvin (01:02:40.252) Thank you. Katelynn Galvin (01:02:53.052) Yes, so I'm primarily on Instagram right now for as long as my content allows me to stay there. I do have an email list, but that is the best way to get in contact with me is through Instagram, but I am open to taking clients. I'm primarily working in a one -to -one capacity because I really feel like the women that are navigating this really do need a truly individualized approach. They need some very specific attention to just be seen in their wholeness and be vulnerable and express. everything that they're going through and just be told that there's nothing wrong with you. Like your body knows healing, that's all it knows. Your body is always healing, it's always working for you. So yeah, I'm definitely open to taking on new clients and my goal whenever I speak with women who are just coming into my world is to help them reconnect back to themselves, to really come home to themselves. And once they've understood the foundations of their unique female physiology, my goal is for them to not need me and to see that they don't need me. They really don't need anything else outside of themselves once they've got this dialed in. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:04:02.023) Well said. I think so much about where healthcare is going to be moving to is removing all the impediments, the toxicity, the, the harmful interventions that exist, the lifestyles that we're living and allowing that body to naturally heal because it is designed to heal. And, I'm a very spiritual person becoming much more so as I get older and it, and it really seems like Katie that. kind of what you went through was divine intervention in some way, that you really serve God in this way because you go through that difficult time and now it's enlightened you. And this enlightenment is now shared, it's shared with the world in various ways. It's shared with your clients. I think you're just doing amazing, amazing work. I feel really blessed to have met you today. Yeah. Katie said the words pain into purpose. And I think ultimately our purpose now is to prevent more pain. And that's how things kind of, Katelynn Galvin (01:04:33.564) Yeah. Katelynn Galvin (01:04:51.932) Thank you so much. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:04:59.559) do their thing and the more people you have an ability to share your information and knowledge with is the more people that are going to ultimately live a better life. Yeah. Caitlin Galvin, thank you for a radically genuine conversation. Katelynn Galvin (01:05:19.932) Thank you so much for having me.