 I absolutely do not agree with some of the ways that my internist recommends handling gastric issues or even anxiety because the pharmaceutical way of handling these, you know, altering the acid that's happening within the stomach depending on which way you're trying to angle it, it doesn't correct the problem. It's like you're going to have to take this medication for life and it's not even the best way to approach it. You know, they say that adult onset intolerances and food allergies are not reversible. Like that is what, you know, I have been told and that's what I've studied in the books as well. So that was what I sort of accepted to be the norm. It's like I need an actual medicine that actually works and I was so grateful to be able to find something that was natural and healing and something that heals the body and then it's like I don't need it anymore. It's like now my body is back up to normal. Sure. And I just remember the day was probably like a year ago and I was like I think this is the best I have ever felt. Like I'm like my energy feels good, my body feels good, like my mood is good. I'm like I am a new me. Hi I'm Dr. Alex Hyne, author of Master the Day and today we're here with a patient from my practice and a success story Julie. So Julie, thanks for being here. Now I always like to start with you had seen other medical practitioners like your internist and other east-west practitioners. What did they say specifically regarding your condition? Were you going to need to take medication for life? Was this reversible? What was the situation? You know my internist gave me dietary recommendations you know which is understandable but you know his fix was going on a medication called a meprosol and I took it for about two weeks and then the situation was subside but the problem was it just kept coming back. Sure. You know and that was the problem for me is that I didn't want to constantly be on a medication. There really was no fix for you know managing or curing the symptom. It was it was about managing the symptoms basically and it seemed to be a pattern where I was just constantly going to be on you know two weeks of a meprosol and then it'd be fine for like six weeks and then I'd be back on it. So it just wasn't fixing the problem and you know for me it's it's not just about you know changing my diet it's about like how am I going to heal what is wrong you know. So when I was seeking out a solution you know I wanted something that was going to be natural that was going to heal my body like correct it as opposed to just continuing to put me on a medication. So in regards to the treatment of the anxiety and more of like the adrenal fatigue what were they recommending? He did give me like Xanax like a benzodiazepine right to use if I needed to which is not my first choice and as far as fatigue you know I had him run my blood panels in order to look for iron anemia and of course cancer because anytime I don't feel good I'm like I got cancer but you know and he didn't find anything and so I continued my journey and trying to find a remedy to the situation to then consulting was like the functional doctors and like osteopathic doctors. So then all of a sudden I had these two different opinions about my blood work and then it still like just didn't fix the problem. What is the cause like where is this happening how are we going to fix this? Sure. As for me as like you know a single mother trying to manage all the things and take care of myself and being able to like show up to take care of my kids it's like I need an answer you know and trying to navigate that in the medical world is just you know overwhelming. Now paint me the before picture what were the symptoms you were experiencing how was it interfering with your day-to-day life was there one particular bad day that was the day where it had to change or was this something just chronic where your quality of life was being eroded every single day by how bad it was? Well as far as my digestion I think everything started you know even like a few years ago like I was living with these very mild symptoms just having this gnawingness or even this like constant feeling of like almost being hungry but not hungry. So I think that the disruption in my gut started years ago of you know having these these symptoms of just like a gnawingness or a burningness you know in the like the stomach area or like just the GI tract in general and then it progressively got worse you know into like actual acid reflux that just like wasn't going away and I think with all of that of having the you know anxiety for me it was just like my mind was always going about my circumstances and how I was going to keep myself safe and the changes that I needed to make and how overwhelming that was and then of course that mental spend starts to disrupt your sleep because you're not sleeping well and then you're waking up in the middle of the night I just feel like all of that you know together because the body you know it just works together between like what are we eating and how is that supporting the brain health and then how is the sleep affecting the hormones and then how is the digestive system being you know altered so it was just it was like one thing just started to tip like a domino through the entire system you know so even as I'm talking to the doctors it's like well where do I start sure do I start with the mind do I start with the gut do I start with the sleep it's like which one is the right way to go now what hesitations did you have about seeing a doctor of traditional chinese medicine I mean to some people this is hocus pocus right and it's voodoo and it's esoteric right did you have any hesitations about coming to see someone like me you know my hesitation in stepping into the chinese medicine was just simply like is this going to work you know because I had seen people before and it didn't really make a difference and I mean I was blown away by the way that it corrected the GI symptoms of the acid reflux and all of the indigestion and then it didn't come back so what were your results and describe a little bit about the treatment that we did and what your actual treatment protocol for lack of a better word looked like so I remember you know coming in and having sort of a list of like this is what I got going on and and all of these different symptoms and things that I wanted to address and I just remember you know starting with one type of formula I think it was the cinnamon toast crunch it's like my favorite formula and I was most impressed because I would have all these reactions like an adult onset like intolerance let's say like bell peppers and like the most bizarre foods and it was like I knew it worked because at one point I had some meal that had bell peppers in it and I was like oh darn it I'm going to get like acid reflux and I got none of it and I was like okay this not only works but it's actually like healed and changed my system so surprisingly I'm able to eat you know anything I want I can drink all the coffee I want thank you so much I love my gobby you know without any type of acid reflux but after going through that I could just tell like my system just felt better it wasn't having those types of reactions I could eat those foods and not have that type of you know gastric acid reflux and so everything felt better my digestion was better and then of course it started to correct you know my energy because all of a sudden my system's actually digesting and absorbing all of these nutrients and then when I get more sleep when I got better sleep it's like then I can think better so it's like once you start to heal one part of the body it just starts to affect the other parts of the body and the you know the whole organism is just like working in concert with itself now at this point would you agree with the advice your traditional medical providers gave to you regarding medication for this condition I absolutely do not agree with some of the ways that my internist recommends handling gastric issues or even anxiety because the pharmaceutical way of handling these you know altering the acid that's happening within the stomach depending on which way you're trying to angle it it doesn't correct the problem it's like you're gonna have to take this medication for life and it's not even the best way to approach it so I love that the Chinese medicine actually goes into heal whatever is wrong and the thing is that you don't have to continue to take them after a certain amount of time where my internist it was a medication that I would constantly have to take constantly have to revisit like every six weeks I'd have to go back on this a meprosol for like two weeks at a time and I'm like this just isn't getting better and it's not fixing the problem what advice would you give to someone who you know can be helped by this but they are just too on the fence to want to try it you know when I try to describe this to my friends or even some of my own patients I describe it as like taking the most medicinal parts of plants and putting it in your body and you really can't understand it until you've experienced it you know you have to see how your body works with it in general but you know Chinese medicine is just this ancient way for the last 2000 years so they must be doing something right being able to heal the body with just these natural you know medicinal parts of the plants and if you look even further into it in western medicine like they use those parts of the plants to make the pharmaceuticals so it's like the root of all pharmaceuticals is going to be the Chinese medicine it's like why not just go straight to the source and get like the absolute highest dose of what you need to heal the body from the absolute source of what it is and do you have any further thoughts for someone who needs help but maybe is too skeptical or just aren't sure if this is right for them I have a lot of thoughts about that actually I think the first thing and something that's very unique to your clinic is simply you because there's always a bedside manner with doctors about people who actually care about the patients who's in front of them and people who want to really dig deep and investigate and find the source of the problem that's going on with that human being because we may come in with certain symptoms but like there's always an entire world you know that that person is experiencing and a medical history and it's like what is the medical mystery right here you know to just simply have a doctor who's going to do that type of work I think is definitely a big part of the magic of the medicine here and then you know for people who are skeptical about Chinese medicine I think it's really understanding you know how many thousands of years this medicine has actually been in practice and to know that there are you know peer reviewed published studies on the medicine just like Western medicine has about its efficiency you know and this is a medicine that is you know also supported by insurance companies so there's validity to this like it is recognized as something that is like a primary care option so there's a lot of like scientific backing behind this practice as well it's not just this like voodoo airy fairy medicine like it is actually science backed so it's really about treating the body with nature and I know that sometimes in our culture that's not how we're trained right we think we need these chemicals from a lab in order to fix the body but you know the body can heal itself when it's given the right components and so to really understand that this medicine comes from a natural source that just helps heal the body directly and it's actually healing to the body it's something that's going to correct the body not just manage those symptoms how long did it take you to go from I think this might be doing something to this is clearly doing something I feel like when I first started to take some of those bitter formulas for the gastric um I could start to see the improvements you know within I want to say two to four weeks and then I think it was like three months or so after being on the formula probably with slight variations just depending on what I was going through when I came into the clinic I think it was like after about three to four months where I started to eat foods that once gave me a bunch of heartburn that all of a sudden I had zero reaction to and so I thought that was really quite incredible and then after I stopped the formulas I really haven't had to go back on them so it's like not something that I've had to continue to take it's like the body is healed and now the body manages just fine it's almost just like the formulas just needed to correct what was ever wrong whatever damage had been done and then it's like kind of allowing the body to heal itself and then it's like ready to go