Stories of Hope & Healing: Meredith Oke Part II

Welcome to Integrative Medicine with Dr. Leland Stillman, the podcast where we explore the best of East and West, old and new, conventional and unconventional, in search of answers to medicine's toughest cases and most difficult problems. This podcast is for informational purposes only. Diagnostics and therapeutics discussed on this podcast may or may not be right for you, so talk to a qualified practitioner before taking action based on what you learn here. If you'd like to become a patient at about my practice, go to stillmanmd.com to schedule a complimentary discovery call. Thank you for listening and welcome to today's episode. Hello everyone, Dr. Stillman here, joined again by Meredith Oak for part 2 in her story of hope, story of healing. Meredith, thank you again for joining me.

My absolute pleasure. It's been really fun, and, uh, I highly recommend everyone to have a conversation reviewing their wellness history. You remember a lot of things and learn a lot of things.

You know, it's, it's true. The way I do these podcasts is actually very similar to the way I interview patients. And it's, it's funny because no one taught me how to do this this way, but I found that it was actually the most important. A lot of the things I do and the questions I ask are the most important questions I find are clinically relevant. But anyway, where we left off was that you had you had been learning about wellness, and then you ended up finding me through the quantum biology, quantum wellness world, let's call it. And what I want, before we dive into the rest of your, your case in the last, I think, 5 years now since we've known each other, is what, as you came out of and, and really started to create a new paradigm of wellness What was your paradigm coming into work with me and how did it evolve? And what did you think it was going to take for you to get the results you were looking for?

This is a, I think, a really good question because so many people are on this path, right? Where we start out usually with traditional doctors, regular medicine, maybe, maybe we see somebody else like an acupuncturist or something. And then we don't get the results we want, and but then we don't know what to do. So we go out to the internet and we find people who are talking about things that we haven't— that were not like on our radar, that were not things that we had tried, right? Like, so for me, that big piece was light. I was like, oh, I didn't eat— like, of all the things I'd done, I never even considered my light environment, how much time I spent outside, like what screens I was looking at, things like that, right? So that was the piece missing for me. For other people, maybe it's other things. So then what happens is you go down, you go into that world of all of the people on the internet talking about these things, and you listen to all the podcasts, and you do all the things, and you— there are certain things you can implement yourself, usually. But what happened to me and what I, I see happens with most people is that you reach a point where that the generalized advice, the podcast advice is not enough. You need someone who understands, like I needed someone who understood my specific situation, my specific life, my specific biology, my specific needs, my like, and really fine tune everything around me. And you can't do that on your own, just researching. It's just not like— I mean, I, I guess you could, but you— but for most people, it's just like you need the, the mirror of that practitioner, like as you said, like asking questions you might not have thought of, like holding you accountable, like getting you into the details of what is specific to your life. And so for me, when I came to work with you, it's like, that's what I was looking for. I was like, okay, listen, just being told to like move to an island near the equator is not like— that's not like— I, I have a life and I need to understand what I can do inside of that life to get better. And that is where I think people really need to work one-on-one with somebody or in a group. But it— but in some way where like you're getting individualized feedback. That you can apply to your specific life. And that's— so that's when the mood— the needle started to move for me. Like, truly, I had begun to lay a strong foundation just doing my own research, but it wasn't until, like, we got into the weeds of my stuff and my labs and my details that the needle truly started to move and stay moved, as opposed to going back and forth and sometimes better, sometimes not. And then of course, as a woman, you're continuously in a— in flux and in different cycles of life and different cycles of things happening, and your needs change. And to be connected with someone who like stays on top of that and understands that, because most of us haven't been educated to understand our own bodies and our own life cycles, um, you know, like the childbearing, you know, the conception years and childbearing years and premenopause and all, like, all of those things, um, you know, they have a, like, a slightly different need structure to them. So that was something that I, you know, I guess you were asking before is like, I thought about wellness when I had to. Um, I had like some foundational ideas that I'd had most of my life, but it was something that I thought about when I had to because of symptoms or issues. Um, and then now it's become more of just like a regular part of my life. And I know that I have people in place to check in with, so I'm not gonna go off the rails.

Sometimes I like to ask, uh, people the question, on a scale of 0 to 100, where are we in terms of where you were when you started the journey and where you'd like to be at 100%? And I'm curious. How much did the podcast blogosphere info space, how far did it take you? If zero is where you were at your worst and you had no answers, no, or very only a very rudimentary health awareness, and 100% where you'd like to be, how far did it get you?

I would say like maybe like 65. Wow. Right. Where you're like, okay, but, and it's because you, I mean, I think it depends who you listen to. And who you surround yourself with. You know, there's a lot of wackadoodle stuff out there. And I think that that's a place where we can become stuck 'cause it is better, but it's not as good as it could be. It gets really just not. And there's all kinds of little things that you, I wouldn't have thought about, I wouldn't have known if I hadn't engaged.

We have the regular experience of having patients come in from other paradigms practices influencers particularly. And they've been doing a lot of things that in their lab work shows us was not a wise decision for them, which is a big part of why I'm often— and part of why I wanted to do these podcasts is just to really convey to people that you cannot pick one piece of the puzzle and expect it to solve the whole thing. And everyone's puzzle is really truly different. So I'm curious, did you work— remind me, did you work with any practitioners other than me after the Health and Wellness InfoSpace educational journey?

Uh, not really, no. And I think what you're saying is really important because we do tend to make it all or nothing. It's like, oh, and I think it was you, I had this conversation once, you were recommending like some kind of like a tea or something. And you were like, but just, just one cup. Because you had had a patient who was like, oh, this tea is good for me. I'm gonna drink 9 cups a day. And you were like, wait, what? No. But we do that, right? We're like, oh, this, this is good. Like, let's go overboard. Nothing else matters. Only this one thing. And it's like, I think part of when we're learning a new thing, we do need to be a little hyper-focused on it. Like, I was hyper-focused. I was hyper-obsessed with light for a while. Until it integrated into my habits. And then I don't think about it as much. It's just kind of the way I live my life. So there is that piece, but we do have to be careful not to tip over, right? Because you're saying we're like, this is the one thing, and then we completely overdo it to the detriment of all else. So I look at it as like, I have like baseline care for my, for my health, and I have foundational practices that are a part of my life. And then I layer things on as needed, and I go to other people as needed. Like I'll go to a chiropractor or, You know, I, after all of the— we did, we moved and COVID and all this stuff, like I went and did some, some trauma healing hypnosis stuff, which was really helpful. So like I will, I will layer on what is needed in the moment, but I like to keep, you know, like you have a, you have a super holistic foundational practice that covers those bases. So keep that in place. And then dip in and out for acute needs.

I had a patient once tell me that I was their quarterback, and so they would come to me and say, what, what do we need to do? And then if it's appropriate for me to run the ball myself, we do that. And then when it's appropriate for us to pass the ball to an expert in some field, because we can't be experts in everything, I need my colleagues who do EMDR, neurofeedback, counseling of various types. Let alone all the other integrative medicine modalities that are available to us, from herbs to different types of, types of bodywork. So I don't know why I always wanted to do that, but it was always the way I was sort of wired. I almost subspecialized, but then I got really bored with the subspecialization model, particularly because I found that with a lot of those cases, you know, I just had a case in allergy, which I was what I was going to specialize in. And, you know, we knocked his problem out in 6 months with supplements and homeopathics. That's a post that'll be coming out on Substack soon. And that is, you know, very day-to-day in the practice. And so I don't know how I would subspecialize in just doing that. It would be too monotonous. Tell me from your perspective, what was it like coming to work with me? And give me the story, the sequence of events, and also particularly what do you recall struggling with the most that prompted you to reach out to try and go from that 65% to 100%?

The major issue that I had was, was the fatigue, right? So the up, the up and down of the energy and, you know, layered on top of that, I had a lot of things going on. We were like moving. We did big, big moves, like cross-continental moves, cross-country moves. Like there were, there were a lot of things in there. And I, I mean, I work as a coach, so I like am pretty self-aware and can like sort of assess a situation. And it, and it's very clear to me like when there's more needed, right? Like, so I knew that I needed more support and more help and more professional guidance than I was getting. However, I was also extremely picky because I had done so much self-education that most people were not, like, you know, I, I, we talked about this last time, like I just couldn't go to somebody who didn't understand the things that I now understood. And then looking to find somebody it was like, oh, nobody's really paying attention to this. So for me, it was like I was actively looking, okay, who understands health in general, and then who understands health through the lens of light and quantum physics? And in particular, because I needed, I needed somebody who could support me with that piece as well. And then you wrote an article that was posted, I think, on Medium or something. And I was like, oh, and it was shared by someone within the community, so it came from someone I trusted. And you— there was an article, and I was like, okay, we have a doctor, an integrative physician. So those bases are all covered, which are all important bases, plus this added piece which I really need. And I, I mean, everyone really needs, um, but I knew that I needed it. So And so when I found that, it was like, okay, great, done. And then the other piece that we haven't talked about is that I also have 3 children who also, especially my eldest daughter, she was also having like what seems to be random health challenges. And so that's another piece too, right? It's like as I learned how to optimize our home environment and learned how to make things better for myself, it was just naturally passed on to my children and to my husband. And my oldest daughter, who at the time where my chronic fatigue got really bad, she developed, uh, like a pretty severe gluten intolerance, uh, and she had like dark circles under her eyes. She had— she was having like pretty regular diarrhea. And so I took her this would have been in Hong Kong. I took her to the local, like, expat naturopath, and they did tests on her. And her was like one of those, I guess, like the IgG or whatever for gluten intolerance. And it was like, it was like 0 to 100, and her gluten intolerance was so severe, like the ink like ran off the side of the page. Like she just was off the charts. So we had to reconfigure, you know, all our food to get gluten out for her. But over the years of me learning what I learned and implementing it, and, you know, all of the changes that I made for myself also got made for her. And a few years later, she no longer had a gluten intolerance. So I think that's the other thing too about like getting, getting care. Is that it's not, you know, if you live with other people, you're not just taking care of yourself. And then because you are a physician, we did, you know, have brought the children in for their specific needs for you to address as well. But even just from a personal standpoint, it's like, it elevates everybody's health.

Tell me about the process. What did we start with? What did we do? What did you notice that worked?

So I don't know what it's like now, but there was like a really long intake. Mhm. And I remember, because I had made an appointment to talk to someone on the phone, it was, it was a friend and we were going to catch up, so it wasn't like a work thing. But I was like, okay, I'm, uh, let's, we'll talk in about half an hour, I have to fill out this form. After half an hour, I remember texting her being like, yeah, I'm gonna need another 30 minutes. And, and it was so eye-opening because it did, it took me, I think it took me an hour at least. But what I got out of it was, A, I had to think about all of the things that your intake form asked about, like, and consider these things, which put them— brought them into my consciousness and gave, gave them my attention. Um, like, it asked about, like, what my, um, noise environment was, like, all kinds of questions. And B, it also showed me, like, this is what is required to really get in as a, just a first step to really understand what's going on with somebody. And I think about going to the regular doctor where they don't ask you anything except what is pertinent to like the specific issue you're having at that moment, and you get like 10 minutes and that's it. Whereas this was like, this was like such an in-depth questionnaire. And I was like, oh, this is how deep you need to go to really understand what's going on with somebody and to really be able to help them properly because you have to uncover like everything in their environment, everything, like so many different things. And so that, that was the first step. And that's when I was like, oh, okay. Like this is different from what I've done before. Whereas as you were saying, people were like, oh, I'm, I'm here for like gut health or I'm here for acupuncture and focus just on that, which is fine. But there's so many foundational pieces that if you don't know how to look at them, you don't know how to look at them.

I've changed that process a bit. The initial intake is shorter, and that's because now when I sit down with someone for the first time, we have labs to review and we get caught up in those because they tell a lot of the story. And then what I did was I changed a lot of the questions that I asked to be more pertinent Rather than focus on the history, we actually focus on the current diet and lifestyle because I found that there were about 100 and change odd questions that I needed to ask in order to find all of the bad habits and all of the problems that were at play. And that's now how we operate. First thing that happens when a team member comes to me and says, "So-and-so is not doing well. So-and-so is not getting results." So I say, have you sent them the forms? Which forms have you sent them? What were the results? Let's review them. Let's go over them. Have they done this or that or the other fact-finding mission that we hand patients? Where are we as far as trying different supplements? And there's always things that, and the reason I spread this out was that I found that if you do a 40-page intake or something like what mine was originally, and you have an hour and a half appointment to go over it, you only have an opportunity to really go over a few pages of it. And so you need to spread it out a little bit more, and a lot of it ends up being history that doesn't necessarily move the needle. So you can be more efficient with your time, but those forms are still the foundation of what we do because they, they streamline the process of finding out what are we going to actually have to change to help this person resolve their problems. What did we do next?

So yeah, we, we jumped in. Yeah, we did the labs.

Um, what do you remember about the labs?

So it was, it was interesting because they weren't, it wasn't just like the way we looked at them. It was as a system, right? Like, okay, this is like this because this over here, this is low because this over here is high and this is like that. And so it wasn't just individual snapshots of your levels of this, your level of that, your little— it was how they all, how they all work together, right? And what food, how food was related, how supplements are related, how light was related, how my stress levels were related. That was a big one, um, right? And that was a whole layer that I wouldn't have uncovered if I hadn't engaged with a practitioner, right? Like you and, um, Jim Laird made me get an Oura ring, right? So it was like we got all the— we got all the supplements and minerals in place and we got my food in place. Although I'm very hard to manage with food. I was— I would never really tell you what I was eating. You were like, I could tell from your laughs.

Is that so?

And you're like, add some of this. I'm like, okay. You're like, would you at least just take a photo of your food? I'm like, if I remember. But you had all the little charts and things to fill out. I didn't fill out what I was eating. I never did it.

So you recall specifically that I could point to a lab value and say, you're not eating enough of this?

Yeah. Yes. Which was, for me, that was, that's all I need. I'm like, okay, fine, I'll eat more fish or whatever. I think that's what it was. Fish and Brazil nuts, maybe.

Sure.

Um, because as we've established in the last call, like I hate my tracking my food. It makes me. Feel annoyed. I don't know why, I don't care, it just does.

It's boring and pedantic, and that leads people to not want to do it. And I understand that, which is why now I've had so much experience taking care of people that, hey, I can look at the labs and say, you're not eating this, this, and this. And if they just describe the meal I can usually pretty much nail the numbers of what they're getting. And you find so many patterns, so many things, so many little adjustments, fine-tune, fine-tuning you can make to help people just fly, flourish, feel so much better. So what did we do for supplements and what, how much, and I'm curious, actually, this is a very specific question. So what proportion of the improvement was made by dietary changes you implemented? Versus the supplements we added?

I do think that the, the targeted supplementation probably helped more cuz I didn't change what I ate all that much.

Oh my gosh. The confession.

Yeah. I mean, I, I didn't.

Yes, I know, I know, I know that that often happens. It is hard to change those patterns. Even when you know you're supposed to, that you should, I find that it, and this is something that we, we started to do more of in the practice. It required this sort of constant coaching. And, and Jim had a very, uh, Jim, when he worked with us, had a very, I mean, he would say this not to patients or, or clients, but he would just say, you have to beat them over the head with what you want them to do, because it's just going to take a lot of repetitions. And there was a certain truth to that. Which I think in a certain way was overly cynical. I don't put it that way myself because I really believe that if you— that the art of the delivery is what inspires and motivates people to make the change with less repetition.

Yeah, it does. And it also just depends when it lands, if, you know, if the person's ready and Also, you know what their understanding was. So you and Jim were like, okay, you gotta get an Oura Ring. And I was like, I don't like gadgets, I don't like stuff, I don't want an Oura Ring. And you guys were like, just get the Oura Ring. Like, all right, fine. So I got it. And the real reason I didn't wanna get it is because I was pretty sure it was just gonna like yell at me to exercise more. Often. And I was like, I don't want to be yelled at by technology. Like, I know I should work out more. Uh, so I got it, I put it on, and the first message it sends me is, uh, you didn't have enough restorative time today, you're not going to be productive tomorrow. And I was like, what? This thing is telling me to relax? That is not And that is just, for me, a huge example of why we engage with practitioners and work with them, because we have blind spots that we have no idea about. And as you peel back the layers, it's like the next— my food's pretty good, my light's pretty good, my minerals are all balanced out, but I'm totally overrunning my engine with activity and not giving it time to reset. And I didn't even know I was doing that. Like, I'm never going to fix that on my own because I didn't even know I was doing it. My, my Oura Ring told me, right? And so then it became about like understanding even what restorative time is, right? And Jim's like, just sit down, just sit down for a few minutes, put your feet up. Stare at— just stare out, you know, just chill. I'm like, not unloading the dishwasher. He's like, no, not unloading the dishwasher. That's not restorative time.

We attract a very high-intensity, highly driven group of people with this kind of medicine. And a big part of that— and I'll unpack this a little bit for listeners— is that 10% or so of the population have a brain wiring that's described as driven. This is, I think, best explained by a guy named Doug Brackmann, who wrote the book Driven. And I highly recommend that to anyone who identifies as being driven, because it helps you understand yourself and those blind spots that you, you mentioned. And it can bring a lot of people who have that, uh, that constitution peace over how they are. What I've found overwhelmingly in taking care of them, and I have to say, I think the vast majority of our patients are driven. I don't know if it's 60% or 90%. There's a lot of overlap there because their kids may not be driven. Their spouses may not be driven and they bring them into the practice. So I wind up taking care of the whole family, just as we did with you. But what I've found overwhelmingly is the people who are driven drive themselves to the point that their resources are exhausted. And what I think is interesting about this is that in a state of nature, these, these people didn't have the option of always being on the move. And even when they did, they were connected to the earth, which gives them energy and recharges their mitochondrial batteries. They were connected to the sun, same story. And if they did go out, the first thing that humanity figured out how to do was how to make massive amounts of food. On a consistent basis through some combination of hunting and agriculture and animal husbandry, I should mention as well. And the interesting thing about that is that baked into that is periods where you're feasting and then you're resting. And now, even though we think of a lot of what we do as not stressful, unloading the dishwasher, you know, doing your hair and makeup, you know, putting the kids to bed. It's still work. And so the human body is more engaged than ever, and it's never been more disconnected from the sources of energy production than now. And I recall distinctly being in the quantum health paradigm and thinking, well, if all this is about light and energy, then is there a place for supplementation? And I had a very negative view of supplementation for a brief interlude until I realized thanks to various experiences, mentorship I received, that there was still a place for this. It's just that what I saw tending to happen was that the, the pendulum would swing much too far in one direction. People would either go all in on lifestyle changes, light therapy, energy medicine, and not understand the nutrition and supplementation piece, or people would just have a closet full of supplements and dizzying schedules of doses and numbers of doses and so on that I even, as a practitioner, I will get some supplement lists from patients and think, I can't keep this straight. And how do you keep it straight? And invariably with those cases, they're coming to me because they're not getting results, just like the people who are not taking any supplements. And we have to figure out, well, what's going to be the happy medium and what is going to be the optimal number of supplements. Turns out with 6 to 12 ingredients in any given supplementation protocol, whether you're talking about single ingredient minerals or vitamins or herbs or adaptogens, you can get 90% of what you need done. And it actually depends upon you using less than more. And I found that over and over again.

Yeah, it's like what we were talking about earlier with supplements. We got into this like, I should be— I wanted to be taking everything, I would be taking everything. And then it's like, okay, but why? And it's like, so that I have energy to always be doing stuff. And, you know, that was like the paradox of healing that came up for me. And that has been my big learning over the last 5 years. Is that you, you know, I got to the point where I felt so much better, where I had my energy back, and it's like, I'm gonna do all the things all the time. Like, I'm back. I don't have to lie on the couch every 2 hours for 5 minutes. Like, let's go. And this is, I will say, like a lifelong, a lifelong pattern for me that, you know, the first crisis that came, I had with that pattern was having children because they don't, like, I would just work and then till I crashed and then take a break. But with babies, you can't do that. They're not like, oh, Mom, you seem a little tired, I'll, I'll change my own diaper and put myself to bed tonight. Like, so you— if you, you know, I didn't have the skills to self-restore because I was used to not having children, just going as hard as I could and then crashing and then coming back and doing it all over again. And that approach does not work with children. So that— so the babies were my first training out of that. But it's a pretty deep pattern, as you said, like probably part of that driven thing. So when I started to feel better, like, that's what I reverted to. So the big learning was like, I'm not getting better. Like, we're not— we're not, you know, like that hustle culture. Like, the point of healing is not to then overextend myself. And what is so beautiful about a practitioner who understands light and natural cycles is that if you do live by the light and dark cycles, you are training yourself to get, as you said, that restorative time that we're designed to need. And I feel tired, like, when after it's been dark for about an hour, I'm like, "I'm tired. I wanna go to sleep." So for me, that was a huge thing. It was like, okay, just because I'm feeling better, that's not, and I'm feeling not just better, but I'm feeling good. And I'm like, such a novel experience. I'm like, I'm so excited to feel good. But it doesn't mean that it's just for like to go, to go, go, go. Like part of the healing is to get out of that habit. It's that, that mental habit that we have of continuously overextending and continually hustling. And just on that topic, I interviewed a guy called Willie Duggan recently, and he's a, He has a master's degree in lighting design. He's like a third-generation lighting designer. He was from Ireland, and he was saying that almost all of the research on, on light bulbs, like, that he did when he was, uh, studying and writing his thesis, it's all on how effective the light bulbs are for task-related activities. And it was just so interesting because that's like what you were saying about how we didn't used to have that, and then the light bulb came and the sole purpose of it seemed to be to prolong our ability to do tasks. And all of the research and all of the innovation around light bulbs was before the energy-saving thing anyway, was to how, how bright does it need to be to do a task. So we're like super programmed to just, oh, I feel I'm, I'm getting better in order to do more.

The most important conversation that I have with patients really is, what is our goal? Not in terms of you want to look better, feel better, perform better, whatever arbitrary metric you want to track as our metric of success. The real question is, what is that going to enable you to go out and do? And I have this conversation on a regular basis, at least once a year at people's annual appointments with me. Because I view a lot of what I do, and you mentioned the Oura Ring as being very instrumental for you in this, but I use just as often, or sometimes I rely more on the labs. What we see in the labs, it's essentially like, I know where someone is in terms of their RPMs on their engine. Are they redlining it or can they, uh, Do they have extra bandwidth? Can they put in an extra 20% and get away with it? Usually people come to see me when their concept of wellness fails to sustain their energy and they need more, and they need more support, whether that's nutritional or hormonal or light therapy, or they need somebody to find the toxic exposure or the stress that's been undetected. And what I find so interesting about it is that the conversations I end up having are, why is it important for you to run this company? Why is it important for you to have this jet-setter lifestyle? Why is it important? And sometimes giving people context, you know, I had a patient recently, I said to him, you know, your stress levels are high based on your labs. And he said, I don't have a stressful lifestyle. He is a highly paid professional who runs his own business with his family. And every time I, I text him, call him, email him, hear from him, he is flying to Germany, going to the Masters on a plane. I mean, he's actually quite hard to get ahold of, and I don't begrudge him that, but he has this concept of my life is not stressful because in 2 days I might be sitting on a yacht in the Virgin Islands, and in 3 days I might be at the Masters. And that's fun, but it's still stress. And many people become habituated in their work. I've noticed this myself. You know, a day at the office for me is talking about the most stressful problems in someone's life. It was very funny in training. I realized that I liked going to coffee shops so that I could overhear conversations about boring things. Little Billy is going to soccer practice. He just loves it, but. You know, he, and I was, I don't know what it was, but psychologically hearing people have these very normal conversations was extremely therapeutic for me as a resident in training where 80 hours a week, 60 hours a week, whatever it was, I was in a hospital dealing with, you know, dead or nearly dead and dying people, critically ill people all day, every day. Uh, and people who were, if they were going in and out of the hospital for care, were very, very sick and medically complex. So anyway, so we did a round of lab testing. You did targeted supplementation. You've confessed that you didn't make many dietary changes, which is very funny and not surprising at all. I'm deeply curious. What was your impression of the first round of lab testing and the results that you got? If you were at 65% when we started, where were you when we ended that first round?

Um, I mean, we're going back a few years, but yeah, I would like probably it. Up in the '80s. And then when I, when I started to understand my piece of it, which is, was how I scheduled my life and how I thought about my available energy, right? Like I, and you were talking about, you know, how much bandwidth you have and going into the red, right? And it was sort of, I, I think of it as like there's some people who are like chronic debtors credit cards, but some of us are like chronic debtors with our energy, right? And it's like, I don't feel like I've— like, I need to be just like slightly overextended on my bandwidth, or I feel like I'm slacking off. Not— I don't know, it's not the right word, but it's like, if there's any available energy, I'm gonna use it right up, right up to the line. And just like with debt, even if you're over only a little over time, that's cumulative. So I think like the supplements and like my food was pretty good, that's why I didn't change it too much. But still, yeah, I didn't, you know, that's my thing. The light, all of that laid the foundation for me to have like, like a, a nice normal bandwidth that wasn't constrained by chronic fatigue and all these other things. And so then what got me into the '90s was understanding how to, how to use that bandwidth and not overdo it. And that there was no— there's, unless I like start taking drugs, there's nothing in the world that's gonna make my bandwidth unlimited. And it's not supposed to be unlimited. And to make peace with like the energy that I have and, and make, make conscious decisions of how I'm gonna use it. Say no to more things. Think before I agree to something. Like I would find myself like in the middle of responding to an email being like, sure, I'll take care of that. I'm like, wait a minute, will I? Will I? Am I gonna— before I hit send, what am I committing to here? Like little things like that all the time.

What did you find with subsequent rounds of nutritional testing and supplementation?

You know, it's a continuous uplevel. And also, as I was saying before, like our, you know, my body my body changes over time, my environment changes over time. And then as I got used to living like a more sort of energetically stable life, then that opened up new avenues. It's like, oh, okay, like, oh, it's possible to feel even better. So it's, it's a virtuous cycle. Like, once it's, once it's part of life.

What I try to prepare patients for is that it's an iterative process. The first round of labs and 3 to 4 months of supplements is the foundation, but if you stop there, then frequently, even if you make significant progress, the gains evaporate if a follow-up round of labs is not done and a follow-up round of supplements is not done. It would be the same as laying bricks without mortar. It just takes time for these changes to set in. And so I always try to prepare people for that because, you know, the quick fix in 3 to 4 months sounds great. I love it on the rare occasion that we really make it stick. Usually it's in younger people, 20s, early 30s, but often it takes multiple rounds of lab testing in them as well. So the last thing I want to talk about with you today was really what I would say, and you feel free to correct me, was the next quantum leap in your wellness, you tried a unique light therapy product that we'll link to in the show notes. And I remember being very impressed by what you had to say about it. How did that coming back essentially to light with a new product that was not the sun and not really the, the first generation of light therapy devices out there on the market, what was that experience like and what were the benefits? And if you were at 90% after the nutritional supplements, where did that take you?

Right. So yeah, so as I said, it's like, you know, healing, healing is non-linear, and so there's always things that come up. And sometimes, like, we stabilize our health and then there's like some trauma that rears its head. It's like, oh, okay, I now have enough energy to go and heal that. And so you sent me these, this phototherapy device, um, device, even the right word. Anyway, you sent me the, the phototherapy, and I, I didn't try it right away because I was like, I feel fine, I feel good. But, you know, I started researching it and reading about it, and it, you know, it wasn't like taking anything into my body. It was all light-based, was using my body's own light to, you know, resonate with frequencies that were going to be healing. I'm like, this sounds really cool. So I put it on and It was February of last year, so it was the middle of the winter. And I do tend to slow down in the winter if I don't really, really take care of myself. And I was busy, so I wasn't totally, but I didn't have any, like I wasn't, like I felt fine as I said, I felt good. I put this thing on and within a couple of hours I had all of this brain fog lift that I was not even aware of. Right? Like you, if you had asked me if I had brain fog, I would've said, ah, maybe a little, but not really. Of course my bar for that's pretty low 'cause I had such bad brain fog for so long. So I didn't, it wasn't even really like a conscious problem, but it lifted. And that was a moment where, you know, I, it really kind of changed how I think about things, because a lot of the, um, products that I promote, which is not very many, but that I promote and that I use, it's like to mitigate modern life, right? It's like I wear blue-blocking glasses because I'm surrounded by artificial light, or I use infrared sauna because I don't live outside during the day. But this was like a way to use my body's own energy to get to a level that I don't think is available without it. And I have only ever associated that kind of upleveling, like, with taking drugs or something like that. And so the fact that there was a way to do it that was really what I've come to feel is releasing the potential that was of my— of our bodies that was always there. We just sort of got cut off from it.. And that's been my experience with the, with this phototherapy. And then things started to happen that wasn't even on my radar when I started to use them. Like I saw a friend who I hadn't seen in like 6 months and she's like, so Meredith, I know you would never do Botox. I'm like, that is true. I never would. She's like, so, uh, what's going on?

You're serious?

Yeah. And I was like, oh yeah. So she's now using these. And I went to get my driver's license renewed and like my new one looks— I look younger than my old one. I don't know what to tell you. That's what's happening for me.

No, I was looking at myself in the camera the other day and I thought, and people are going to laugh because people always tell me I look like I'm 20 or something. But I probably 6 months, a year ago, I noticed that I did have, I was starting to get some extra eyelid skin and I already knew, okay, well, if this is where I'm at at 36, then at 40, 50, 60, I'm going to be going in for an eyelid surgery just so I don't have all this extra skin around my eyes. I looked in the camera yesterday, I think, and thought, Where did that go? And yeah, phototherapy, amazing. And that's the thing that excites me about it is that a lot of what I started with in my journey as an integrative doctor was how do we get back in touch with nature and just tap into the resources that are available if you walk out your front door? And if you live in a city, you might need to walk out your front door and take a train or a bus or drive. Couple of miles, maybe a couple of states, but you might need to go a distance to really get back into connection with nature. But the truth is, as I've moved forward, there's more and more devices that I'm embracing because I see that connection to nature not getting people where they want to be. And I also, I used to have a much harder line in the sand of, well, if you're not willing to do what it takes, I can't really help you. But I learned more and more a respect for, and I like, a friend of mine likes to say, you have to love people where they're at on the way to where they're going. I came more around to a philosophy of you have to define your goals. I am not here to pass judgment on them. There are some goals I just couldn't assist someone in achieving. Like I couldn't, for example, as some of my colleagues are, you know, participate in assisted suicide. And various other ethical quandaries for me. But if somebody wants to live life on the absolute edge and it's bad for them in some respect, it's overclocking the engine, and I know we're gonna have to use extra supplements or hormones or performance-enhancing drugs, I just explain to them what they're doing. Hey, you're going into debt. From the future. You're borrowing energy from the future. And then I let them make the decision and I support them to help them achieve the goal and trying to remain present there, helping them understand and, and being in dialogue really with themselves over, is this juice really worth the squeeze? Do I need to do this? Is this something I really feel called to do? Or am I doing this for someone else or for some group of people or for some calling that doesn't really align with my values. That I didn't ever anticipate, but it became— it has become and continues to be the most important thing now that I do. Because if you don't give people that perspective, I think they're just adrift in this sea of possibilities of taking all the things for all the things and doing all the things. And I don't find that that works for patients, and it doesn't work for me. Creates a lot of overwhelm for both the patient and the clinician, which I find burns patients out. And I don't really want to do that. I've found that I really thrive on having long-term relationships with patients. I much prefer the idea of taking care of someone or a family for 10, 20, 30, 40 years than what a lot of my colleagues do, which is I call the churn and burn train of, you know, one comes in the door, one leaves, one comes in the door, one leaves. I find that very exhausting and not very authentic.

Yeah. And that's not really how it works. It's a lifelong process, isn't it?

It is.

And yeah, I, I too, like, I'm so much on the natural side of things. Like, I'm always like, no, you have to get all of these foundational foundational pieces in place and then add other stuff. But I have learned as well that for some people, you have to start with the intervention and move the needle in any way you can, and then they have the energy and the will to add in the foundational pieces afterwards. And just because I like to do it the other way around, I, I acknowledge that that's not where everybody is, and that they are starting Starting with an intervention and moving to foundations is just as valid if it helps somebody.

So again, we recommend people try the phototherapy product that Meredith, uh, just mentioned in the last chapter of this episode. And if people would like to schedule a consult at the practice, it's stillmanmd.com. And Meredith has a lot of interesting things to offer people. Meredith, do you want to run people through the opportunities they have to work with you?

Sure. So the best place to go is qbcpod.com. Uh, that's the website for my podcast. I have many great interviews, Dr. Stillman on there. And if you click on products we like, you can, uh, put in your email and I'll send you info on how I use the phototherapy that we were just discussing. Um, and there's also, if you own or run a business, there's, uh, coaching opportunities coming up to work with me.

Fantastic. Thank you again, Meredith, for joining me.

Thank you.