Episode 267
Title: Is Functional Medicine Causing Mental Health Issues?
Host: Dr. Nicole Rivera
________________
Transcription:
What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of Integrative You Radio, and I am very excited about this topic today, mainly because you'll probably hear me get pretty fired up. So I'm going to preface this. This topic was provoked based off of two things that I did on social media. One was a Text based post and it was more like a chart actually, and it had three categories and it had your conventional doctor, functional medicine in the middle, and then it had your, uh, health and wellness influencer.
And essentially what it was encompassing was that your conventional doctor is saying toxins aren't real, parasites aren't real, infections aren't real. You know, your blood work looks great. You must be depressed and anxious, and that's why you don't feel well. So complete gaslighting, you know, telling you that what you feel is irrelevant and it's in your head.
And then on the other end of the spectrum, we have health and wellness influencers, you know, perusing around your social platforms that are like, if you eat meat, you die. If you eat vegetables, you die. If you You know, use these personal products, your hormones are screwed and you die. And it's like these two extremes.
And clearly this was written by a functional practitioner because, you know, they said in the middle is functional medicine. But I am actually here to challenge that idea and, and to be devil's advocate. And part of it is that I I feel that with the, the way that functional medicine has gone and integrative medicine has gone over the years, because I've been doing this for literally 13 years, 14 years almost.
And I remember when we first got started, you know, we were the weirdos. This was not a thing. You know, functional medicine was just becoming a little bit known. Integrative medicine was like, what, what is that? What are you talking about? Uh, but. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we've dealt with a lot of skepticism, a lot of pushback, you know, a lot of people telling us that we're crazy and irrelevant and we do voodoo, weird shit, we're rich doctors, you know, you, you name it, we heard it, but we weathered the storm and, uh, And now the market is very, very saturated and it's a mixed fucking bag, guys.
You know, there's a lot of mixed information even when it comes to functional integrative medicine. I feel like a lot of people came to functional medicine in order to get the truth and get answers and get clarity and to be validated that their symptoms are real. Uh, but there's so many people that are breaking into the industry that shouldn't be in the fucking industry.
So that's, that's a topic. Um, you know, they're, they're essentially medical doctors at heart, but they recommend vitamin D, or they recommend supplements. And we're even putting things like bioidentical hormones into the category of functional medicine. That ain't functional medicine! The whole point is that your body knows what to do.
Sometimes it just needs a facilitator. It needs a little support. So if you're using pharmaceuticals, you're not fucking functional medicine. You're not integrative medicine. That's not how it works. And I think that, you know, the people that have been on the journey and they've been failed over and over again, they realize that what's moving the needle the most for them is working on their mind.
working on controlling their stress, you know, trying to eat food that has less fucking poison in it, and also trying to, to just work on minimal foundational things, but that's not to be worked on forever. It's just, How can I stabilize this thing that wasn't stable? And so it's like less is more is really what it comes down to.
And we're finding that the strong, you know, pharmaceuticals and the surgeries are the things that actually created the setbacks. So if you really know what you're doing in the functional and integrative medicine space, you do not need to ever dabble in Pharmaceuticals. You don't need to dabble in any of that.
Surgery obviously has its time and place, you know, somebody's arm is dangling off their body, you know, you need surgery. It's like, that's a, that's a no brainer, but there's a lot of surgeries being done for chronic pain and chronic conditions that are not actually benefiting the person or they're benefiting only short term.
So I derailed as usual. So going back to the reason why I'm doing this is one, the post I just described, the second one was a video. And I understand that this video was good, I hope for comedic purposes. And also, you know, to have a video that was going to draw in an audience, get more followers, et cetera, you know, people tend to do extreme things on social for those purposes because we're in and we've been programmed for entertainment.
I get it. Um, I couldn't help but feel. And it was a woman who was getting her hair done and she was very big into health and wellness in her, you know, as she states in her video and she's been working on her hormones. And so she was like, Oh, can you please not use that? cream on my hair because you know how many chemicals are in there that will disrupt your hormones?
And then she proceeded to, okay, now they're washing her hair. Oh, can you please use my shampoo? Because I've been working on my hormones and, you know, all the chemicals in these products are going to mess up my hormones. And I was just like, Oh my God, I really hope this is for comedic purposes. And so the point of this podcast is, functional medicine, integrative medicine, and functional medicine influencers or health and wellness influencers creating mental illness for people The general population, and my answer, as you may think, is yes.
And I'm going to tell you a story that I think is going to really help. As you guys know, I love to tell stories. Um, but in my early days of Getting into this industry of, you know, functional integrative medicine. I will tell you straight up. I was not in a place to explore my mental and emotional limitations because.
I was still using my mental and emotional limitations. Let me explain. When you go through shit as a kid and you persevere past it, you know, you use your will in order to, to surpass big challenges, to surpass poverty, to surpass abuse, to surpass, you know, really shitty situations. You can use that. As your drive, you use it as your motivator, and I'm saying motivator very specifically because it's not an INS inspiration or an inspiration, it's a motivator.
You can use it as a motivator to create a certain level of quote unquote success in your life. I say quote unquote success just because everyone's definition of that is very different. That could be money, it could be freedom, it could be a house, it could be a car, it could be a family, it could be whatever.
So. I was using my past challenges to create a successful career for myself. And, you know, I used it in the sense of when shit got hard in business, things got scary, can I even pay my overhead for this crazy business that I just built? Or I just got destroyed by some customer through writing a review on every review platform known to man, you know, um, things like that, that really hurt as an entrepreneur.
I was able to push past it because in my brain, failure was not an option because I wasn't going back to that old life. I wasn't going back to the life of my parents where they were just controlled by their 9 to 5 and life was about survival and they were barely making ends meet and, you know, we were, we could barely, Pay for the house that we lived in.
And you know, we had to eat really shitty food because we couldn't afford quality food. We couldn't go out to dinner, et cetera. Like, I wasn't going to that life. So I used those experiences in order to persevere and say, no one's fucking taking me down. I'm going to, I'm going to do this. And for those of you listening, think about it.
Maybe that has been something that has created a certain level of success in your life, a certain level of achievement. But the thing that happens is that you hit a plateau and you start to realize that using your will as a motivating factor to persevere can only get you so far. Because It's really not about that.
It's not just about hustle and overcoming. It's about alignment, starting to make decisions that are more aligned, that are rooted in inspiration for you to be the person you're meant to be. So how does this correlate to the original topic? So in the beginning of getting into integrative functional medicine, As a practitioner, I was very focused on the tangible things, the science, you can call it, and it was this person who has these biochemical imbalances based on their blood work.
They have these symptoms. They have these physical traits. Issues, uh, from scar tissue to old injuries to, uh, surgeries that are creating certain nerve blockages, et cetera, et cetera. And so I worked in that model. I worked in that model of being able to hone in on the things that were. Uh, they were scientifically valid, they were proven through labs, they were proven through a physical exam, and then worked on that, and, and then when we wanted to explain why these things were happening for people, you know, why were they having gut issues?
Why were they having liver issues or high cholesterol or heart conditions and certain diagnoses? You know, it came down to, Oh, well, it's because you were poisoned from the old profession that you were in. You were, you were a mechanic, you were a hairstylist, you know, you worked in engineering, you were exposed to chemicals.
Oh, you don't eat organic. Oh, you had a vaccine injury. Oh, you had a physical trauma, like a really bad car accident. Oh, you had four C sections. Like They were all of these reasons why they had what they had. Oh, you have parasites, like, oh, you know, so on and so forth. And so working out of that model, it, you know, it made sense.
It was like, uh, here was the cause and here was the problem based off of that. But of course, you naturally see that certain people will. Get better and then there's a boatload of people that don't and you start to ask questions of okay Well, if this is the presumed root cause And I've been addressing it, you know, why is this person not getting better?
You know, if their, if their issues are, they have biochemical imbalances, you know, they have low vitamin D, they have high cholesterol, and if we're working on addressing those, why are they not getting better? Why are the levels not changing? And really what it comes down to is that there's so much more.
There's so much fucking more to it. And so in my own journey, I. Was a, I, I had that experience. I had that experience that I was doing parasite protocols, liver protocols. I was doing hormone balancing protocols. I was doing all of these protocols and you know, obviously would see results at times and then other times just felt like how I have been working on my liver for three years and my liver still Has abnormal labs.
Like what the fuck is going on? This is exhausting. You know, how much money and time have I wasted? You know, what, what's the issue here? And when you keep asking better questions, you come across answers and those answers are not necessarily always in alignment with your current level of consciousness.
Your current level of understanding, your current level of. I don't want to say level, but your current belief systems. So when I started to realize that maybe the things that have been a driver for me, the things that I endured in my past. Maybe they're now holding me back, maybe it's time for me to stop using these biochemical and physical strategies and maybe it's more about digging a little bit deeper.
Maybe it's about something very fundamental. Program. Belief system. Limiting belief system. Trauma. That's holding me fucking back. And that was a really hard pill to swallow. And I know that this, for a long time, was a really hard pill to swallow for a lot of people, and for some it still is. But I do think that there is a little bit more talk COVID, of how significant stress is.
on the body, on your health, how significant, uh, it is when you live in fear, you live in anxiety, and how it feels really hard to get ahead in your health, get ahead in your job, get ahead as a parent, get ahead in anything.
So one of my biggest points here is that We need one, if you are, you know, an individual who's not a practitioner, don't fucking work with those people. Don't work with the people that when you sit down for your review of findings, they give you like the, the, the. Horror story of how you fucked yourself up and everything you do is poison and everything you do is harmful and you know, like you need to eliminate, eliminate, eliminate and change everything about your entire lifestyle because if you don't, you're fucked and you're going to be sick forever.
Like that's not how it works. And this is one of the reasons why when you look at other cultures, you know, people always make comments about people in Italy where I live now, people in France and, and they don't, they don't ever go past the surface. They say, why can French people eat cheese and smoke cigarettes and drink wine and, and be skinny and be healthy?
And, you know, in Italy, how does everyone just eat pasta and bread and drink wine and they're healthy and in America, you know, you have all these people doing these trend diets, restricted diets, taking vitamins and supplements. You can't even get vitamins in Italy. I literally have to, like, stop. Smuggle shit in from the U.
S. Like, I can't even get things here. It is a wild experience, but like it, people don't take them because they actually get nutrients from their food. That's a whole topic in itself. But if you look past the surface of these other cultures that have blue zones, which are. You know, health, people are so healthy that they live past 100 centuries.
Um, and you just, you look at just generally the statistics of, of health, um, and disease in these countries, they're significantly lower than the U. S. And the reason being is because they are less stressed. They don't live in fear. People like that is something that I have observed for the past year that I've been here . You do not see people running around with anxiety.
Like, it's so funny to me because where we live, there are tiny ass streets. Like, like I'm talking, you are in a Volkswagen bug and you have about a centimeter on each side of your car because that's how narrow the road is. And I'm not talking like there's like guardrails, we're talking like stone walls, like it's intense to drive here.
And guess what? Those skinny streets are two way streets. So when, depending on the position, whoever is closer to a driveway or something, that person has to back up and get out of the other person's way. Oh, it's wild. But still to this day when we're driving and I will be gripping the sides of the, you know, the, the, uh, car, the door.
And I always notice that the Italian that, you know, is driving and we, we, you know, end up, um, uh, bumper to bumper and like somebody's got to back up. They never even flinch. Like they're not like, Huh. Like that doesn't happen and I'm always like, damn, like these Italians are just so fucking chill. Like, how are they so relaxed all the time?
You know, people drive, um, Vespas and scooters around here and they drive crazy. They split lanes, like they're on highways. And again, you, you know, a car, you see a car, uh, switch lanes and almost clip a scooter and they still, they don't panic. They just look at them and they keep going. And it's just, it's so interesting because it shows me that their nervous systems are so much more stable.
They're not wired in fight or flight the way so many Americans are. You know, when I was in America, like my kid is, he's a super freak. He can, he knows how to swim. He can, he was climbing stairs at like a little over one. And. We just let him do his thing because we know that, one, we, we taught him you want to go upstairs, you know how to go downstairs.
We taught him how to hold on to certain things when you're doing hard stuff, like his agility is insane, but he scares the shit out of people. But what's comical is when we were in the U. S., like we would, like if we were out in public and he did something like that, jumped, you know, climbed, etc. Huh. There would be random strangers, like moms or dads running over thinking like he's going to die.
And then I'm just sitting there. I'm like, he's fine. And it does, that doesn't happen here in Italy because they're just like, like clearly wanting their mentality is more like his parents think he's going to get hurt. The parents are going to do something. And number two, kids get hurt sometimes, like, you know, they'll be fine.
So the point is, is that these cultures that we deem healthy. The root of their health is less stress, less hustle bustle, less go, go, go, go, go, go, go, and less fucking pressure on themselves of you need to do, you need to go, you need to earn, you need to be successful, you need to reach a certain level of status in your life, in your neighborhood, in your job, in your family, etc.
Like those pressures. don't exist in a lot of other places. And, and I have a whole theory on some of the root, roots of that. But again, that's a pretty loaded topic, but I think it's actually a very interesting topic. So maybe I'll bring that to you in the next podcast. So essentially, what I'm trying to say here is that there are people that are living their lives, not thinking twice about what they eat.
Again, other countries' food is significantly less poisoned and there is, you know, there's no use of, uh, certain pesticides and acaricides that are allowed in the US. So, yes, we have that layer, of course, but is it perfect? Do they not use any level of chemicals? No, that's not true. They definitely do. Um, they're smoking.
People smoke like friggin chimneys here. Like, Smoking cigarettes, drinking wine, yes, the wine is more pure, has less preservatives, sulfites, all that jazz, yes, of course. But they're doing a lot of these things that have been deemed super unhealthy, but somehow they are healthier. And we can't just say, oh, it's less chemicals.
It's a, it's the lifestyle, it's the less stress, it's the fact that these people are not in fight or flight. They are not anxious, they are not running on empty, they're not burnt out. They have more balance built into their culture, and they don't have to fight for time off from their job. They don't have to fight for those things because they're built into the culture.
I'm living in the Sorrento area right now, and you know, fortunately, unfortunately, but for me, this is not going to be a place that I can stay long term because literally three months, uh, from December, actually four months, December, January, February, March, Um, everything is like most of everything is closed and it's because these people here in this area, because it's a tourist area, they work their butts off in the quote unquote season.
The season is very long here because of the weather. Um, you know, we're all when all the tourists are here, but then they all go to Thailand. I don't want to say all, but like literally a large portion of the people that live here, they all go to Thailand for anywhere between a month to four months. And then they come back and they work again.
You could never ask for that in the US. I'm going to go away for four months. Or even if you own a business, like everyone would be like, Oh, they closed. Like, it's not a, it's not common that people would go away and like, if I had my integrated wellness group still in Belmar, if I closed for four months, I would be almost rebuilding my business when I got back because it's not normal.
Like, people would be like, I'm finding another doctor. So, you know, there's a lot of reasons for this, but. Overall, I do think that we need to get away from this, this bullshit of, Oh, if you're not so strict and on an elimination diet and you've cleaned everything bad out of your personal products, your makeup, your body wash, and you haven't, you know, replaced every single type of cleaner in your house.
Oh, and also you shouldn't do a bunch of remediations in your house. Cause you need to get rid of, you know, old things that might have asbestos. You need to get rid of any lead paint. You need to get rid of, um, the spray foam insulation because of the gases. Oh, and you got to get your house checked for mold.
Oh, and then you need a full water purification system. You know, listen. Do I own almost all of those things? I have water purifications, water distillation. I have air purifiers. I have all of that stuff. I, I, you know, I'm still very particular on what I eat, but I find it so interesting that I'm living in a place where I'm, you see, you observe people that don't have any of those things and are significantly healthier.
And again, you can say, Oh, less toxins in other countries. But is it really just that?
So
the big point that I want to drive home in this podcast is, are we subscribing to this idea? That all of this happened to us. I'm chronically ill because I was poisoned by the government and the food industry. And, uh, I was also given too many shots as a kid. And then I was recommended pharmaceuticals from my doctor that had side effects, and then I was given a bad surgery, and then also all of the, uh, you know, Monsanto, putting all the GMOs in my food, and, you know, all the personal products that I, I've used that also put chemicals in there that harmed me.
Are we just falling into being a victim, a victim of our choices, knowingly or unknowingly? Because If you want to get into the science of guilt, shame, victimization, it is the lowest frequency, lowest vibration emotions that exist. And what that means is that if you're going to live in that place of low vibration, you're going to stay in fight or flight.
You're going to be abnormal. cellular function in your body. You're going to have pain and inflammation. You're going to have a lack of serotonin and dopamine. So is this really benefiting us? These, you know, influencers, these doctors that are telling us like you, if you've been a victim of poisoning and toxicity and our conventional medical system and this and that, and you know, if you just cut all of this stuff out, You'll be fine, because what if you're not?
There's a strong probability you're not. Gonna be. Because I've seen it. I've seen it a million times. I've seen people go to the fucking deep end. Oh, I, I, I got my house checked for mold. They did remediation, like hundreds of thousands of dollars remediation taking 45 supplements. I got my air purifier, my water purification.
I got all this stuff. I, oh, I only eat raw vegan. Oh, I only eat carnivores and I get my meat flu in from Japan and like, you know, like, you. And I'm just like, well, how are you, how are you doing? And I'm, and I'm like, based off of everything you just described, you're, you have to be in a level of psychosis because it's almost like neurotic to go to those extremes.
And we could call it type A personality. We can call it all these things. Your nervous system is fucked. Like you, you can't operate that way in a calm nervous system because a calm nervous system pauses. It pauses to make strategic and aligned decisions. It doesn't make decisions out of emotion, it doesn't make decisions out of fear, it doesn't make decisions out of anxiety.
So, we have to really think about what, one, what are we looking at on social media? Two, Are we working with a practitioner, a coach, a doctor, a nutritionist, or a dietitian? Is that extreme personality, of that extreme of, you know, don't do all these things and life will be better? Are you also working with a practitioner that says, oh, this is a lifelong journey?
You know, you need to be super strict for the rest of your life. That's the only way you're healthy. You know, some people, like, for me, I'll take supplements probably every day for the rest of my life, like, I, I just will, I, I, I find benefit in them, they, you know, I, I'm able to get nutrients that I'm not getting from certain things that I eat, it's, it's a, it's a thing for me, but it also, it's aligned for me, it's not like anxiety inducing or, um, I don't want to do this, but I have to do it, like, I do it because I want to do it, And so when you're doing a bunch of things that you don't want to do, you know, you got to weigh out the, the pros and cons, you know, the, the risks to the benefits, because when you're constantly doing things you don't want to do, you constantly keep yourself in a bad mental, emotional, vibrational state.
Hence, again, some people that get crazy diagnoses, like, you know, they, they get told, you only have three months to live. You only have six months to live. You only have a year to live. And these people say, I'm going to go, I'm going to go live my best life somewhere and I'm going to drink and eat and I'm going to laugh and I'm going to enjoy and I'm going to say, fuck it.
I'm gonna spend all my money. And then they live past their, uh, their prognosis. Because they just finally calmed their nervous system down. So, you know, this whole idea of the placebo effect, you know, we've heard of it. It exists for a reason. Placebo effect is just, they always test a medication, even a supplement against a placebo.
And the placebo is that they never, they never gave you the medication. They never gave you the intervention. They just gave you the idea of it. They gave you a sugar pill and said, this pill is going to change your life. And you took it and your life was changed. And it's because you believed that it would.
It's not because of the biochemical change. It's not because of the effect of the actual pill. It's because you thought that it would work. That alone should be a huge, huge light bulb for you. What do you think about your health? What do you think about your life? What do you think about yourself? And if you think in a state of anxiety, then What does it mean?
What is that being influenced by? Is it being influenced by the shit you see on social media? Is it being influenced by the practitioners that you choose to work with? And so if you, if you change your mind, if you change your belief systems, if you surpass your old programs that have been running in the background holding you back, there's a lot of magic on the other side.
