Episode 273
Title: How To Not Need A Doctor; Your Diagnosis, Your Identity, Their Profits
Host: Dr. Nicole Rivera
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Transcription:
What's up guys? Welcome back to another episode of Integrative You Radio. You have Dr. Nicole here, and I'm talking about one of my favorite things, which is that all the shit that we're being told is a half truth. So there was something that I came across recently and it was showcasing how there have been 30,000 new diagnosis codes that have been added to the database.
Um, for practitioners, for doctors, and a lot of people look at that and they're just like, oh, this is the evolution of medicine. Woo-hoo. Like, so glad we're getting more specific. And I look at it and I'm like, what a fucking scam. So, hear me out, guys. Hear me out. Diagnosis codes. They're there to create a label.
But if you think about the average diagnosis, irritable bowel syndrome, what, what does that tell you about what the fuck is going on with your bowel? It tells you that you have an irritated bowel, but because now we've put a label on you, we've created. Identity of your symptoms. We've created a label. Now we can provide you with a treatment.
So external problem, external treatment, external cause, external solution. And this is what conventional medicine is built off of. It is built off of, let's look at your symptoms, let's label them. We don't, we're not really gonna figure out what's causing them. We just, we just need to label them because it could be genetics and it could be bad luck, and it could be the fucking fairy dust that somebody sprinkled on your head.
It could be your curse, whatever. We don't know. It just happens. Irritable bowel just happens. It's probably because, you know, like seven generations back, somebody had it. We don't know. And so now, okay, you have your diagnosis and. Now that we know that it's an irritable bowel, we have a, we have a pill, we have a shot, we have a surgery, we have solutions for it.
Okay, great. And the thing is, what you hear in the world of functional medicine, integrative medicine, is that we're not really focused on the diagnosis or describing your symptoms. We're focused on what the fuck is the cause, what is the root cause? And the thing is, this model has its limitations too.
Because looking for the root cause, how many practitioners are really looking at all of the possibilities of the root cause and also looking at the hierarchy of the root cause. So what I mean by that is there is no one root cause. You don't, oh, you have an irritable bowel. Oh, you have parasites. End of story.
Oh, you have an irritable bowel. Oh, you have mercury in your gut. 'cause you had too much tuna as a kid. Like, no, that's not how it works. Because there are all of these interconnected organs and systems. There is your brain communicating with your organs. So first of all, there's going to be a multitude of organs that are involved.
There's also a multitude of pathogens and toxins that we're exposed to that could be the root cause. And then there's also the psychosomatic mental emotional layer as well. And so that's what I'm talking about with the hierarchy is okay, what. What are some of the possible root causes? Because there's usually not one.
You know, is it chronic stress in your life? Is it because you had a trauma to your bowel in a car accident? And then also you have parasites in your gut because you ate buffet sushi all your life. Okay, so we got three things going on that are all causing irritable bowel syndrome, but what's the hierarchy?
Because something is more foundational. Than the others. Is it that chronic emotional stress is the foundation? Is it the parasites of the foundation That is for a practitioner to figure out? And it's also for you as the client, as the patient, as the member to figure it out, it's a collaborative effort.
We shouldn't be delegating our entire wellbeing to another person. Something that I remember thinking about when I got pregnant with my son QI was thinking about how I felt so much more. I think I am calm and collected compared to a lot of first time moms. And it's because of the knowledge that I had of the human body.
And this wasn't necessarily just about his wellbeing, but I knew how to manage my body through my pregnancy. Um, so I never had morning sickness and I didn't have back pain and all of these debilitating things. I also knew where to say no, which was the majority of conventional medicines. Testing and interventions that they do, they're just protocol.
They, they're, they don't show any validity to the health and outcomes of my baby. If anything, they're fear inducing for most people. And, and then after that it was, I knew I was there with my child. I knew how to navigate it. I, I, I didn't fear. The possibilities. I just, I knew that I had the tools and the knowledge, and so I thought about the fact that the majority of, of women, moms parents don't have that knowledge.
And so Dr. Nick and I have talked, you know, we, we talk all the time about our, our next phase of. Our mission, our career, our purpose. And you know, we realize that one of the things that we feel very passionately about is teaching people how to not need a doctor, including us. Um, and it's partly because we.
People are like, do you, does your son have a pediatrician? No. What the fuck does he even need? A pediatrician, like me, I'm his doctor, I'm his mother. Like, I'm I, I've got it. Like he's good. Like, what am I going to do? Am I going there for them to weigh him? Like, I could do that. Are they measuring him? Oh, are they gonna give me some bullshit about his milestones?
Which is so fucking ambiguous and half of it is a half truth, like. What, like what do they have to offer me? Do you wanna pressure me into shots? Okay. Good luck with that man. Um, you know, they're gonna tell me to give him a vitamin with fluoride in it. Cool. Also a hard no. Like, it's just, it, it's a, it's a comical thing that it, this is who we are delegating our wellbeing and our family's well being to, you know, uh, some of the biggest things that I remember.
The biggest things that I've learned over the years of doing what I do is. Holy shit. Medicine is so ambiguous, is so ambiguous and so subjective. You think that you're going in and you're getting, you know, this very, very objective, data driven. Um. Like information, it's so subjective. It's, oh, the doctor saw this work one time.
Uh, the doctor saw another family that kinda looks like you're a family and, and they think that because it worked for them, it might work for you. Uh, they were presented with a study that was just completed by a pharmaceutical company, but the pharmaceutical company. Was the person, was the company who funded the study because it was really in favor of promoting a certain drug.
Um. Yeah. It, it's just, it, it's, it's ridiculous. It's so subjective. It is not data driven. It is. And if you think that because your doctor is well versed on studies and research, all of that shit is skewed to it's who funded it? What was the intention? What was the outcome they wanted? Because chances are, whatever outcome they wanted or expected is what was achieved through the fucking study.
Like we have to use common sense. And if I hear one more time that a correlation is not causation. Well, you know what? I'm sorry. I'm gonna roll with correlation. After I saw thousands of people with this correlation compared to the study that told me the opposite, that was funded by a company that was gonna make profit off of whatever the outcome of the study was like.
Okay. You know, there's a big difference between studies and real life. People with real life problems and real life stressors and real life environmental toxins. It's a very, very different ballgame. And so I'm bringing this information to you because I want you guys to understand what the system is built off of.
It is literally built off of give what you have going on a label. Even though that label provides zero value to you, it does not give you any insight to the root cause. It just gives you a description of your symptoms. 'cause as soon as we can have a description of your symptoms, what we call a diagnosis code, we now know the treatment.
That the textbook told us that is good for you. It's this drug or this shot, this injection, or this surgical procedure, which all are money makers for that industry. There is no money for healthy people. And so of course, you know, get into integrative medicine, you're like, well, everybody's outta pocket. I gotta pay for all these things.
Yeah, I get it. But that's because. We're the people working against that system and they don't, if we wanna, insurance is not paying us 'cause we're outside of the system, we're outside of the model. They're gonna pay us. And so everybody's gotta put food on the table, so, so do we. And you know, it's all a matter of, if we're going to give you the time and the attention that the conventional medicine never gave you, which actually led you to probably have more issues, more disease, and more chronic illness, you know, that takes a lot of time, effort, data analysis, and expertise.
And so that's what, you know, integrative medicine is up against, is trying to essentially, uh, patch the holes of, of conventional medicine. But again, I. You know, because I want this to be thought provoking, empowering for you guys, is that not all integrative medicine, functional medicine practitioners are created equal.
This isn't just about, you know, oh, we found the root cause. The root cause is your parasites and your mercury that are causing your irritable bowel syndrome. Let's deal with it. It's okay. What are all of the possible root causes based off of the testing? And then what's the hierarchy of them? What, what strategy are we taking to address things that are most foundational to the things that are most superficial?
Because chances are, if you deal with the most foundational thing, then everything else gets a lot easier. So, you know, if the most foundational thing is the chronic stress and the chronic fight or flight syndrome that a person is under. If you help to work on that layer, then you might have to do one month of a parasite protocol, two months of a parasite protocol, and almost all of their symptoms are now resolved.
Or if you say, oh, I don't deal with mental and emotional issues, you know, they need to go to their psychotherapist for that. I'm just a, you know, treating parasites. So now you go and you treat the parasites and now the person's on parasite protocol for six months. Nine months a year and now they're getting pissed off 'cause they spent a bunch of money and time and you're frustrated.
What's going on? Why is this not working? This worked in all my other clients and it's because it wasn't foundational. It's because you're, you're literally not addressing the elephant in the room, which is chronic stress, which is shutting down the immune function and slowing down bowel motility.
So this is one example of like a million examples. Uh, I'm not saying that mental emotion is always foundational, um, but it is something important to be looked at, that's for damn sure. And so, you know, it really comes down to we need to stop. We need to stop thinking that we don't have to think about our health until it's a problem.
And I think that this is one of the biggest issues is that we live in a world, like one of the craziest thing, I'm, I'm literally popping all over the place, but one of the, the craziest things is when I hear shit like, why would this food be allowed to be sold if it was toxic? Why would they sell this, this cream, if it has toxins in it?
Like how, why would that, that's not allowed. Why would that be allowed? Like one, holy hell. Where did your common sense and critical thinking go? Like, what? No, that's no, no. We, like, we got foundational work to do. If that's where you're at, because. It's not about that one. You have a hierarchy of systems.
You have a hierarchy of, of for-profit corporations that run the world. And so pharma is a multi-trillion dollar industry. And so. They are directly correlating and influencing our food industries and our personal product industries. And it has gotten more and more and more and more lax as to what chemicals can be out on the market in small amounts in our food, in our personal products and our water, et cetera.
You're exposed to shit fucking left and right, and so to think that you don't have to educate yourself, you could just go out and eat whatever you want. You're just gonna get a little fat if you eat fast food. No, you're actually killing yourself slowly. You might as well just take a little dose of rat poison every single day and, you know, and, and see what happens, because that's essentially what some of your food is.
If you're a fast food goer and that's what you're eating. You're literally, you're not even micro poisoning yourself. You're just poisoning yourself on a daily basis. So if you think that you don't have to be knowledgeable about how your body works, you don't have to be knowledgeable about how exercise impacts you, you don't have to be knowledgeable about your stress levels.
You don't have to be knowledgeable about the food you eat. You don't have to be knowledgeable about the medications that you take or, or recommended. You don't have to be knowledgeable about the surgeries and the possible side effects and how things can go wrong, like. It is up to you to research those things.
It is up to you to understand those things. It's up to you to know intuitively what is right for you. You can't just walk through life just not thinking about it and, oh, I just gotta go to work. Oh, I just gotta pay my bills. Oh, I just gotta, I just gotta, I'm just gonna focus on my investing. You're fucking health is your, your most important investment.
'cause guess what? Who's, where's that money going? Where's that money going when you're, when you die? And or, or where's that money going? Later in life? You're just gonna spend it on trying to get better, but you still haven't gained any knowledge. So you're gonna stay in the same system that actually made you sick in the first place.
You're just gonna be on a lot of medications, have a bunch of surgeries, and have zero quality of life. And guess what guys? This mindset we pass to our kids. This isn't like, oh, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna be super dedicated to my career and I'm gonna pass on generational wealth to my kids. What about generational wisdom?
What about generational education? What about generational health and wellbeing? Because if they don't have any of those things and they just have money, what does it matter? You know, money can buy you things and make you like, oh, I can go on vacation and feel a little happier, uh, for, I could buy myself a fancy bag and feel confident as I wear that bag.
Like, but what is beyond the surface? What is, what is beyond that? You know, there are people in the world that literally live in a shack with, you know, no air conditioning and no fancy TVs and things, and they're happy. You know, it's like happiness is multifaceted joy. Gratitude is multifaceted. This isn't just based on one bucket of life being full.
If anything, if one bucket is really full and all the rest are empty, you're gonna actually have a lot more turmoil.
So we need to figure out how we can get to a point that we trust ourselves more. We delegate our wellbeing to ourselves, and then we seek out the information that we can't get from ourselves. What I mean by that is. You can't run your own labs. You can't run your own DNA testing. You can't, like, there are certain specialties and, and techniques that people have, uh, practitioners, experts have that you know, you won't be able to access.
You know, who's, who's going out and buying a million dollar CT scan machine. Like, you know, these are things that we can outsource. And then we can also have enough knowledge to say, you know, what, what is, what are the results of this mean? You know, oh, they tell you, you know, you did a, a, a CT score or a CT scan and uh, you have a bunch of calcium in your arteries, you know?
Are we really just going to say, oh, that is, that's because of, um, I'm getting atherosclerosis. I have heart disease, end of story. Or are we going to take the time to figure out and, and understand why I would have calcium buildup in my system? You know, what, what are you reading about? What are you, who are you learning from?
What courses are you taking? Like, you know, how are you starting to understand how this affects you so that you're more empowered than you are fearful. So overall, the point is, don't keep yourself trapped in a system that tells you you don't have to think about your health, because if you, if that's where you're at, the probability of your outcomes being poor health, sick or serious diagnoses is high.
This isn't for you to be your own doctor. This is for you to be able to know enough about your body so you don't live in fear, to feel confident as a parent, but then also to know how, who to trust and where to seek out the help and, and where to delegate out certain things to certain trustworthy professionals.
And I hope that that could be us for you guys. But you know, overall, like I said, Dr. Nick and I are very big on, we want you to learn enough through our process that you don't need us. You know, we're there to do the special stuff that you don't do. That we've mastered over 13 years and, and also all the fancy ass equipment that we bought in order to test, you know, DNA hair samples and all of that fancy stuff, which, you know, again, there's no reason for, for the average person to be doing these things or, or have these things.
Um, but being able to then take that information and implement it into your life, but also knowing enough about basic stuff, food. Personal products, environment, stress, breathing techniques, sleep, you know, uh, even, even household wellness. You know, right now people are pumping all of the wifi and extenders and smart TV and smart refrigerator and smart stoves and Bluetooth and you know, their houses.
They're essentially living inside of a microwave. And I understand that some of us are really into the tech aspect of the world. Um, but we have to be aware of the downsides of it. You know, uh, how do you meet in the middle ? I wanna be able to access certain technologies and the convenience of certain technologies, but I also don't want it to be actually electrifying my nervous system in my brain.
Because of all the radiation that I'm now being exposed to. So the goal is for you to be able to reach a level of, of freedom, of fear when it comes to your health because you have enough base information as to when to get a little worried and seek out more information. And then where. You can intervene by making simple changes in your life or simple tweaks, you know, for your kids.
Um, you know, the majority of the symptoms that we experience can be controlled by what we have in our kitchens and also the limitations that we put on our exposure to fear driven media and. Social platforms, you know, the more that we can sit and reflect and be in nature and be more disconnected from these, these external technological, um, platforms, the the healthier we can be and the more conscious we are of our personal products, our cleaning products, and our food, this can also be a huge driver to health and wellbeing.
And for the rest you got us.
