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Happy Spurling - Regular Font
Kayla Lanier - Bold Font
Hey guys, today we're going to be talking about holistic medicine versus conventional medicine. I hope you enjoy.
So today our podcast is a little bit different in that I wanted to talk about questions that come up often like that. clients in the office. As far as people, people may know us, they may know that we do naturopathic care, but there's really a lot of confusion about what that is really, because you have integrative medical care, you have allopathic care, holistic, homeopathic, like there's all these different terms.
And I just wanted to kind of clarify what those are and also address the frustration that it seems people have right now with a distrust for the medical model that they're used to and kind of since COVID what's actually caused people to maybe have more of a fear of something going wrong with their care and just kind of talk about the differences and the value of both models in someone's life and also kind of disassemble the concept that medicine is made to cure you.
As far as conventional medicine is more about symptom treatment. And so people often get disappointed that they're not being cared for the way they feel like they should because their medication isn't curing their problem. And so to really break that down and hash it out and say, Okay, well, what is conventional western medicine based on? And what is it supposed to deliver? And is it really delivering what we're told and we're not being under delivered and oversold? But is it actually expecting too much out of our medical care, which is kind of something that, you know, we address a lot and people have been disappointed with the conventional model.
Right. So a lot of questions that we usually get from clients is what you do here with holistic medicine and what your approach is. And I think it's important to clarify today the contrast between that and conventional medicine, and your approach, because oftentimes people have a misconception about holistic medicine, they often think that you're just going to push supplements, just like the doctors push medications, and then it becomes just as expensive, if not more so. And supplements can be abused, just like medications, and used for symptoms, and instead of the actual treatment and root cause.
Yeah, and I think that's spot on because I believe that in naturopathic care, if someone's not careful, you become a practitioner that just does what you just said.
You sub in supplements for medications to be able to address symptoms and you can miss the whole concept of root cause when you do that. It doesn't mean you're not going to need supplementation. I mean, that may be a part of the plan. Just as it is a part of the plan for people to sometimes need medications, to be able to build a bridge to get to the cause of issues.
But, I think we have to understand that conventional medicine models are disease models. They are meant to address a condition, a diagnosis, or a disease. And they do that with diagnostic testing, such as lab work. And really evidence based research. The problem with that is that if all you're doing for someone is managing a disease, then the curative approach isn't being addressed, which means that you could very likely be on that medication the rest of your life, which sometimes haven't been evidence based in research to say that it's safe to do that. We present a health model which can be used in conjunction with someone's allopathic care or conventional medicine.
But a health model says, let's look at the whole picture of your life. How did you get here? Who are you genetically? You know, what is in your gene snps or in the lack of them, whatever you have that could be driving a lot of the issues. Actually going way upstream instead of looking at the stream from below and saying there's all kinds of waste here. We see people throwing bottles in like there's just a mess and naturally we want to clean that up but if we don't go back to the top of that stream and find out where's all this coming from?
You're probably not going to ever rectify the situation completely. You can clean it up which I think is what's being done a lot of times with conditions and some people don't really want a different approach than that. You know, we've been trained very well in probably the last hundred plus years that if we have a condition, there's this one medication, maybe two or three as we progress, that's going to fix it and it isn't going to require anything from us. Except that we take the medicine.
It's definitely the easy route. One of those things that I often think about, too, is people don't have the knowledge about it either. Like, people are in the dark. If your doctor tells you to take something, you're gonna take it. You know? And there's been many times where I've thought to myself, I'm like, yeah, it would be much easier to take a medication than adjust my diet. or adjust something else in my health routine and, but I will say quality of life is not the same.
Yeah, and you know, I think unfortunately it's not able to fix it. If that model were effective, our country is one of the leading countries in the world for prescription medication. So it's not a lack of prescriptions. That's causing people to not get well. And so you have to go deeper than that and go, Hey, if there was a pill for every ill and we could fix everything with that, I would probably sign up too, because I would think, okay, this is definitely going to be an easier approach.
And in holistic care, which is, any model that is outside of the conventional realm, it can be used in conjunction with allopathic care, but, you know, you think of Ayurvedic medicine or, you know, any kind of complementary medicine, holistic, naturopath, all of those are just inclusive terms for a group of people that practice in a way where we're trying to look at you as a whole person.
Right.
I hear that so much in the office is that specialists are amazing people in the medical field. And you have people that have devoted their education and their training to specialize on a specific system in the body. And I think there's value to that. They are the expert in that system. The problem is we sub people out to the point that you have a specialist for every system, but often they're not talking to each other about you as a whole person, to say, yes, my job is to fix the endocrine system and my job is neurology and my job is nephrology and you get all these hands in this model and often one doesn't know what the other one is doing and that in itself is a whole nother rabbit hole in conversation because I think it's just a lack of communication, but at the end of the day, if something's not broken, there would be no need to fix it.
But when it is, you have to think, you know, how did I get here and look at people as a whole person. Your health has to be encompassing your spiritual life, your physical life. What are you putting in and out of your body? What is going on in your mental health? And there's a lot of toxins and things that you've encountered or that a person will have been exposed to that may have made them more likely to have a disease or a condition.
And if we don't take in all of that into account, which is what a good naturopathic approach is, is we want to look at someone holistically, like who are you and what condition do you have? But one of my favorite quotes, and it's actually on my computer at the office, is it's more important what sort of a person has a disease than what sort of a disease a person has.
That's where knowing the person in front of you is so irreplaceable in their care model. And if you don't know the patient or the client that's sitting in front of you and you just listen to their symptoms and you write out a prescription or you write out a supplement and you hand it over and say, okay, that's your problem. We've matched your symptom with these treatment plans and you're going to be able to have everything that you hope for from this. Who is that person? Are they willing to change everything that got them there? And who's taking the time to see what those things were that got you there?
Right, right.
There's no time for an in depth health history in a five minute appointment. You can fill out your forms and we love the forms right? Everybody hates forms. Nobody wants to fill out forms. Um, our forms I designed in order to encompass all those areas of your life, your physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, stress levels, all of these things that are factoring into a health model so that we can start to understand the story of how did you get here and what kind of influences in your life, whether it's mold, toxin, genetics, environment, trauma, stress levels, what brought you to this place because I guarantee it wasn't one thing.
Exactly, which is why I love your approach with people because it, it allows them to feel heard and valued and they're not, you know, thrown to the wayside like many experiences that people have had in western medicine. And I will say, we're not trying to dog, like, the medical, the western medicine at all. Because I will say there's been many times when people actually, you know, could have died without their assistance and their care or a certain medication. And we're not saying that because you're on medications, it's the easy way. Sometimes it's all you've ever known.
Absolutely. And I think all of that is like, yes, 100%, yes. Because one the medical community are overwhelmed with the amount of disease and conditions that people have. And I have friends that are doctors and nurse practitioners and they're overwhelmed. Because the need is so much greater and you look at a model that's propped up on matchsticks. I mean, it's really like, it's very unstable because we've gotten to this hamster wheel of, well, I've got this condition and I need this medicine and that medicine caused a side effect and I need a different medicine now and then that has its own issues until people often feel like, I can't get out of this. Like how will I ever step out of that?
And our podcast is never meant to treat, diagnose, treat. Replace your doctor. None of those things. That's not what our practice is about either.
And oftentimes you work with their primary caregiver. That's just how it works. It's not like, and I think that's why holistic medicine's got a bad rap, is because they completely just eliminate any kind of connection with the client's actual primary caregiver. And I think that's where things go wrong. It can be dangerous.
Absolutely, and that's where, you know, the perfect model is to have a team of people in your life that, those trauma care specialists that, I mean, in America, you, you know, the trauma care that, that is offered is such a gift. And to be able to have that, if you've got a ruptured appendix, you don't want to see me. Guaranteed.
No, absolutely not.
You know, and I'm going to send you straight over to the hospital.
Maybe after. Like, when you're recovering, that's kind of where you come in at.
Yeah. There's a place for it, and it's a gift, and that's why I'm glad you said that, because I feel like for too long, the holistic health care has kind of been pitted against allopathic care.
So we see ourselves, or can, on two different sides of the tracks, when really, we have, both have a place there. And if you can work, I mean the best scenario and I'm blessed to have doctors that do work with me and in my health model being presented to their patients while we work with all the medications and make sure nothing's contraindicated because the last thing you want to do is suggest for people that the only way to care for yourself is 100 percent natural approach and you shouldn't, like, they're shaming in taking medication. And that shouldn't ever happen either because they're a bridge.
I mean, I'm thankful for medication that my husband took for leukemia. Like, I 100 percent feel like that it calmed the situation until we could go in then and find out root cause and get to the bottom of that and address it. that I'll always be thankful for that.
So I think that it's important to know that we're not on opposite sides of someone's health. We actually, if we could work together, can give patients a much better health model to help them manage disease. Because then it all comes together and you have really a perfect team, where you're not against each other, you're not intimidated by one another's approach. But you see that this is a beautiful orchestra that can happen in someone's life when you're both on the same page.
To be honest, I have practitioners that, you know, there's still a mindset that was actually introduced through propaganda back in the 1800s, was that naturopathic care was dangerous and that you're a kook, and that, that this care is, is not going to help anyone and that's where allopathic medicine came from, is they truly set themselves apart from holistic care because they wanted to have that, this, that difference noted. And then there were really just slander campaign started and if you go back and read the history of how did we go away from using holistic care in a medical model.
It was when they basically set it up and said okay allopathic care we believe in like kills like and in homopathy and in allopathic care. It's the opposite You know, they want to have an opposite reaction from whatever you're dealing with Both of those have a place, but you, you realize how much propaganda, how powerful it is when you go back and see that this was started by just hearsay, like rumors.
People were, you know, not treated well and they got sick because they were doing a naturopathic approach. That had been being done for thousands of years prior to that, undocumented and documented. It was just a shift basically to promote that. And so. It's really sad because you think it's just a huge misunderstanding on that score.
And I think there are medical doctors that hate what we do because they feel like maybe it messes up what they're doing and you have Dr. Google now that everybody refers to and so they're getting hit with all this health information and well I think it might be this or I think it might be that. It would be very difficult because when there is a lack of information in your primary care because they don't have time, because they have 60 patients to see in a day, they're not going to be able to comprehensively get your life story and talk about your health factors and why you're where you are.
You can fill it out on a form. You can hit the highlights. But you're not going to be able to do it because it's not possible with the time constraints that you have. It doesn't mean they don't care. It just means that there's literally no way to fit that many people in and still be able to look at that person and their whole story.
Which is where combining naturopathic care with your primary care gives you an edge on health that you don't have any other way, honestly, because I see five clients a day, six if we have to, just because it takes a long time to know the person sitting in front of you.
Right, and you're, you're basically building a health model, like you said previously, where someone can live and rely on their own knowledge and their own steps forward, and they can be liberated in that journey. And you're basically equipping them to do it on their own and to, you know, walk freely and to have the knowledge that's needed.
And I would consider what you do an excellent source to come to, especially if you're overwhelmed from social media and the countless resources you can find on Google, because there's a lot of quacks out there. So there's a lot of imposters. So don't just take our word. Research it for yourself.
Always.
Analyze everyone that you listen to and every book that you read and just, you know, try to go deeper. But again, this is just a friendly conversation about two sides that we wish could come together.
Yeah, you know, I think when COVID happened, there's been such a distrust that has developed in the world, really. For a model that said trust the science, but the science wasn't there. And that is where it kind of developed. There was already some distrust, but then it was like, wow, this was huge. And then you had fear, you had fear-based medicine. not science-based medicine and the things that they were suggesting in our logical minds didn't make any sense.
Don't go outside. Don't exercise. Don't go to the gym. All the things that would have actually sured up and secured a system that was better fitted to come in contact with COVID, didn't guarantee anything, but it was definitely there. That was just brushed to the side and it became like a fear-based model.
And since that time, I feel like it has built and it's gathered, it's basically gathered a lot of momentum because people are like, well, now I don't even know if I trust anything in the medical world. And I think you have to be careful that we don't get to a place where. It's where it's like we swear off all things medical, but you about want to, honestly, because it does feel like things are just, you know, being prescribed and that symptoms are being matched and there's no time to hear people out.
I think people are seeking a different model for their health care, more so now than they ever have, and it's always been growing, but now there's this understanding that there is more to your life and more to your health than just matching a symptom with a medication, and to be honest, People often want that, because we've been trained that that's how it's supposed to work.
But then, when you've been hurt by that system, or the medication isn't working and things are getting worse, then you're forced to come to a different conclusion and say, Okay, maybe I need to do this differently. Maybe we need to look at this through a different lens. And that's where looking at a person and knowing their journey before they ever came to me is so valuable because there are clues hidden that make an investigation of understanding that person sitting in front of you.
I encourage people, find someone that has the time to take care of you. Find someone that is able to work through the complexities of who you are. Look at your genetic profiles. If you've got major health issues, there's answers there. Unbelievable answers for people. Finding out how to build your whole life around who you really are, and how to change things and adapt things, and how to look at your labs for an optimal number instead of just passable levels, and I know I preach that all the time.
There's a difference in living and surviving, and I feel like we're at a place in America where we're number one in cost for treatment, medically, in the world, but we are 50th in curative treatment, meaning there are third world countries that surpassed a curative disease model. For trauma care, top of the line.
Like, that's where you want to be if you're going to break your leg or have a car accident. You know, you want to be in this country or one very similar that rates that.
But this is about curative. Like, I've got you know some people that have problems that there's so many complexities to their issues and you've got to take time to be able to work that out and you as a patient or a client has to open your eyes and say you know what it took me a long time to get here it may take me a little while to get out of this and I'm not presenting we've got this supplement that's going to fix everything just like a doctor doesn't have a pill that can fix everything because you didn't get here with one factor, and you're probably not going to get out of it with one factor changing, but if you could ever see the beauty of knowing that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, that there's a design to our body, that God put in place. where we want to heal.
It's amazing to work with people who have cancer and maybe they're going through chemotherapy and we can present a nutrition model and a supplementation model that helps them do the very best they can through a treatment plan that can be brutal and they do better.
They do better than the ones who don't. And then we have people that can't, they don't have a chemo option. They're last stage, you know, stage four. They, there's no options. And they choose an alternative path because they've been forced into it. And it's amazing how the body can heal, even in that situation.
And so I think we're missing something. something that we're way too complex to think that one thing can fix any of us.
Exactly.
And changing that mindset of, it took this many things for me to get here, a genetic burden where I didn't know that I can't methylate properly. So everything I encounter causes toxins to come up in my liver and be stored. That's going to create a load in, in a person that you have to address. Or else you're just putting a giant blanket over a problem, and you're gonna run out of blankets eventually. Because the problem will start to come out everywhere else. And I think that that's what's happening.
And, you know, I just want to present to people that there is a better way. There's a way to have your life looked at and your health. And say, you know, if you're willing to change what got you here, then there's a good possibility that you won't be here anymore. But you have to see that vision for your own life.
I think people have to have a pain point. We all have a pain point. We have things we tolerate. We don't like it, but we tolerate it. And then you have things that get to the place to where you're like, I can't do this anymore. Not like this. When you get there, you know you're there. And the things you thought you could never do, like giving up certain things in your diet, or fasting, or any of these, you know, supplements, or something that you might have to do, All of a sudden doesn't seem so daunting or such a big deal because you're like, this is part of a very complex puzzle and one piece at a time, we're putting it back together.
And in my mind, that's what I do by God's grace is I take the pieces that are handed out and together we try to build something that is a beautiful picture of your life and health instead of just, you know... Sometimes I feel like people come in here and, you know, have you ever bought a puzzle at a thrift store? Or like, anything, somebody gave you a puzzle, or you go to like a rental cabin and you're like putting a puzzle together. To me, the most frustrating thing is that you get it almost done and there's three pieces missing. Or worse, there's one piece missing. And you're like, Oh my gosh, this is so frustrating. I've wasted all this time putting this puzzle together.
And then it's like, Well, let's just look for the paint. Because it doesn't mean that the whole model is trash. It's just missing some parts. And that is a true naturopath's job. Is to find the missing pieces. And then give you the knowledge to be able to put them back together.
My job here is to work myself out of a job with every client. I literally love equipping people to get the knowledge that they need about their own health journey and then letting them go and do that when it's time. And for some people that's three visits and for some people it's twenty because there may be a lot of missing people.
But the day that you can look at your client and say, you know what, you don't need me anymore. There is nothing, nothing that you could ever do that could match the feeling of giving someone the keys to fix their own issues. And seeing them use them, and you get so excited because you're like, It's working. It's actually working. And no, does every single person come through and get released like that?
No, because unfortunately you don't always get to this place in your care until you've already exhausted everything else. And so there's a lot of cleanup that has to be done.
So this is just a brief description of what we do here at Renewed Hope. We also just wanted to convey information on how we can complement any journey you're going through with your primary caregiver, or if you just want to find out more about holistic medicine. If you're interested and you need more of this information, you can contact the office. We offer virtual appointments and phone call appointments as well, and in person.
Yeah, it's an awesome thing to be able to sit with someone and help them understand how their body works and the things that they're encountering that could possibly be helped with just changes as you find them.
And we care about you and your story.
Yeah, and even if you don't go to our office, you need to find someone that can help with your care model, your health model, not just one or the other. And somebody that you know hears what you're saying and they hear what you need. And that's the most important thing is to be heard and then to have someone be able to help you work through how to go forward from that.
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