 One thing that's very interesting about practitioners that end up in the alternative or non-traditional medical space is that many of us came into this with illnesses of our own, often chronic illnesses that were difficult to diagnose or difficult to treat. And many of us, because we've had these problems, had seen all of the traditional specialists. You know, we'd seen our PCP, we'd gone through the referral chain of conventional medical care and we're still sick or felt that maybe we weren't even heard. Now in this video, I thought I would share some insights from my own story about how Chinese medicine really helped me and really saved me because it gave me tools that I could use to heal throughout my life. Hey, I'm Dr. Alex Hain, author of the health book, Master of the Day, Doctor of Chinese Medicine and licensed acupuncturist. So before we jump into this video, you guys, I have two very important links right below this video. The first is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine, there are contact info links to my private practice right below this video. And there's also a free guide for you for daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. So check those out right below this video. So these days, I often think about the path that I could have gone down. And the story that kind of encapsulated just how much my digestive problems had bothered me was this experience I had when I was dating this girl for a long time, a long-term serious relationship of mine. And we had been wanting to go to Thailand for a while. Now she was Filipino, so we had wanted to do Southeast Asia and the Philippines and Thailand. And while we were there, we had planned this really cool island hopping trip. Now what we were going to do is go to this famous beach that was in a Leonardo DiCaprio movie. And then we were going to island hop via Catamarans to all these really, really scenic little beaches and little vistas with great, great viewing spots. So this was kind of like the trip we were looking forward to for a long time, right? This was the trip that we had wanted to do for the entire year. I think for a lot of people, when they travel, they tend to get a little constipated, right? That's not that uncommon for the average person. But for me, because digestive problems were already my main problem all the time, no matter how healthy I ate. It had been four, five, six, it had been seven days since I had a bowel movement, right? We weren't eating a horrible diet. We weren't doing anything out of the ordinary. But for whatever reason, that's where I was. And so I was having such bad abdominal pain and such bad GI discomfort that I just was like, we had been planning this trip really for a whole year. And the island hopping was the main thing we wanted to do several days of just going through these beaches and these incredible viewpoints in Thailand. And here I am saying, I'm not getting on that boat, basically, unless I have a bowel movement. And because I hadn't eaten in two days, I was having abdominal pain and cramps. And here I am at this archetypal moment where for the first time in my life as a young person in his mid-20s, my health is now a barrier to me actually being able to live. And not just show up for a job that I hated, but to show up with a girl I was seriously interested in, in the dream honeymoon location for a dream experience. So that kind of encapsulated just how bad my problems were. And for someone that had never really abused himself with poor diet or lack of exercise or drugs or anything like that, I found it very unfair that I was suffering from all these problems all the time. And that was why one of the biggest concepts I talk about now in my videos is constitution. Because constitution represents some of the challenges your health predispositions you will have in your life. And that challenge, again, was not because of medical neglect or medical malpractice, like no one hurt me in medicine. I didn't take something that caused myself to be sick. I just had a tendency genetically to have those problems. So I'm stuck here on this archetypal weird experience where I'm like 25, about to have a dream experience with a girl that I loved. And here I am. Basically, I didn't go on this experience because of this digestive problem. That was one of the experiences that really convinced me that I need to go and exhaust every option medically, conventionally, and alternative to understand why this is happening in someone who otherwise eats healthy and takes good care of himself. What was going on? So when I went through this referral chain of, of practitioners started with the PCP to a dietitian referral to a GI specialist referral to etc, etc, etc. Right. And when I saw the GI specialist, he saw me for two minutes and said, you know, sounds like IBS, let's do a colonoscopy. Now, I said yes, because I was there and I didn't know any better. And a few days later, I just called and canceled it. And I was like, this makes no sense. There's not something seriously going wrong here. I just feel it. And there's got to be another way. And that was when I had this chance encounter sitting in a cafe one day, where I was just sitting down and literally at a notebook writing out every intervention I had tried documenting my results with every intervention. And then writing on another page before you exhaust all options, try these 10 15 things meditation, yoga, naturopath, acupuncture, whatever herbs and the universe kind of threw me a bone, because a guy walked in that day that I happened to know very loosely from working at the coffee shop. And he told me that he had developed autoimmune hepatitis as a rare reaction to a medication he'd been given for, I believe for Crohn's disease. And he said, you know, I saw this guy named Jacques was an acupuncturist. He's right around the corner like a stone's throw away behind this coffee shop. And you should go check him out. He didn't cure me, but he helped me a lot. He helped me more than anyone else I saw. So I see this French Chinese medicine doctor named Jacques. Now go figure. I had just moved back from China about two years before. And I'd gone to China to look for mystics and holy people and sages, etc. And go figure I never met a Chinese medicine mentor until I came back. And this guy Jacques lived less than one mile from my parents home in Connecticut. Talk about weird twist of fate in my healing hero's journey. So I go see this guy named Jacques. And Jacques gives me a basic herbal formula. He didn't even write custom. It was a pre made one. And the next 30 days, I had the most regular bowel function that I ever had in my entire life. 30 days. The next 30 day window was the most regular gi function my entire existence. And again, even though I wasn't cured, the problem wasn't gone for good. That just showed me at least symptomatically. There's something here that already works better than any conventional option I ever had. And no one no doctor ever referred me to this guy. No one ever told me Chinese medicine was a real thing that worked. No one ever hinted that this would be the next in the referral chain. And yet this just got me the best results I ever had. And this guy has a practice booked months out. So that really helped me understand that what is the standard of care is not always what is most clinically effective, even though that is how it's marketed, right? And that there are other options that are seriously effective, often more effective than whatever the standard of care is, you know, the Ivy League physician in the ivory tower with the white coat and all the placebo controlled blind studies. We put a lot of faith in that. And that's obviously gold standard research. And it is a course part of the marketing of traditional medical care to build authority and expertise. And it is valuable authority and expertise. But there's a lot more out there that works clinically. There's a lot more that doesn't work clinically too. But this whole series of experiences, this story, this arc, right, the healing heroes journey I call with my patients where there's the same heroes journey that Joseph Campbell talks about, but the descent into hell is the descent into illness. And often, the descent into hell is linked to specialists, specialists, specialists, doctor after doctor, and no one knows what's going on. And the person is still chronically ill to the point of not really being able to live the way that they normally can live. And I think about a lot about what would happen if I went down that journey, that path further, if I took that GI specialist advice that colonoscopy probably would have been negative, like they usually are with my patients. And then it would have been a medication referral probably to a psychiatrist for an SSRI and antidepressant. And then who the hell knows from their years down the line. And the way I'm confident of that is because I have so many patients that did not know that there were other alternative options that were clinically effective. And they go down that route and only come to me years later when there's a lot more work to be done. And no healing has been done. And it just makes me think that this journey, I see play out time after time after time after time after time again, the person who feels like they've exhausted every option that there is no more hope that honestly, they don't even want to try because they've tried every referral that somebody has given them. And every piece of advice that their friends and family give hurts them a little more because often their friends and family, they're ostracized a bit as if there's something wrong with them or it's in their head or it's not real or it's they're just too sensitive. But I shot this video, I think, not only to share a bit about my journey again, but to remind those people that there's probably nothing wrong with you and you're gut feeling about what's going on is probably freaking correct. And you should trust it and continue finding alternative advice, alternative counsel because someone out there has a solution for you and to not give up with all the things you've tried. Because I've been that jaded person, that was afraid I would never be normal again. And I thought I had exhausted every option. But the reason I'm in the field that I am, and the reason why I shoot these videos every week, no matter how tired I am, matter how busy I am, is because I know there's not just one, but probably millions of people out there that have gone through what I've gone through. And people who are harmed by medical interventions that they don't need and who don't know that there's something as clinically effective as what I practice. For me, this was the most effective thing I ever found. So that's what I'm dedicating my life to. But don't give up. There absolutely is an option somewhere someone has it. So if the traditional options aren't working for you, find a new one. Alright guys, fiery rant for today a little bit more about my story. Before you go, leave a comment right below this video. Let me know what it is in your journey that has made you want to give up, right? Comment there below. And don't forget, below the video, there is contact info for my private practice. You want to learn more, you can contact me right below this.