Latest / The Driven Athlete / Acupuncture Explained: Eastern Medicine for Modern Wellness w/ Dr Molly | Ep 89

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Acupuncture Explained: Eastern Medicine for Modern Wellness w/ Dr Molly | Ep 89 · The Driven Athlete

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: If you're a driven, active person who wants to reach and pursue a higher quality life with some ambition, then guess what this podcast is for you.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: This is the Driven Athlete Podcast.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: What's up?
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Y'all?
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: It's your man, dr Kyle.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Driven Athlete Podcast.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Really excited.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Today we got a cool guest, dr Molly Rhodes, chinese medicine practitioner, acupuncturist, correct?
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I know you're busy, but with a busy practice, so I appreciate you coming in.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: So tell us about where you're at, what your practices and what you all do.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so my practice is called roads to health, acupuncture.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Uh, we're located in Juneau beach and so we're just up the road here from you in West Palm and um, so primarily we're in acupuncture practice, also in the Chinese medicine herbalist.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: So I use herbal medicine in my practice as well, and so that's the main thing that we're doing is we really focus on the traditional Chinese medicine, which includes the acupuncture, the herbs.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: We do cupping and a little bit of manual therapy.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: But a lot of times I'll refer that out, yeah.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Cool, that's awesome.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: And when did you start your?
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: How long have you been doing this?
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, so let's see.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: I started practicing in 2018.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I've been in this location about four years four or five years, yeah, relocated from Sarasota where I started my practice.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay, yeah, In the middle of COVID, so started from scratch.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: A lot of times I say, oh, I moved my practice and everyone's like no, you completely like started over again Pretty much, I mean also across the state, like yeah, that's hard.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: It was hard.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: And in the middle of COVID I remember some of the doctors that I was reaching out to when I first met.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: They're like are you sure you want to do this now?
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: I'm like yeah we're just doing it.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: That's a great mindset.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I mean like, just do it, you know, there's no better time than now.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, why not?
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Are you from the West Coast originally?
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: No, I'm actually.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: So I'm from, I'm locally.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: I'm a South Florida girl, so I grew up in Palm Beach Gardens and then we moved.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Was it Gardens?
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, where'd you go to high school?
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: So actually, like, like, we moved when I was in elementary school so we moved to weston, which is like west like fort lauderdale area, but my grandfather still lived up here so we spent every weekend up in, you know, jupiter, like north palm area cool so this area always felt like home to me even though we were kind of.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: You know, I was going to school down there cool yeah.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: so, um, you know, did some my schooling in south florida and then moved around a little bit kind of as an adult in Chicago and California, and you know I've been back here in Florida since 2018 when, you know, we moved back to practice and everything.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Where did you go to school?
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: So I did my undergrad at University of Miami.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: I was pre-med biology major and then I did my acupuncture training.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: I started at PCOM in Chicago and then I transferred over to a school called Emperor's College in Santa Monica, california.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Cool so that's kind of how I ended up in those two areas.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I went to University of Miami for PT school.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Oh nice.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: And then my wife went there for undergrad and PT school Great.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: That's where.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: That's a yeah, you know UM was fun.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: You know it's not a college town, you know like it's.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: It's way different than some of my buddies and friends who went to Florida state or university of Florida, as an example, usf, um everyone said it was like really fun.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: I spent most of the time in the library, like you're just studying all the time.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: So and most of the time in the library, like you're just studying all the time.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: So and um is a hard program.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Like it's a hard, yeah, it's rigorous, you know um, but yeah, that's uh, so you got some good exposure.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I mean chicago, way different culture than south florida and then california, monica absolutely.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: It was really interesting for my training too, because with chinese medicine we um think a lot about the environment and how it affects the body.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: So being being doing some training in Chicago and seeing how, like a cold climate really affects like the conditions that we see, was really fascinating because a lot of what I learned, especially in my early days of school in Chicago, I'm like I just don't see those conditions in, you know, south Florida, like we don't have as much as these cold type patterns because it's just so hot here.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: So, it's really interesting how much then the environment does affect our bodies and then how we treat yeah.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: What led you to pursue Chinese medicine?
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: So it's an interesting story because, like I said, I was pre-med when I was in my undergrad.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: I always wanted to be a doctor, since I was little, I don't even remember when it started.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: So as soon as they would let me, I started working in hospitals and following doctors like shadowing doctors during my undergrad.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: After I graduated, I spent some time in Nicaragua and Costa Rica working with local doctors.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: So I was like all in like all in with medicine from a very early age.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: And when I was in Nicaragua and Costa Rica I started kind of like having symptoms of like I would like pass out or like not feel very good kind of thing.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: And so when I returned and I was about to start Western medical school, my health kind of just like really declined pretty quickly.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: And Western medicine like no one knew what was going on.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: So everyone was like, did you get some sort of tropical disease while you were over there?
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Because I was living in really rural, you know environments there was a lot of parasites.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Everyone's like, you know, maybe you have something really weird that's affect your system.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: But kind of like long story short, it kind of ended up that in about four years I was completely like bedridden and debilitated by my health.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: And this is the time that you're spoke.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: You know, your early 20s, I was about to start medical school like everything should be fine.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: And so when you get to that point and you experience that and with Western medicine, I went to all the top doctors everyone was, you know, did every single diagnostic test.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: No one knew what was going on.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: And then when I finally did get a diagnosis, then no one really knew how to treat it.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: They're like oh, here's this syndrome, but we don't really know how to help you.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Here's like try some of these medications.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: I would respond really poorly to any of the medications that they tried.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: What was the syndrome diagnosis?
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so my diagnosis is POTS, so it's postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, and it's been a lot more popular.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: I don't know if that's the right word.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: It's definitely not the right word to use, but it seems to be more commonplace than you thought More common, yeah, and especially like since COVID and the vaccinations, it seems like more people are been educated about it, more people are having the syndrome, unfortunately.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: But, and when I was diagnosed, like no one knew what POTS was and I was at the point where I couldn't really even like stand up.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: So I would try to stand up, my heart rate would shoot up, my blood pressure would just drop and I would just, I would just be out.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: And so you know, I worked with some PTs and I've had some like great PTs at the time that they were just coming to my house and they were like, okay, I guess we'll just lay you down and try to exercise and and things like that, cause I just couldn't stand up.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: But being bedridden at that age too, like you lose a lot of muscle mass, like it's just not good.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: So within my own health journey, I had to look at other options because I ran out of options with Western medicine and I had to get my life back.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: You know, then the option was not to get better or to find other other options.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: So I did start using acupuncture.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: I was having a lot of like neurological symptoms too with the pot, so a lot of like severe migraines and brain fog and to the point where it's like I can't even you're laying in bed but you can't even like watch tv, you can't even read, you can't focus enough to do that.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: And so acupuncture really helped me a lot with my migraines in the beginning, and that was a big moment for me of like okay, like some of my symptoms can be shifted without the use of medications.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Because that was a big moment for me of like okay, like some of my symptoms can be shifted without the use of medications.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Cause that was a big part of like my own journey, as I was.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: You know, I would have these like episodes where I'd feel so bad and then you know, try this medication, try this, and everything just made me so worse, like, so much worse.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Um, so I'm like, no, like, I'm not like I'm done, like I'm not doing any more medications, like what other options do we have?
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: So you know, nutrition was a huge piece, just kind of like.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: All the lifestyle changes that I made were really important.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Acupuncture was a big piece.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: I went out to a place in Texas that did biofeedback training and that really helped me.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: And I did.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: I was working with this group.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: They were doing specific exercises with astronauts and because when the astronauts come back from space they have POTS a lot of the times, so this cardiologist realized, hey, these astronauts have this syndrome and we treat them, you know, with these exercise protocol, all recumbent.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: So that'd be really interesting for us to talk about too.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Like, if you have POTS patients, like what I've learned with, like how do you then recover from that?
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: If you have patients that can't stand up and do treatments, you can't just say, okay, you can't exercise because you know you need to have that, you know that strengthening.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: So I worked with this, this group that were doing like all the research with the astronauts and I started doing their protocol that they started to shift for POTS patients.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: So it was a lot of like all like rowing machine um, you know, recumbent bike.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Uh, some other like like on the ground, like strengthening exercise and stuff like that, all recumbent, interesting.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: So with all that, with my recovery and then feeling better and being like, okay, like I'm ready to get back into the world, like I've, you know, kind of been out for a couple of years, um, I was like, okay, well, I've always wanted to be a doctor, let's go back to medical school.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: And then I had this moment and I was like I can't, because the treatment options that most Western medicine physicians have you're either you know you're prescribing medication, you're um having surgery, or you know you're prescribing medication, you're having surgery, or you know you're sending it, referring out to PT, some of these things.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: And I'm like I need to be in a profession that I have more options, because Western medicine can be great for a lot of different conditions.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: But with patients like myself, I fell through the cracks of Western medicine and I have a lot of patients that are like similar stories than mine, that you have these like chronic health issues or really like complex conditions that you know are not answered by just a single medication, and so with acupuncture and Chinese medicine, we can always treat the patient, which is something that I absolutely like love because even if we don't have a Western medicine diagnosis, we can diagnose via like the pulses and the tongue and what the, what the person's symptoms are.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Then we have these.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: We call them like pattern diagnosis.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: So with these patterns, then we have acupuncture channels and acupuncture points that then we can treat.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: We have acupuncture channels and acupuncture points that then we can treat, and so even if we don't know that Western medicine diagnosis, we can always treat the patient.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Um, so I know we probably need to chat a little bit about like the channels and what acupuncture is and stuff too.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: But, um, that's one of the reasons why I fell in love with acupuncture and how I got to it because, I really got to it as a patient because I needed other options.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: That's a super common backstory.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I feel like of like, what got you in this profession or this profession?
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: This experience led me to appreciate this or not go this direction, or purpose to go this direction.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: That's a super common thing.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, at least you know from a similar mind on my end too.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, explain acupuncture.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about acupuncture.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: So a patient calls you and says hey, I have this thing going on.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: You do acupuncture and they say what is acupuncture?
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you say?
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: So okay.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: So what I say to that is, with acupuncture, we need to start with the channel system.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: So we need to just think of it as like it's just a fact that we have these acupuncture channels, pathways, meridians there's different ways to say it running through our body.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: So they're running, they cover the whole body.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: So we have channels that are going to the leg, that go all the way up to the head.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: We have some that start on the hand and go up to the head.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: So these acupuncture channels are carrying what we call chi, so that's your energy in your body.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: So the chi travels through the acupuncture channels and it balances out your body.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: So when someone is perfectly healthy and feeling great, the chi, the energy in the body, is moving through all these channels evenly.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Everything's balanced, there's enough energy and everything's feeling great.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: If, let's say, you have, like, a pain condition, the chi is stuck in these channels so they just get blocked.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: So first, with acupuncture, we just have to accept that there are these channel systems and you know, we know where they are, you know we have all these books and they're very specific channels of where they go, and then the acupuncture points are along these channels.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: So these channels also connect to the internal organs in the body.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: So let's say, you know we have one of the meridians is the stomach meridian.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: So the stomach channel works on the channel system which goes up the leg.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: And so let's say, if we have a specific like leg pain, I'm trying to figure out like which channel is that on?
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Is it on the stomach channel, is it on the gallbladder channel?
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: And then we're treating based on what channels involved.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: And also then if it's tying into internal organ systems that we know that they then are leading like the stomach channel then will actually affect like the internal stomach and the digestive system as well.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: So with acupuncture we're really trying to just create balance in the body through using the acupuncture channels and then stimulating the acupuncture points.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: Does that make any sense?
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally so.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Stimulating acupressure points to stimulate the particular channels, to open them up and allow normal organ activity and allow things for healing.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: The question would be on your end, I guess, with differential diagnosis of like the pain location is here, which channel is the problem?
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah and then which organs are dysfunctional.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: So what?
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: What's the chicken or the egg like?
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Did the organs get dysfunctional that then cause the channel to get blocked, or does the channel get blocked that makes the organs dysfunctional?
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: that is a fantastic question because the answer is that it depends, like sometimes it is internal, um, you know issues that are are going on versus like a you know a more like muscular, like superficial channel system and so even.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: But they affect each other.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: So all the acupuncture channels then connect to each other, you know, through different systems and different other channels.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Certain channels then like link up with another channel and they're paired with other ones.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: So these like pathologies can then like jump channels, because they're kind of just going along, like if you have enough stagnation or if you have enough weakness in one channel, then it'll like lead into and have issues in the other one.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: And with the internal organ system is that we think of even the channels as like systems, so you have the actual channel itself.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: That is like, let's say, you know we have a channel that's kind of like running on the hand here, like up to the shoulder, that then goes up to the face.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: So we know that any pathologies like on this specific channel, then we're treating that channel.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: But then when we're looking at then how does that like internal system will then affect that channel if it's imbalanced?
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: It's kind of weird but kind of cool.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean, it's super interesting.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: What are some things that would lead to channel blockage or channel involvement?
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's so many different reasons why the energy in the body gets out of balance.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: So you know, let's say, if there's a external like trauma, so if you, you know like hit yourself or something like that, like that, that can actually like stagnate the channel.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: And that's something that a little bit like easier to kind of understand in the beginning, because you can see like okay, like yeah, I hurt this area, then above and below may start being affected.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Like to us that's like the channel system.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: But then when we think about really what causes imbalances in the body, it goes a little bit deeper of you know, like how's your digestive system function?
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Like how's your sleep, how are your emotions, are you really stressed?
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Because all those things are typically the source of the imbalances in the body.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: And so with acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, it's a very like holistic approach.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: So even when I have like pain patients coming in and we're like okay, great, tell me about your pain, what's your pain pattern?
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Where is it?
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Does it feel like dull, does it feel sharp, all those different things that we talk about with pain and then I go into, well, like, how's your sleep?
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Like how's you know what's been going on?
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Are you really stressed?
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Because these things all matter.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: And when we're treating like the patient as an individual because I'm not just treating neck pain or back pain we're treating you as a person who then happened to have that pain condition.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: So all of it is really, you know, really connected.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally I'm on the train for the mind-body connection, you know, because, like, no matter what, we can't separate the mind from the body.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Had some like clinicians come in to mentor and do stuff with us and like, after 10 years of practice, like, what do you feel like you've gotten, you've weaned more into with your practice?
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: You know, and I'm like, one thing I've come to appreciate a lot be like one of the main drivers is just the psychological component of the pain experience and pain development, lingering pain, how things develop, and then just the healing process.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because you can't like it's a fact that, like, psychological stressors or impacts can manifest into physical symptoms.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's totally proven.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we see it all.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, I see it every day in my practice and maybe one of the most common things that I see for that and that people can actually relate to is like trap pain, so tightness, like in the upper back, the shoulders, the neck, um, and the jaw as well, because people are like, oh yeah, like I'm, when I'm really stressed, I, you know, you start holding or you start clenching, and so that's a really good example of how the emotions then tie in, especially when we're thinking about like a pain condition.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, because it's like directly related, and most of the time people can, you know, identify those connections to even on their own, but that happens with other types of pain conditions too, and sometimes that you don't think are related with other types of pain conditions too, and sometimes that you don't think are related, um, and a lot of times patients will tell me that they're like, oh, I have this, this pain, and I also have, um, you know this, other stuff going on, but it's like two completely different things and I'm like Nope, not really.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: That's like actually connected.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: So people usually reach out to you if they're in pain of some sort versus.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: I just feel lethargic, like I don't.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: I feel like my, just not my normal high vitality self, which one or both?
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so definitely both.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Acupuncture treats a wide range of conditions.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: One of the most common things that I get that phone call for is an acute pain or like a chronic pain that is to the point where it's debilitating, and a lot of times those patients have tried everything else.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: So you know they've gone, they've tried maybe different pain medications or they've gotten prescription for pain meds and they don't really want to take them anymore.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Or maybe someone's recommending surgery and they're just not ready for that step.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: So a lot of times I do get calls like in desperation of pain and that's a good way to get started with acupuncture, because acupuncture works fantastic for pain.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: And with a lot of the patients like I do see like a lot of complex, like chronic illness patients.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: That's really pretty common.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: So we're talking about like autoimmune conditions, people just feeling like you know overall, like not themselves.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: So I have patients call all the time.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: They're like I just don't feel well, like I'm tired, I have digestive issues, I have a lot of anxiety, I'm not sleeping, I kind of all those things.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: That it gets to the point where it's like really affecting their lives and I feel like patients are getting a little bit smarter and like recognizing that those things can be treated and can be treated with acupuncture, right, and so it's like it's a new era of like I'm getting calls and people are saying those things to me.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: I feel like maybe I'm just like really out of balance, like I hear that a lot, I'm like great, like this is what acupuncture does.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: We just bring the body back in balance when we're really keeping it in a very like simple you know simple terminology Like that's all that we're doing, because the body gets out of balance for a lot of different reasons.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: You know our like work hours and our stress that is so common, or everyone's like addiction to social media.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: All these things really affect our bodies and our minds and it gets our chi out of balance.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: So, you know, we really look at all those different things and so I get a lot of calls either for more like the complex, like chronic illness patients and the pain.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: A lot of like migraine headache patients start hearing about acupuncture.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: But it's interesting because the more education we have on acupuncture and Chinese medicine, then people will know to reach out for other things.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: A lot of times people come in for pain and I'm like, ok, great, like it's kind of like easy, not as interesting, let's just take care of it.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: But like what's really going on, like that's like my mindset of, like OK, well, people think that they're feeling okay, but when you really get into it, everyone will be like, oh no, I'm fine.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: And you get into like, okay, well, what's your sleep?
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Like Right.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: And then they're like, oh yeah, I wake up, you know, 1 to 3 am every morning.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Super calm.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: All that and I'm like you know that you don't have to do that, right, like you can sleep well and you can have like normal digestion.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Um, the digestion always gets me because patients will be like, oh, I'm fine, I'll be like, oh, so like, how are your bowel movements?
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: They're like, oh, like really bad.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: So I'm like you're telling me everything's fine, but then when you think about all these little systems, like they're not like.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: People are like not okay, yeah, so you know, and there's ways to you know treat that.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: And I think people just don't know that they have options.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Um, and they just learn to like live with things, because it's not a bad enough to then be on medications.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Or even if they're on medications, then well, I know the blood values usually come back normal.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Exactly, you're saying like everything's negative.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know absolutely that was a big part of yeah live with it, you know, or just for falling through the cracks.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I was like, all right, well, we've got to pursue another option, you know?
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Um, that's uh, yeah, the the the one to three o'clock, like the 3am wake up.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: I hear that all the time People are like, yeah, wake up at two, 33 o'clock and I just stare at the wall, you know, for two hours, or I'll just get up and just go to work, because I didn't, I'm not, I'm not going back to sleep.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: You know, it can be helped, for sure.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, but that doesn't have to be accepted as a norm.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah Well, especially what's really interesting with that 1 to 3 am wake up is that in Chinese medicine we have this like a body clock, so all the different organ systems have like a two-hour block that they're kind of like the most active or it's their time.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: So between that 1 and 3 am is the liver time Interesting.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: So the liver in Chinese medicine is the one that's affected the most by stress.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: So that's really common because we think about, you know, most of the time, a lot of probably the people that are telling you that are maybe like high functioning, so they're not really like turning their brains off and even if they don't feel that anxiety or that stress, if they're waking up in that time like their liver system is affected.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: And so, then, what I would do from a Chinese medicine perspective is either prescribe herbs that are really good at working on supporting the liver system or do an acupuncture.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Typically, I'll do both acupuncture to focus on, like that liver channel, get that that um balance right in the liver system, and then everyone starts sleeping better interesting so that's what's like really fun about acupuncture and chinese medicine, because people will say these like little, like little pieces of yeah, it happens like every day at this time.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Be like, oh well, that's a specific organ system like link right here.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, um, what are some of the herbs for liver?
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: so in chinese medicine we mostly use like herbal I mean.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: So in Chinese medicine we mostly use like herbal.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: I mean some people use single herbs, but we usually use herbal formulas.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: So it's a combination of different like Chinese medicine herbs and so, depending on the other things that are going on with a person, we'll typically customize the formula or we have formulas they're called like patent formulas that we kind of have like pre-made that have different herbs that are doing different functions.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: So we usually don't give one herb of like this is the liver herb, Like this is the formula that matches your body and your pattern.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Diagnosis, like right now and a lot of times that will like change and a lot of like how then we would determine, let's say, like what the imbalances are is like feeling the pulses, which is really cool and really weird.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Explain that.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so in the Chinese medicine pulse diagnosis there's lots of different ways to do it, but there's three different main positions on each side, ok, and they represent different organ systems.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: So on the right side you have the lung system, the spleen system, the kidney system.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: On the left side you have the heart, the liver and another aspect of the kidney.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: So essentially, I don't even need to talk to you and I would just feel your pulses and I would tell you what you're feeling.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: I don't even need to talk to you and I would just feel your pulses and I would tell you what you're feeling, because each of those positions we're feeling the actual imbalances that we were just talking about, and so we can feel like, oh, that pulse feels like weaker than the others, and and then we know that then that system is a little bit deficient, or like with that one to three am wake up, I would probably feel on this position the second position, on the left hand like that pulse is probably going to be like stronger and like a little angry, like usually I feel like wiry, like really strong, like if you're like plucking a guitar string or something, the pulse in that position will feel like that Interesting, and so that's how a lot of times then we will create herbal formulas because that gives us even more insight of okay, we know that you have these symptoms, but underline, is your body like weak, Is it, you know, too strong in different areas that we need to kind of bring that energy back into the other systems Interesting.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, back to the liver.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: When we went to the herbs, the herbal blends, blends that would be helpful for stuff like that.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: What's the liver acupressure point channel target?
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the liver channel.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Liver has its own channel system, so it mainly runs on the leg, kind of the like the inside of the leg, and on the top of the foot.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: One of the main points that I use is between the first and the second toe and you kind of like go up until you kind of feel the bones, like the metatarsals, and that's one of the really good acupressure point that we use and that's a point that I use a lot to regulate the liver.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: It's called liver three and that it just was a really good one at regulating the liver.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: All right, for you mentioned stomach gallbladder, spleen, yep.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Where are those channels?
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the spleen channels on the inside of the leg too.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: So we have channels that are like more of the yang channels.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: So you've heard of like yin and yang.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: It's a balance of, you know, different energetics in the body.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: It's pronounced yang.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't know that Yang.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Not yang.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: America yeah.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: So the yin and yang, yeah, so we have different organs that are like yang channels versus yin channels.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: So the yang channels are more on the outside of the body.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: So if you think of like the leg, we have the channels that are on the lateral, like moving more on the lateral side of the leg, and then we have like the yin channels on the medial side of the leg.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: So that's a big part of like the diagnosis.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: When we're thinking about like pain conditions or things like that, we're like well, what, what side is it on?
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Is it on the outside of the leg, the inside?
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Because sometimes people would just say, oh, like my leg hurts, you're like okay, and sometimes they'll go to their doctor and be like, oh, my leg hurts, and like no one palpates, and feels like well, actually, what does the tissue feel like on the outside versus the inside?
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: And I'm sure you notice that all the time because you're doing a lot of like manual therapy and like hands-on with the patients, which is so important.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Um, because most people are like not touching the patients, even for like pain conditions.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: They're not doing any evaluations, they'll send them in for imaging.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Um, but even the orthopedics like I'm like come on, like touch your patients.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: I know you have this information and this knowledge just like palpate yeah, um, it's a five minute.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Five minute quick talk and then, uh, send an imaging, get the imaging back, don't see anything.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Pain meds, just a script to go to pt or something.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: You know, that's it yeah, because a lot of times, like we can like for me, like with my training, I've learned to like, palpate the channels and like the tissues so we can feel, um know, we can feel if something's tight, like all you know, a patient will tell me that they have like upper back pain and I start palpating along the channel and I'll find like really strong, like trigger points and they're like how did you find that?
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: I didn't have pain there?
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, I'm just following the channel, and if anyone would palpate you, they would know that this is more a muscle issue versus, you know, tying into.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: You know, like if they have arthritis or if they have other like structural issues that are seen on imaging.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: Because we see that all the time in clinic that it's like, okay, people come in and like they have stenosis or they have arthritis, and immediately everyone's like okay, that's what's causing the pain.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: It's like, well, yes, that can be a pain generator, but a lot of times then the muscles get involved.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: So if you know if someone would like palpate, then you'd feel like, oh, this muscle is like not doing what it's supposed to do, like let's do some acupuncture, let's send you for some PT so that then it's more.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: You know you get the treatment for the real like pain source, for what you're feeling right now.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally yeah, but more source for what you're feeling right now.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally Um, but more like the underlying root cause.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely yeah, um, the uh.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: People would always ask too.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I would imagine um, what does it feel like?
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Like oh, I'm going to go between this first and second toe and we're going to feel the bones between the metatarsals, right, it's like oh, man, I'm sure for some people that would be yeah, well, the point's like not right at the bone.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: I just like I palpate where the structures are and then that kind of tells me where the points are.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Um, but that's a great question, because a lot of people will call me and they're, like you know, desperate.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: They're like I'm in a lot of pain but I hate needles yeah like I don't want needles or I'll have patient.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: I'll talk to patients and they're like I really really need to send my dad in or my brother in, but they will not come because they're so scared of needles.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: But the acupuncture needles are so tiny, like they're so thin.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: I know you do a little dry needling so you're familiar with the needles too.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: They're so thin and you know, sometimes you may feel the points a little bit, but it shouldn't be painful.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: I actually practice a very like gentle style of like needle technique too, so the majority of the times like patients don't even feel the needles go in.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: I'll be like okay, you're ready.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: First one's going in and they're like did you do it?
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: like yeah, like the needle's in it's fine, we're good yeah, so, um, that piece of like the actual acupuncture treatment is not something that like people should be afraid of or worried about yeah um, and there's also different techniques of like okay, if people are like a little needle sensitive or like really nervous, then we just use like fewer points, like there's different ways that we can treat.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: We have so many different options.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Like we're individualizing it to your needs, like what your pain patterns are, what?
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: you're comfortable with what you're comfortable with.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: I would imagine you would ramp like we can add more needles next time.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, progress as appropriate.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah absolutely Like these, like all the treatments, and I'm sure with you too, it's not like what, what exercises, what PT like, what acupuncture needles like do I want to put in today?
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: Like I want to.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: You know, we learn about some of these, all these like really cool points and protocols, but if, like the patients like don't need it, if it doesn't fit, fit like we're not going to do it, so every patient, then we're you know, we're looking at you and figuring out like okay, how many needles can you tolerate?
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: Maybe if someone's energy is really low, like I, can only do like two or three needles because we just have to like build their chief, or and do some herbs might be enough today absolutely, so yeah we have a um, uh, I want to talk about the um diseases, systemic problems in a second.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: But I have a patient that I've been seeing this patient for like a kind of a long time.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: But they have vasovagal syncope, yeah, and every time they get blood work or any kind of needling like they just pass out.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: And I was like, well then, we won't be doing that, you know.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they just describe like it's not anything they can control.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: They just, they just end up being like I can feel myself, like calm down, you know, everybody, relax, don't put any more needles in me if they're like taking blood or whatever and like, no, you'll be fine, and she passes out.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the doc's like oh god, and like she wakes up and she's like confused, pretty confused.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like I told you, you know?
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: yeah, just listen to me just listen and I think that's a big thing is like people are not listening to the patients because even if they don't have the same terminology of us, like they kind of know their bodies, or at least we're trying to train people to know their bodies.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Um so like with that patient of yours, like her nervous system is probably really sensitive.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: So and that's something I see a lot with like my complex, like chronic illness patients like the nervous system is just a little bit out of balance.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: That was one of my big issues, um, you know, when I was going through my health stuff is that my nervous system was just so reactive.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: So even with me, I mean sometimes when I would get acupuncture I would just pass out, which is like more unusual, like every once in a while it happened.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: I probably passed out in acupuncture treatments more than like anyone else.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Really.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: Because people also, even acupuncturists, don't always understand like the dosage of the needling.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: So I've had to learn that because of my own experience and I've had all these like very sensitive patients.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: So it's like how do we get them treatments without triggering that response?
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: Because that doesn't feel good.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: We don't really.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: We don't want anybody passing out, but it would be interesting.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: I would actually be really interested to treat her and see if we can regulate her nervous system in a very gentle way without triggering that response.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: Interesting.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it would be super interesting to see what happens.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you see people with vasovagal syncope?
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I have, and it's similar to POTS, because with POTS it's also kind of like a dysregulation to the autonomic nervous system.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: So when you get those big responses like the autonomic nervous system is what's involved.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: And what's fascinating about acupuncture is that, regardless of if we're treating pain, if we're treating digestive issues or sleep, we're tapping into the nervous system, especially the autonomic nervous system.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: So we're really downregulatingulating that sympathetic, fight-or-flight response so that so many people are in just all the time because of the world we live in.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: But especially in conditions like that, like the nervous system is really sensitive.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: So we want to regulate that so she can get like stronger and be a little bit more resilient.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, systemic pathologies, chronic Lyme disease, that's a, that's a I had.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: I've had a handful of patients that have described that and I'm like that's not my, like it's, I'm here for, you know, joint musculoskeletal, neuromusculoskeletal pain, biomechanics, joint pain, muscle weakness, joint mobility, imbalances, whatever, and then progressing with like activity, sports and stuff, yeah, but like that's, I can't do anything about that.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: But I'm going to do my lane with what I can help you with.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: But anyway, they described that a lot and they've described a lot of frustration and confusion and, like nobody can help me, I was shunned by the medical system, the allopathic, medical, you know system.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what have you seen with that?
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really interesting because I do have a lot of patients with chronic Lyme.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: They kind of like tie in with a lot of like other like autoimmune, like conditions that people can't really just put their fingers on from a Western medicine perspective.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Right, because it's so complicated and it involves so many different systems and especially that, like chronic fatigue and like the brain fog that comes a lot with these patients, they don't have a lot of options with Western medicine unless things are like caught early and then they do different protocols to treat it.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: And it's definitely something that we're seeing more of, and I don't know if it's just because people are being diagnosed a little bit better with it, but it seems like there's a lot of chronic Lyme patients.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: From a acupuncture standpoint.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: We're really trying to then just go back to the basics of.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: I'm always really interested in the Western medicine diagnosis with my background and like whatever information that we can get then gives us power to help like treat the patients, of course, but sometimes, like in these like chronic, like complex, like weird um, you know conditions that people are having, all these different symptoms.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Then I go back to the basics of what is the traditional chinese medicine, like diagnosis, because sometimes, like, we don't have good answers with, like a lyme diagnosis, or like bartonella, and you know some, some of these other, you know, like pathogens that are then creating, you know, more chronic illnesses.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: So going back to reducing inflammation in the body is huge for these patients and really trying to like support the energetics of their body, support their immune system, balance out the nervous system, because you know, a lot of these patients didn't have like neurological symptoms, like associated with it too, right.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: So, you know, supporting them in a very like holistic way is something that I see is very beneficial to these patients.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: Um, you know, as everyone's still trying to build like from a functional medicine standpoint and you know western medicine, like, what do we, what can we do to treat these patients like you, you know, for me it's like I'm just going back to the basics, like what have we known for thousands of years to like treat these patterns, even if we didn't have the same name for it in like our traditional?
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Chinese medicine like books and stuff.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, um, do you and Dr Danielle and Dr Joey and that crew do y'all collaborate with patients pretty often?
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're awesome at Wellness First and they do.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: They're seeing a lot of like chronic Lyme patients right now and so we have a lot of mutual patients and it's just really great to like work together because you know it's a team effort, especially with these patients.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Like I wouldn't want to be treating these patients just on my own with acupuncture, because sometimes they need other support and like if we're you, you know, if there's iv therapies that are beneficial, like benefiting these patients, like, why would we not do that on top of?
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: like what we're doing, or making sure they're moving their bodies and making sure they're seeing you and um, you know, very like holistic approaches.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Especially with these like chronic illness patients is is 100 key to the recovery.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: You have to hit it from all angles yeah, yeah, yeah, totally no, that's good.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: I think that I mean team approach and also just the mindset of, like one of my pet peeves, I would say, is someone who's like no, I got this.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Like this is like let's keep it all here.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like you know, get over yourself, like there's other people that have other experiences and expertise that can maybe bring some things to the table different perspectives and stuff.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's just one of my pet peeves.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with you on that one.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: And I'm like it's an ego problem, it's a bottom line when I'm like, even arguing as an example, with the chronic Lyme disease, I would imagine in like the 90s, early 2000s I could see very knowledgeable docs that are very experienced and stuff.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: They're like I don't understand this, this is out of my.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: I don't understand, you know, you're, you're just, it's not part of my medical, it's not, it's made up.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: It's like well, you just don't understand it.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's not, it's made up.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Right, it might not be outside of your scope right now.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: You know where can we refer this person to a different?
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: So that's a really common thing that I've heard with people Like when I hear acupuncture, I usually think of digestive problems and then headaches.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what's the?
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Migraine, headache, channels, pathways.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the main one that I see with migraines is the gallbladder channel, which also is tied to the liver channel too.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: But the gallbladder channel runs kind of from tied to the liver channel too.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: But the liver, the gallbladder channel, runs kind of from the back of the head here, runs kind of throughout the whole body, but it kind of crosses up over and goes like towards that eye and then kind of circles back around.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: So that system is the one that I probably treat the most often for like a true migraine.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: That's kind of like one-sided people start feeling in their eye.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: That's like gallbladder channel, and what's interesting is that patients typically will like trace the channel like I have the pain from here and then sometimes it goes back.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, that's, that's that the acupuncture channel?
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: Um, so with migraines that's going back to even what we're talking about with pain is that it's a stagnation in the channel Most of the time.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's coming from a deficiency, to like if there's not enough shear blood in the channel, then you know that can create stagnation.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: But a lot of times, if we think of it just as you know, those channels are like blocked and then you have like severe pain and then you get some of the neurological symptoms and everything that we just need to open up the channels.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: So, migraine patients I love getting migraine patients in because it's so debilitating and acupuncture works so well with it too, and pretty quickly.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: And a lot of times with migraine patients, they'll text me.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: They'll be like I can't get in, like it started and I'm like, get here.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: I'm like I don't care.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: Like you know, have someone come and get you in here because it helps so much, especially to stop the cycle of patients that are in migraines for you know, like three or four days, or if they end up taking some of their Western med drugs just because they have to function, then they get in these cycles of you know it'll go away and then it comes back, like a day and a half later or something, and then you're in the cycle.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: Perfect, take more meds.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: I know, but that's what happens.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: They get in the cycle and, yeah, and really trying to figure out, like what's the root cause of the migraines that they're having.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: So that's where it comes into, you know, like the pulses and everything else that's going on in their body that we're talking about before that we kind of go through, is that, you know, how do we then prevent them?
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: My, how do we then prevent them?
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: My goal is for migraine patients to like not have to have a migraine for them to come in for.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: Like how do we just stop them?
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: Right, and a lot of times, like I forget some of my patients that I have all the time, like they first came in for migraines because we don't even talk about them anymore, because we just treat them and we start treating other things, yeah, so I definitely yeah, acupuncture works really well for migraine.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: You find the treatment protocol, the treatment pathway, no pun intended, is for migraines, usually gallbladder related, yeah, and then the herb.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: I would imagine an herbal blend that would be supportive of the gallbladder channel, maybe the liver channel, cause they're connected, so yeah, interconnected.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: And then exercise Like, do you feel like the people that can add, exercise with that is for blood flow and opening absolutely yeah, the movement is so important and I tell people that's one of the ways to move the chi without an acupuncture needle is to like physically move your body, because when you do that you're moving the blood, you're moving the chi and all that kind of circulates together.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: So that's one of like a big homework that I have.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: For my patients is like you can't just come in and you know I'll give you treatments and then you just go back to your normal, your normal life if they're, you know, not moving and they're not taking care of themselves.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: So you have to incorporate that and that's a good way to you know, especially we're talking about like migraines and headaches to then prevent um, you know you feel things coming on like get your body moving yeah um, and I, like you know, patient to put like heat kind of like on their neck and their upper back, a lot of migraine patients like the cold because it it feels better like in the moment.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: But you know, especially if you feel stuff going on like make sure that your neck is like loose your traps, your shoulders are down, because if you keep tightening things up then there's more and more stagnation builds and then you know, then you have a migraine and then you also have a tension headache on top of that, because now you're, you know everything's really tight and then all the chi is like blocked in the channels.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Then you just have more pain yeah so and then also like trying to regulate your nervous system and just staying like calm with headaches too, because people, you know severe migraines you feel it coming on, and then you get that anxiety around it too, of like, oh no, I'm supposed to go to work or I'm supposed to pick up my kid, and you know, you know what's coming so trying to prevent is the best and then getting flooded with social media content.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: You know, yeah, world's ending all that stuff yeah, just really good for us?
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: It's not.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: It's so crazy and yeah, this is weird.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: It's just crazy how it's gone that direction.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: You know how influential, and just the direction it's gone.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: But just another golden BB that adds into the tips of scale.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah absolutely, I totally.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Do you ever needle yourself?
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: I do needle myself.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: I needle myself a lot because with my schedule right now, like busy clinic schedule I haven't been able to just go myself and get a full acupuncture treatment for someone else.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: So I, you know, if I have a few minutes between a patient or at the end of the day, stick a few needles in, lay down for a few minutes and Cool.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's great, yeah, it's awesome.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: I need to be doing it more.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: I probably should treat myself every week.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you have a particular clinician locally that you'd like to go to?
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: I haven't really been going to other practitioners and I need to find someone because I was telling you before like I'm a little sensitive to needles, so even I'm a little like wary of other people needling me because of just how busy the schedule is.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: I can't afford to like then be out for two days, because that's what would happen to me before, like if I get too strong with treatment, like my body's so sensitive, and then it's like not like oh, I don't feel good, like no, like I'm, I'm done for like two days.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: So that's why I needle myself, and a lot of times I needle myself for a shorter amount of time.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: So instead of, let's say, normally I leave needles in for a patient for like 20, 25 minutes at first and if I notice that they really like they really, you know, like to kind of get deeper, it takes them longer I'll leave them in for like 30, 35 minutes.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: But I have some patients that are sensitive, like me, in like 15 minutes, 15 minutes max.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: So if you leave them in more, then they may not feel well, especially with someone like their chronic Lyme patients and stuff.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: Their bodies are more sensitive, so-.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: Would you are more sensitive, so would you do like for yourself, where it's like I got between patients, do a three minute needle and then again, an hour later, three minutes.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Hour later, three minutes.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: That would be a great idea.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: I probably should do that.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Um, so maybe like the three minutes times 10, it's a 30 minute total time window of that needling being in there.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Has that been?
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: Is that something y'all do?
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: No, I mean short time long, high frequency.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, with yes in the scale of what you were just talking about, like that's a great idea for me and I'm like I think I shouldn't eat on myself like that, because I think my body would respond really well like that.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: But with certain patients they need like kind of like the micro dosing of the acupuncture and so being like, ok, we're going to do 15 minutes, but you know I need to see you back next week or, you know, at the end of the week.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: So we get like two or three treatments and majority of my patients I see once a week regularly, probably about like four to six weeks.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: If we're kind of like working on like one specific condition A lot of times if it's like a more like acute pain or something a little bit more serious or, you know, a little bit heavier, then I'll see him like two or three times a week for the first like two weeks, and then we reevaluate.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: It's like do you, you know, do you need to come in twice a week?
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: You know, do we need to just kind of, you know, go back to once a week, because I really don't want my patients to have to rely on me.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: No-transcript need that like okay, great, we need to get you in so that then I don't have to see you, instead of dragging it out, like if you really need twice a week treatments and we're just doing once we're doing every other week.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: I you know, it's just going to take longer to get the results.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, interesting.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you do for your own health and wellness regimen?
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really good question.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: So I do.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: Incorporate acupuncture in um diet is a huge um piece.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: So we have a pretty like boring diet.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: So we're eating just like protein veggies.
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: I personally need like some carbs, like if I don't have carbs, then I don't.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't feel good.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: So mostly our diet is like rice, chicken, fish, veggies.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: And then I bring whatever I had for dinner, I just bring it for lunch.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: Like really boring, it's pretty much the same, but it's good, I mean, and it's also like for me.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty sensitive to my diet too, so I can't have a lot of sugar Gluten, I can kind of play with a little bit, but I've just I just know that I'm sensitive to it too, so I have to stay really good on my diet or else, you know, everything else starts falling apart.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: Sleep is a huge thing for me.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: Like I know personally, like I need a lot of sleep.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: I encourage, like most of my patients, like that's a huge thing, that we, you know, try to focus on Um, cause that's when your body is restoring all the chi and the blood and all the organ systems.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: Um, and then all the Western medicine side of what we know that sleep does too.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: It's just so important.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: So, like preserving sleep is is one of the big things that I have to do.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: Um, let's see acupuncture.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: I do get chiropractic care.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: My husband's a chiropractor, so I have in-house service, which is great.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: That really has helped me.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: I've had like headaches and migraines and things like that in the past too, so that's something that really helps me with like maintenance, yeah, and like movement.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of like in this phase where I'm trying to figure out what that movement looks like, because, just even like logistically, I have an almost three-year-old and a busy practice and you're trying to figure out like okay, like how do we do all these things?
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: And sometimes we can't do all of it all at once.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: So for me, like preserving, you know, like with the acupuncture and the sleep, and I do like a lot of guided meditation, that's really helpful for me, even just like 15 minutes, 10, 15 minutes, like I'll do that also.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: Like at the, you know, in my clinic, a lot of the things that I have to do, I have to do them at work because like if I get home, then it's just, it's all over, because then you're in a different, you're in like kid mode um totally
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: yeah it's funny.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: You say that that's exactly what I say.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: It's like as soon as I get home, everything's over.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all over.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got three kids yeah it's all over.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got three kids.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's rough.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, three-year-old for you.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: I mean like, yeah, you get it.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Um, it's, it's over.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's such a bad thing, like my wife's.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: Like what do you mean?
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: It's not over?
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: You're not here for family time.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: I guess what I mean is, like my productivity for other things is completely done.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you just have to know that you know when you walk in the door and that's also a choice too, to be like present, Like you could be there and then try to be doing stuff, but then you're not present with your kids.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: It's terrible.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: So it's like, especially like I know you have little kids too, so it's one of those things.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: It's like they're only little for this period of time, so it's like knowing that like this is it, we're just going to have to like be in the grind a little bit and know that when you full attention right so you know, trying to fit in um, even just like self-care and business stuff and patient stuff, like you know, where does that all fit in?
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's right, yeah there's only, there's only enough time in the day, but trying to figure out, I think too it goes back to like, as an individual, like what each person like needs to be like functioning like their best yeah, um, what's the priority for this person?
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because like sometimes people like out of agents like they have to go to the gym every day, like if they're not in the gym like they're, they're not happy like they don't feel good, like mental health is off.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, um, for me, like I can get away with not doing that and that's not a good thing, because then I kind of like it's like, uh, lower on the list of like my self-care which needs it needs to come up on the priority a little bit.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah um, I uh totally the thing that.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: What do we do, like there's only so much hours in the day?
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, um sacrificing something else you know, without sacrificing your sleep because it's so important.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: But then you gotta get stuff done and if you didn't get everything done because you're so busy at work, then it's like all right, then after the kids go to bed, then then we can knock out some stuff.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean like, what I found I sacrifice, I mean social life.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, don't do any, like I don't do anything.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: You know, and then entertainment, like other than, maybe you know, doom scrolling for a little bit to wind down before bed, which is not a great idea.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: It's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard one.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: I don't all the time, but um yeah, but that's it.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like TV movies, dinner, nate date nights, like social life.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, nothing, you know, I know I'm with you on that.
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: It's hard, but it's like seeing that that, like this is just a period of time, and like knowing that you know there you're making these like choices so that you can be present for you know, your kids and your business.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: I'm asking like what would I want?
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: Like, oh darn, I can't watch football, or like watch movies and stuff.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: Like what would you rather have?
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, my little kids, and like actually focus on them, that's way more important.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like, yeah, totally For sure.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: When I trade that, yeah, the other part I feel like I struggle with is um, you tell me your your thoughts on this too is being home, being present, but mentally still thinking about other things.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: You know, um, if I'm like man focus, you know like just let that go and just focus on building blocks right now.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: Or erasing the cars.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: You know like that's what we need to coloring.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: You know that's what we need to focus on right now.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard because, especially like as a business owner too, like there's always things to think about.
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: So, you think about business stuff, you think about like your patients, and then you know like what you need and you know all the things like to do list is like endless.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: So you know, I think the big part of that is like putting the phone away, because sometimes, like, if you just like, oh, if you like check a message, or you like check your email, and like see that I try to like just completely put my phone away when I'm like I just put in like the drawer with the keys, um, that doesn't always happen, but it's like trying to just be like no, like, because it's so tempting.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because then you'd be like, oh, maybe I can just read this or maybe I can just send the email.
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: Um, just, real quick.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: There's one last thing.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: Exactly I gotta write this down because one more thing oh, I forgot this.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then just ruminating over like, okay, tomorrow you do this, I need to do that yeah yeah, it's not good yeah um, yeah, we do the same thing.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: Like I try to put my phone down and, just like usually, I try to tell people, like if it's between five 4 30 or five until 8 30, I'm usually just mia, yeah, and then I won't respond until the next morning because it's like eight 30 and it's like, oh, I've got the pits of bed, I've got to clean up the house, do some dishes, take a shower and I'm going to bed.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wake up the next day, start over again, right away.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: And it's like, oh, I didn't get to my messages till 10 AM.
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the next day.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a patient.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: it's like, immediately get right back, because that's what I want to do, like that's the care that I deliver to you want people to know that you're you know, thinking about them and stuff responsive, yeah, and then just but realizing it's okay, because now you know everyone expects like a, an instant response, because everyone knows that you have your phone with you all the time.
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: Um, and just being like no, it's like retraining of, like it's okay, like I can get back to that in the morning, it's not an emergency.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: So I think that's something like as individuals, we have to like start setting those boundaries and figuring out what that is.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you're something that you really need to call, you really need to take, you have to do it.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: But if things can wait, like make it wait.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: And trying to like block the schedule of like in the morning, if you know.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: Okay, this is if I need to like play a little catch up.
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: Do you have 10 minutes in the morning that you can do that?
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: Right, right yeah.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: Sure, well, thanks for coming in.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: Well, we'll have to get you in again for more topics and stuff.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe specific diagnoses and specific like systemic stuff.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: Treatment protocols for those specific things too.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: But anyway, but what's what's the best way people can reach out to you, like, how can they find you?
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you can find us on our website, roadstohealthcom, so it's R-H-O-A-D-S-T-O-healthcom, or give us a call at 561-800-2281.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: Social media too Like.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: I don't really do social media that much, but you can find us at roads to health.
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: Um, that's our handle on Instagram.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: Cool yeah, awesome.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: Well, thanks again for coming in and if y'all have any questions, comments, concerns, conflicting opinions, like we're always open to ideas and suggestions and stuff and if you have any pain yourself that like musculoskeletal, neuromusculoskeletal pain that you feel like we can help you, we'd love to at least talk on the phone, um, and y'all can reach us on Instagram website or our email team at athleteRCcom.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: It's probably a great way to reach us.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: Thanks again for coming in and we'll catch y'all next time.