How to Find LONG TERM Symptom Relief

Why does getting to the root cause matter? Why do we talk so much about that? Why do we have so many conversations about the importance of digging to find out why, when the outcome can feel somewhat similar, Right? Where if I have a headache and I take an ibuprofen and my headache goes. Goes away, why do I need to look at why I have a headache to begin with? Why does it matter when you have all of these physicians that are giving us band aid solutions, what's in it for you to actually get to the root cause of what's causing the symptoms to begin with? And that's what we're going to talk about today. And I want to start by telling you a story. There were two women, and this is a true story. This is a story that I heard from my mentor many years ago. And this was from his private practice. And so there were two women approximately the same age, and they had the same diagnosis. They were diagnosed with an autoimmune condition called lupus. And lupus can cause a ton of symptoms, head to toe, it can cause a rash on the face, it can cause joint pains, it can cause immune system problems, it can cause emotional symptoms, mental and cognitive symptoms. It can be mild to severe. And so these two women came into his practice unrelated to each other, but quite similar in that they were approximately the same age, they had similar symptoms, and they had the same diagnosis of lupus. And so the doctor is trying to help both women get better using integrative tools. And one of the women comes in week after week, and she's getting better. She's noticing an improvement in her symptoms, she's noticing lessening of her suffering, improvement in her overall sense of well being. She's getting better. And he's using very similar treatments in both of them, of course, individualized a little bit, but generally speaking, the outcomes of both should be the same. And yet that wasn't the case. The second woman would come into the office, and week after week, her symptoms continued, her symptoms persisted. In fact, in many ways, she was getting worse. And the doctor couldn't figure out why. Similar diagnosis, similar risk factors, similar symptoms, similar age, similar stage of life. They were in the same region of the country, and yet one was thriving and the other was not. And he couldn't figure it out until one day, and one day he was finishing up with the second woman, the woman who wasn't getting better, and he was walking her to the door, preparing to lock up, and he watched her walk to her car, and he noticed something, something that changed the Conversation after that, he noticed that she got in the car, she turned on the ignition, and she pulled out of her parking spot. And as she was driving away, he took a look and saw her license plate. Does anyone know what her license plate said? It said lupus me on it. And while that may feel initially insignificant in other ways, it can be quite, quite profound when we start thinking about the identification of I am blank, I am this disease, I am anxious, I am bipolar, I am depressed, I am lupus. Right? And the message that that gives to our nervous system, the message that that gives to our cells, the messages that that gives to our behaviors, our choices, our hope, our expectations, the way that we exist, seek, pursue, and follow through with our treatments. And so could it have been the variable that was preventing that second woman from getting better? It's worth exploring, right? And this is the difference between getting to the root cause and just treating symptoms. Because had we put them both on Humira, had we both suppressed the inflammatory process and the autoimmune process, I.e. lupus, and then all of the subsequent symptoms seemed to get better in both of the women. If we were to take that away, then they would come back. And so I like to call it whack a mole medicine. Whack a mole medicine is a symptom comes up and we whack it. We try to make that symptom go away, we try to relieve some suffering, and oftentimes it can be very helpful. But the question, the root cause question is always why? Why wasn't that woman getting better? What was going on in her life? What was going on in her psychological process? And how was that contributing to her overall symptoms? Right. And sometimes an obstacle to cure could be a missed diagnosis, an improperly prescribed supplement or medication or dietary plan. It could be a missed psychological or emotional diagnosis. It could be trauma, it could be secondary gain. I had a patient once, many years ago, and she was coming in and she was receiving funding for her chronic back pain. She was able to receive disability, and she was able to get on state covered insurance. And so she was coming in and she was receiving integrative therapies for treatment of her back. And yet nothing that we did was really made much of an impact. And she kept coming back. And I finally said something to her. I was a resident at the time. And so I said to her, I said, I feel like we've been working with you for years, and yet you're not getting better. And I was just curious what your thoughts were about that, which can be A scary question as a clinician to ask a patient is to point out, I'm not helping you. What we're doing isn't working. What do you think? Because then you're at the risk of showing them that you don't know everything and that you know you don't know everything. And it could be a real, real step into humility. And so I asked her that question anyway, and her answer surprised me. It wasn't what I expected at all. It was actually one of the last things I would have expected her to say. I was thinking that she would say, I know. I'm so discouraged. I feel like we've tried everything. I put all sorts of money and time and effort into getting better, and I'm not. I thought that's what she was going to say or maybe even reassure me, like, you're doing a great job. Let's just keep trying. Or, yeah, you're fired. I thought it would be something like that. But what she said was really quite unexpected. And it's. And I think it could be common, more, maybe more common than we think. And what she said is, I can't get better because if I get better, I lose everything. I lose my insurance. I have to get off disability. I have to get a job. And I don't have a skill set. I don't know how to work after all of these years. If I get better, it will ruin everything. So I can't get better. And her cells, her body, her behaviors, heard those messages. And so getting to the root cause is fundamentally important. And that's the work that we do here. You can have relief from anxiety by taking a benzodiazepine or taking happy sleepy powder, or by doing all of the right cognitive behavioral therapy approaches and talking your way logically through your symptoms. But often what happens is that the symptoms will shift. I have a patient on my caseload right now where she struggles with panic attacks and migraines and nausea. When we get her panic attacks under control, if we're whacking that mole, right, she'll start to get a migraine. And then as the migraine is coming up, she'll take a rel Pax. And the rel Pax brings down the pain of the migraine. And she feels relief, right? She feels a lessening of the pain. And so then the pain will shift and she develops horrible nausea and vomiting, right? And so it's constantly like playing whack a mole. We treat one thing, and then it shifts at another thing. And there's a reason for that, if you've noticed that that happens with you, it's one thing after another. You finally get one thing taken care of, and it pops up somewhere else. Much like whack a mole, right? If you feel like you went to your doctors, you finally got your gut under control, but now you're getting skin rashes, or you feel like you finally got your acne under control, but now you're dealing with reflux, or you feel like finally you're sleeping better, but now you're having anxiety and brain fog during the day, if you feel like you're playing whack a mole, then you're not getting to the root cause. There's something missing. And that's what we do here, is we try to identify the root cause of your symptoms so that your body isn't trying to push the symptoms up because you're sitting. Symptoms are your body's messengers. Your symptoms are your body's attempts to tell you what needs to be healed. And so that voice is going to change so that it can continue to tell you what you need to know. And our job is to hear that message so that we can answer by helping you to heal. And once you're healthy, once we've gotten to the root cause, once you're feeling better and you're in a state, state of more health, you're no longer in a state of dis ease or disease, then the symptoms don't need to be there anymore and you're better. And I think this challenges the definition between health and disease, right? If health is just defined as the absence of symptoms, somebody who has asymptomatic cancer would then be defined as healthy, but they're not. Just because you can't see the symptoms doesn't mean that there's nothing wrong. Or a hole in a boat. Just because you can't see the hole in the bottom of the boat doesn't mean it's not sinking. And so our job is to get to the root cause. And so as we finish up today, the question is, well, how do you do that? How do I get to the root cause of my symptoms? And the story of the lupus lady, it wasn't a diagnostic test. It wasn't a lab or functional medicine study that was done. It was by looking at the cast of characters. It was by looking at the biology, the sociology and the psychology, the three cast of characters that we talk about in the ACT method. It's by looking at her as a whole person for somebody else. It could actually be something that we need to order on a test. And so it's important that as you're identifying the root cause is that you look at the entire spectrum of what could be out of bounds. It could be your environment. It could be the people that you spend your time with. Are they bringing life or are they taking your life away? It could be your job, it could be society, it could be culture. It could be your biology. Maybe your thyroid is underactive. Maybe it's in your gut. But we only know that by doing the digging. It could be your psychology, like the lady in the story about lupus that we talked about at the beginning. It could be that you are owning and identifying so strongly with the label that you have been given that it is hard or maybe even impossible for your body to let go of those symptoms until it has let go of that label. And that's what we're all about here, is helping you to have the resources to get to the root cause. The root cause will tell you how to get your life back. And I know what it's like to have anxiety that is so bad that you will do absolutely anything to make it go away. I've been there. I've been there with debilitating panic attacks and insomnia, and day after day of not sleeping and using the benzodiazepines and using the antidepressants in order to help me plug that hole in the boat while I did the searching. Right? And that's okay, but put a comma at the end of that sentence. Use the smart pharmacology. Use the tools that you have while doing the deeper digging. Getting to the root cause will change your life. And we're here to help you know how to do that by providing you free resources, education, the content that you can find in the link in the tab above, by going to our YouTube channel, Dr. Nicole Cain, by going to the website drnicolecane.com and reading our free blogs and getting involved in our Facebook community. Did you know that we have a free Facebook community where you can interact with me directly? It's there. The link is in the bio above. We also have texting. And so if you want to text and you want to be in touch and get encouraging data and resources and words from me and my team, then send me a text and get involved. Get connected that way. I'm Dr. Nicole. I am so happy that you're here. If you have questions, then ask. Send us a dm. I have a team that is so passionate about helping you. We make sure that we respond to every message that we get or leave a comment. And a lot of these topics are topics based on questions that you asked. And so keep them coming. And I'll see you next week. And be sure to check back, because we're going to be talking more about getting to the root cause and how to heal the messages of anxiety so that you can live the life that you were meant to live. All right. Bye. Loves.