Ayurvedic Secrets For Mothers With Dr. Rekha Radhamony | Riddhi Deorah

Really like, you know, for me, I'm very like Ayurveda, homeopath, and, you know, those kind of remedies. But my husband is like a hardcore believer in allopathy. He thinks that, you know, only allopathy works. So, you know, if I were to convince him to shift, what could I actually use to sort of ask him to make the shift?

Actually, nobody has ever asked me this question, so I really need to think the answer for this. But it's very simple, right? In this world, when. When even the modern medicine has advanced so much, right, People are still suffering. There is no cure for many of the treatments, many of the disease conditions. There's no treatment for many of the conditions. Say, for example, you have hypothyroidism. The allopathic treatment is very good, where you get to suppress your symptoms and you have to take that medication lifelong and you can keep that disease in control. But the beauty of Ayurveda, which hardly anybody knows about, is a lot of these conditions are curable and reversible in Ayurveda. And one very good example is hypothyroidism in most cases, because in hypothyroidism, instead of suppressing the symptoms. So basically what happens in hypothyroidism, your body is not producing one of the most vital hormones in your body enough, which is your thyroxine. And thyroxin is one hormone that is responsible for a lot of functions of the body, starting from here till your toes, you know, starting from your, you know, you feel low energy levels, low mood, you may have hair fall, you'll feel tired throughout the day, you will have D issues, you'll have, you know, sweaty palms, cold hands and feet. Lot of manifestations of hypothyroidism, right? And allopathic medication is wonderful where you can suppress these symptoms. So every day you take the medication and you are done. But Ayurveda helps your body to. It capacitates your body to produce enough thyroid hormones so that you don't have to be on this medication like long, you know, you can be on. So what I do with my patients is I take them on a journey where they take allopathic medication and Ayurvedic medication. And then we work together. And Ayurveda is not simple. It's little, complete. It takes some effort. It is not like, you know, every day in the morning, empty stomach, you pop a pill and you forget about it. Everything else is fine. No, Ayurveda needs you to be having a disciplined life. In terms of what you're eating, whether you're eating food, according to your own body type on your, based on your imbalances, all of that is important in Arupira. That is the, that's the difference. Hence, so after taking the allopathic and Ayurvedic medication for some time and we check the reports, if the, if the levels are coming down, then we will put them on only Ayurvedic medication. And then slowly and steadily we will be only on Ayurvedic medication. And then we will stop Ayurvedic medication eventually. So that is how the treatment protocol works in. And this is one disease and we have so many diseases like that. So. And also Ayurvedic medicines, if you are like, I prescribe medicines which are totally plant based and all of that, I. Not plant based, I cannot say plant based medicines that are mild and they do not contain, you know, heavy metals or anything added, you know, because even if it is a medicine or even it's a paracetamol, right, it creates an impact on your liver and your kidneys and your internal organs. Healing should be healing for the entire body, right? You shouldn't create a disease while you're trying to treat another disease. So that is the whole principle, right? And that is what we want. And that's why people come to me for their medical conditions. So that is the beauty of Ayurveda, where we can not just help people with conditions, but also help them to, to be away from these conditions for a very long time.

Also it's more like a permanent cure. Eventually it's a little disciplined. You have to be more disciplined. It's more short term pain, but long term gain. And allopathy is like, you know, short term gain and then you just keep doing that forever. Yes, that's exactly.

Yeah.

And my next. Yeah, you know, alopathy, like you very rightly mentioned, has some side effects. Like, you know, like I got Covid and I did alopecy, so I had to take a few steroids also that were prescribed. And you know, there was a lot of thinking whether I should take it or not because of the side effects and everything. So my question is like, for Ayurveda, so let's say if you do an Ayurvedic treatment, is there any side effect at all? And is there a tendency for the body to get addicted to the Ayurvedic treatment? Like, you know, like you feel high on energy once you are taking those medicines and when you stop taking those Medicines. Do you see those energy levels? Do you see the energy level drop? So does the body get used to the treatment or it's okay if you let go of it also?

So the question is, are Ayurvedic medicine safe? Right?

Okay, all through, more than safe. Like do I become dependent on the medicines forever or is it okay for me to do it till I'm cured and then stop?

Exactly. So that is the whole point which I mentioned before, that we are talking about removal of medications and being only on, you know, and leading your normal life without having to depend on medications. That is the whole point. And in terms of the, the question that you asked, people have a question, you know, Ayurvedic medicines have heavy metals. Ayurvedic medicines has this problem, that problem. But the kind of Ayurveda that I practice, I practice my family's. I'm a fourth generation Ayurvedic doctor. So my grandfather, my family followed the traditional Kerala based Ayurvedic system. So in that system I have never seen my father prescribing any medicine other than herbal medicines. You know why? Because he believes so much in the power of food routines and these medicines. And I also follow the same thing. So it is all about, see, 80% of treatment is not medicines. 80% of your treatment is what you consume, what you put inside your body. And that too if you see today there are lots of foods which we feel that this is healthy, that is healthy, this salad is healthy and this juice is healthy. There could be trillions such or millions and billions of such healthy foods in the world. But that doesn't mean that your body can take that healthy food. You know, your body is unique and a classifies everybody into various groups. Like, you know, some people are vata, some are kapha, some are V, some are pita, kapha. Like seven groups of people. Are there seven types of body and mind constitution. So the treatment is based on that. And the food, and the food and routines that one person should have is quite different from what some other person may, may have to have. So it, it doesn't mean whether the food is healthy or not.

It's.

You should always look at, yeah, you should always look at whether this food is healthy for me or suitable for me. And that is the, that level of customization or individualization. That is what makes Ayurveda so effective. Because nobody is different, right? Everybody is unique in their own way.

And there's a way you find out with what body type am I, or there's A way of finding that out.

Yeah, so we have different ways of finding it out these days. I have become such an expert in that after within five minutes of talking, I know that this person and my. This person is this prakriti. And that happens by practice. You know, the more you see patients and the more you go back to what you have learned and understood and the more you have experience and practice, it comes very easily. But to put in a very broad way, there are three biophysical energies in the body. Vata, pitta and kapha. So vata is the movement or the air element, and pitta is the heat element. And then we have kapha, which is the heavy or the solid element. So based on the ups and downs of these people are divided into vata Prakriti like that and vata people. If you ask me, like five most common characteristics of vata people are, you know, they are thin or they have a tendency to lose weight. They mostly have dry, brittle skin and hair. And they mostly have problems related to their joints and, you know, bones and muscles. And they have this internal dryness. And they are the people who does not like to feel cold. They want to feel warm all the time. Even if a little, even if there's a little bit of the ac, they will say that, oh my God, I'm feeling so cold, you know. And these people, one very, very common thing that is there in all these people are, you know, they are doing hundred things at the same time. You know, they are not at one place. They always want to switch between tasks and switch between many things, both mentally and, you know, physically. Also they'll be doing 100 different things at a time. That is, and then we have more stimulated emotionally. And they are the ones who are the go getters and achievers at the same time. They have intense, fierce emotions and they love to, they love to, you know, they love to set a target and go and achieve it. You know, that kind of people, the hair and skin always looks a little reddish or, you know, they have more of heat in their body. So all of that manifestations will be there. And they are the people who commonly get gets acidity and stomach related conditions. So that is the P people. And then we have the kapha people. Kapha is which is like that nurturing, warm, loving, loyal kind of a Prakriti where you have a tendency to put on weight. And you are mostly a person who would like to sit at home, you know, have like more of a couch potato or who would want to Netflix and Chill on a weekend. That kind of a prakriti. So that is this and kapha Pragati mostly have the faces like you know, related to overweight, obesity, you know, diabetes, type 2 diabetes and you know, PCOS. All of these conditions could be and mostly kapha related upper respiratory diseases. All of these could be because of the. And this prakriti. You know, when people tell me why did I get this doctor, I didn't do anything. You know, people suffer from stomach issues and they, when they tell this to me, I always tell them it is not something that you have done. And this is the gift by your parents. You know, this pragati was decided at the time of birth when you were that one single cell. And that goes on. And you know, later in life you may have imbalances. Like even if you are a vata Prakriti person, you may feel you have an upper respiratory condition and an imbalance of kapha. Right. So it can be different kinds of imbalances. So you have to do things and you have to have foods, routines and everything based on those imbalances.

So if you're born vata, you remain vata for the rest of your life. Or you can switch between.

No, you can switch between different things. But at any given it's like that is your baseline. But that doesn't mean that you know, you know your vaga Prakriti. And as a doctor, if you come to me, I may not look at your Prakriti but I will look at your ambient dosha imbalance. What imbalance are you facing right now? So let me fix it. But when you have a vata prakriti you naturally gravitate towards the vata related conditions in terms of getting.

Okay, so let's take a few questions from this was something completely new that I learned today. Okay, very interesting. And we have this question that's been showing up is how what to do in d when we have psoriasis? I think that dry skin.

Yeah. Psoriasis in Ayurveda is a condition which is very much treatable. It is a psychosomatic disorder where your mind is also removed so many years of stress. I'll give you an example and I'll tell you something. I had a patient from Dubai who had, who was in a very stressful job who had come to me for treatment and he had no like he literally had no other, no other causative factor for him to get psoriasis. And his single most important factor was high stress job that he was doing. So it was a psychosomatic disorder. And the treatment in Ayurveda is based on the imbalance. You know, if it is vata, kapha involved psoriasis. And the treatment is based on that. The foods are based on their routines are based on that. Body treatments are based on that. And Ayurveda is beautiful when it comes to addressing all of these conditions. It's, it's reversible it.

And the second question that the audience has, that what to do when kids have cold and cough? And one parent is asking, her name is Kriyanka. She's been putting it multiple times. Can you suggest some healthy foods for kids suffering with asthma?

Yeah. So we. Before that, let me tell you about why this happened at the first place. So as I said before, vata, pita and kapha, even kids have V, right? And when you look at the young age, that is from the time you're born till the time you reach puberty, right? If you see most of the kids, most of them get cough, cold and all of those conditions because it is the kapha time of their life. And once they reach puberty till the time they are into menopause, as women, you have more of, you know, gut related conditions. And that is our cheetah time of our lives. And after that, if you see after 50, 60 years, it is the depletion phase where we start having the bone pain, joint pain, dryness, all of that. And all of this is because of vata condition. So we have all these three, three timings in our life. So for the kids, it is most, they are more susceptible to kapha related conditions, which is your cough, cold, constant allergic rhinitis, all of these conditions and upper respiratory tract infections. Why? Because this is their kapha time of life. So we need to fix the kapha. So basically for kids, the thing is, unlike adults, they have more immunity compared to others. If you see Covid also, the number of kids who get covered is also much less. And even if they get covered, they recover faster because their line of defense is very much. But one thing you should not impair their ability to build that defense, right? So when you, when the vendor baby or the child sneezes once, don't get them a medication and you know, suppress it. Let their immunity develop. That is the first thing. Second thing, give them warm, nourishing, cooked foods during this time when the kapha is extremely high. Cold foods, giving cold drinks, cold smoothies. Totally. No, because you are only aggravating that factor of increasing kapha. Right. Anything which is heavy, sweet, cold, all of these things will increase the upper respiratory conditions. And few things that, that you can give as a home remedy is in Ayurveda we call, we have something called pepper, long pepper crushed with a little bit of honey, with some little bit of black pepper. If you mix it and give to the cake, it's very good. And also every day it gives you one teaspoon of honey. The kids, it is very good for their kapha and all of those things. Because in Ayurveda we say that honey is the ultimate medicine for kapha. And then nothing beats kapha when it comes to. Because kapha. It is said that honey has this scraping effect on kapha, like it literally scrapes the kapha off. So it is very good to give honey to kids. But don't make sure that you don't warm the honey because warming honey is toxic to the body. So don't warm the honey or don't add honey to hot water. Instead just give them a teaspoon of honey in the morning or evening, whenever you have time, ideally in the morning with a little bit of pepper crush will be much more effective.

So honey and pepper.

Yes.

And the second question was for food for kids suffering with asthma. So is it the same that we have to do for them?

Yeah, yeah. So basically you need to avoid foods that are very cold. All cold things and everything. All healthy foods which are very high, high sugar foods are all heavy foods in Ayurveda. So we need to reduce all of that. And also cold fruits and all don't give them too much. Of course, kids are at a position where they can take more variety of compared to adults. But still it is better to reduce it, at least at the time when they get this constant cough and cold.

Then there's this question about what to do with, for joint pain.

Joint pain for kids or adults. So we need to first see what kind of joint pain it is. If you are looking at a simple remedy, then I would say oil massages, if there is no active inflammation is the ultimate treatment for vata. And joint pain in Ayurveda is because of vata and why it causes. Because vada means dryness. Right. Anything that is dry breaks and cracks and that happens to your bones and joints if they are dry. For somebody who, who has been playing a lot of sport or you know, they are exercising too much, naturally the vata is increased because there is too much of movement. As I said, vata is movement. So when the movement is too much and Vata is dry. There is, there'll be more dryness. So you need to subside the dryness by applying oil every day. So every day in the morning, take a little bit of organic black sesame oil, warm it a little it and apply it on your joints. And not just for adults, you can even give it, you can also make your kids do it because it's a good practice. If you have seen those old uncles, like 90, 100 years old, they are thin and they are very healthy and they'll be moving around very fast. Why? Because if you see, if you've seen them, they would put oil in their body and do all of these movements right? So we why they are at their peak of their health is because they are so flexible. And flexibility is the most anti aging thing. You know, if you see yoga teachers, even if they reach some 70, 80 years with long continued yoga practice, they don't look old. Why? Because your body is flexible and that happens by constant oiling and all. So that is one thing.

Because my husband's grandfather's pretty good and he's very active and he puts coconut oil every day. So I think, you know, if I link it to what you said, it's actually very true. Like he still walks to his workplace and walks back and everything. So yes, I think. Okay, and this question is from the audience, which I had collected earlier, some Ayurvedic tips for weight loss and hair fall. You know, because this is something that we as mothers face a lot.

And yes, in Ayurveda, the concept to see Ayurvedic nutrition is totally different from modern nutrition in Ayurvedic nutrition or Ayurvedic, not just Ayurvedic nutrition. The whole concept of a treatment concept of Ayurveda revolves around one single major factor which is your digestion. So whether it is weight loss, whether it is diabetes, whether it is hypothyroid, polycystic ovaries or any condition, if your digestion is good, then you won't get many diseases and fixing the digestion is good. The first line of treatment. So the question was about weight loss. Weight loss, yeah. In Ayurveda, fixing digestion is the first thing for that for weight loss. So there is no concept of calorie counting. There is only this concept that are you eating food which is digestible for you, which is suited to your body? If you digest that food and your, your agni is good. We say that agni is the Ayurvedic term for digestive fire. Your Digestive fire is your single most important parameter for your digestive strength or not having, or not having diseases. So it is all about improving digestive fire. People who want to lose weight, people who want to gain weight, the treatment is the same. If your agni is good or your digestive fat is good, the body automatically balances itself. It gets to its optimum balance where people who are overweight become normal weight, people who are underweight become normal weight. That happens as a natural thing because we are not doing anything. We're just helping the digestion go. And digestion is the most important function. We say that means every disease is because of a low digestive fire. So that is how the treatment goes, or whether it is weight loss, whether it is diabetes, PCOS or any such condition. But people would think that my diet is pretty good. I don't know why. This is foreign. There are many signs to look for digestion. Like, you know, if you have constant problems like acidity, gas bloating, heartburn, acid reflux, constipation, loose motion, white coating on your tongue, or, you know, many such, many such things. Like, you know, after you eat food, when you belt, you have the smell and taste of the food that is already there. Not feeling hungry at the same time every day and having sharp hunger during lunchtime is ideal, but you're not feeling that. All of these are indicative of having a bad digestion. So first level is fixing this. And then weight losses happen automatically. And what was the second question?

It was about hair fall. After, you know, giving birth to a child, like post delivery, there's a lot of hair fall. That mother's suffering.

Yeah, yeah. So that happens because in Ayurveda we see that during the time when you're pregnant, you are investing all your whatever you have for the building, right, for the giving that you're, you're nourishing the body, you're building the body. You're. You're in a nourishing phase. That is why, you know, when you're pregnant, you feel that your hair has grown thicker, your body is looking much, you know, it is fully nourished and you're happy. And then once the baby comes out, what happens is we call something as. That means depletion of the tissues of the body happens. And this depletion of the tissues lead to less nourishment and that nourishment will go. And all the efforts of the body's body, of the mom is coordinating between the, you know, breast milk and feeding the baby and giving care and Attention to baby. Mothers don't sleep at all for the first three months, right? So all of this continue to even further thought R or further depletion of tissues. So this is the time where, you know, people come to me for, you know, I want to lose weight. Doctor, I just tell you what my baby is like 30 days old or 40 days old. I just tell them back. I tell them, give yourself three months, get into feed the baby, take care of the baby, don't think about you right now, now and then come back to me and we'll do it. Because this is the time you need to nourish your body and not deplete your body. And that is why you are having hair fall. So the first thing that you need to do after you deliver, you need to start eating right. You know, during pregnancy, you had all reasons to eat this kind of food, that kind of food, you know, whatever you wanted in the nails. But this is the time when you need to start nourishing your body. Iron levels, you need to keep check because depletion is always associated with IND low iron levels. So if you have iron levels low, one main thing that manifest is hair fall. And after that, oil is a very important part of management of hair. You need to oil your hair. I know modern dermatologists say that, you know, don't oil your hair. But the same dermatologist, if they are from India, their grandmothers used to oil their hair and they had long hair, right? And instead supplements are given and all of those things are given. But ultimately our scalp is just an extension of our skin, right? Our skin needs oily. And why not ours scalp, you know, that also needs some moisturizing because we have something called sesame oil. Sesame oil has a property called minute mist, which is sukhtma. And it has a penetrating property. So when you add herbs to sesame oil, it absorbs all. Sure that all the good, like all the good essence of the herbs that you act. And it will nourish the deeper tissues when you apply any oil with a sesame on the face. So you have to find a good oil which is suited to you. Like if you have. So if you ask me in my clinic, I make. Like, traditionally we make some. We make an oil with, you know, kringaraja and all of that. So it is available in my, you know, you can hear me, I can, I can help you with that. So oily. It's a very important part of. Of haircut, according to iv. And whoever tells me no, I won't agree.

Right. Right. Thank you. So much. There are so many more questions, but I think I'm going to get you. Yeah. Okay. Like can we. Do we have time for one or two more questions or do you want me.

Yeah, we'll do. We'll take two more and we'll finish two more.

Okay. Yes. So there's this about. My son is 2 and he has severe stomach infection and medicines are suppressing the symptoms but not curing it. So it's been over two weeks now. Will Ayurveda.

That is a very specific question. But I will tell you he needs to correct the corrective food that he is taking just by diet correction only. This will subside. No medicine can give permanent cure for this unless and until you fix what you eat.

And then the last question that we have is can we consume dry ginger during summers? And I think it's called salt in Hindi. What is the best way to consume it?

See, it is ginger is hot. But dry ginger is also hot. But the beauty of dry ginger is it has a post digestive taste which is sweet, which makes it good. Even in summers it is fine to have. But if you are trying to cool your body down during summer, I will give you another. Another favorite drink of mine which I. I'll share with you. There is something called kas roots or vetiver roots. Vetiver. So this vetiver is very aromatic, very cooling, very good for the skin, very good for the hair, very good for the eyes. And it is extremely beneficial for cooling your body. So during summer it is good to drink water boiled with vegetable roots added to it. You can boil 1 liter of water with a handful of vegetables, boil it and drink it throughout the day and you will notice that it is very, very cool.

Okay.

Perfect.

Learned so much from you, Dr. Rekha. This was absolutely fantastic. I just feel that I have to learn so much more.

But.

And I'm sure the audience feels the same. So please follow Dr. Rekha's Instagram handle. She has a lot of content on Ayurveda. If you have any questions for her, you can message her on Instagram. If you are looking for some Ayurvedic treatment, you can visit her page. She's also doing a lot of Ayurvedic products in case you're interested. So there's a lot of content there. So please do follow her and check out all that content. Thank you so much, doctor for your time. This was absolutely fantastic. Loved having you here and I definitely learned a lot, especially about different types of bodies and you know, classifying different people based on their bodies and also how how different food is appropriate for different people. So lots of takeaways. Thank you so much for your time and hopefully we'll do this once again sometime in the future.

Thank you so much. Actually, I needed to ask you a lot of questions, but we will keep it for another live and people are asking what was the root again? I will tell you. It is Khas roots. K H U s Or you can try Met roots. So that's the name of the roots. Anyways, thank you so much Riti for having me. We will do this again.

Yes, definitely. Thank you so much.