Holistic Health part 2

Hey. Hey. Welcome to Braincheck. I'm Dr. Mitzi Joy Williams, your board certified neurologist and fellowship trained multiple sclerosis specialist. My mission is to engage, educate and empower those impacted by chronic neurologic conditions to become an active part of their healthcare team. Here on brainchat, we'll be discussing all things brain, brain health, wellness, self advocacy, and how to care for your loved ones who are impacted by chronic neurologic conditions. Join me and my super friends and special guests as we get ready for the next episode. And most importantly, let's get nerdy. So going back to the empowered patient and the role of the patient, because it's important to recognize and I do often talk about how patients are an active part, I want people to be an active part of their healthcare team. The goal is not for me to sit and talk to you, but but for you to also have a conversation about what's going on with you. And we come up with that plan together. So, Victoria, tell us about the role of the patient in this integrative and holistic journey in terms of, you know, trying to help figure out what works, what doesn't work, but also in doing the work towards your healing and towards your own wellness.

Yeah. What Dr. Tanya hit on was so imperative. The space is one, but then as a patient, it's about one resting. And I think we don't talk about it enough. When I was sat down and had to focus on healing, I had to dig really deep into rest practices. And there were so many meditation and mindfulness leaders that I've worked with over time where they talked about the power of rest and what rest affords you. And it's not just the sleep rest, but the spiritual rest, the creative rest, the emotional rest, like getting a really good rest practice. Because through rest, what I learned was that my mind was a little bit more clear and I was willing to ask myself the hard questions. So to your point, if a doctor prescribes me something, did I really take it? Why did I really stop taking it? If it was a supplement even, did I really allow for it to take? Did I give it 30 days? Did I give it 60 days? Am I really eating as balanced and as mindfully as I should be? Is one thing to eat a plate of a bowl of salad, another thing to really enjoy it and take it in and consume it and allow for it to digest? And as I had one integrative doctor say, the rest and digest period is really important. And so as a patient, resting is imperative. Being mindful in our practices, in the way in which we're eating, walking, getting sunlight is imperative. And I push on those two specifically because they allow for us to be able to think just more clearly and to be able to then also be in tune with our body. And then it's the being the detective while I'm rested, to get curious. I want my doctor to be curious with me. I want my doctor to ask me questions about who I am and what frames some of my thinking. But I need to be as equally as curious too. So again, connecting the dots, if this happened, then what maybe was the, why was that the result to this? And so that curiosity is really important. And then I would say number four is recognize where there is something that is going to cause you stress in the healing experience and the healing process that you can delegate to your tribe. And so what I mean by that is I remember when I sat down with Dr. Mitzi last year and we had the shared decision making conversation and she said, here are the three drugs, the three DMTs that you can choose from. And in the back of my mind, even though I'm showing up to her going, okay, all right, I can do it. I was also treating myself as a, as a big project. I treated my healing journey as a client project. So I said, you know, this is going to be stressful for me to do the research on my own to look at the side effects, the impact, the reality of a dmt. And so what I did was I looked at my circle and I said, all right, I have three people that are actually researchers by trade. I am going to task them with researching these three DMTs for me and then they need to come back and bring a recommendation on which one. And that was me leaning into trust of my tribe, but then also realizing I needed to take that level of anxiety off of me because otherwise I was going to continue to relapse and continue to have these symptoms. And then by the time that they all came back with their readouts and they didn't know each other, they came back and they said, all right, here's what I found. I had Excel spreadsheets and everything. I said, oh, okay, all right. They were like, this is what we want you to do. Here's what we want you to ask your doctor. Here's. Okay, cool. And I caught up Dr. Mitzi on our next appointment. I shared what it was. I brought one of them with me. And when I tell you I spent no less than a couple of hours ruminating on the drug, but I Felt cared for. That was the hardest thing for me, but the easiest thing for me to do as a patient, to say, I know something that's going to cause me more stress and I'm going to cycle and I need to. I need help. And so being willing to figure out what you need help in and soliciting and activating those people to help. And so those are the four things that I would say. I think the underlying that we just, we don't talk about enough is being able to trust our body. Trusting our body is so important, especially, you know, with embracing both Western medicine and the natural holistic approaches. So I had to figure out, okay, so what are the signs and the signals that my body just needs more of something or less of something? But then what are the rituals or the practices that I can put into place that are going to make my body feel cared for before I go into an infusion treatment? Because that's also like, my mindset and my beliefs of that drug are even more important than the actual drug itself. Because if my mind doesn't say, hey, we saw you visually during your meditation when you were calling in, like, having this drug is going to go through the body. It's going to take. It's going to do this healing. And so here's what we do. Here's what we see in meditation. If I don't do that, then all I'm doing is I'm just exposing my body to just another thing.

Right.

And it's not prepared to receive it as healing. And so that's why I say trusting your body and giving your body some type of purpose, practice so that it knows, okay, we're going into infusion. Here's what we got to do. We have these practices we're going to do the day before, and we have these things that we're going to eat, and we have these things that we're going to do while we're sitting there. And so. But that's my responsibility. You can't do that.

Right, Right. So many good things that you said. I love the example of leaning into that support. Support is so important for all of us, whether you have a chronic disease or not. But definitely, if you have a chronic condition, being okay with saying, you know what? I am not going to have this weight of the world on my shoulders alone. Let me lean into my support system and see where, you know, they can help me, you know, or take some of that burden off of me. Because oftentimes people want to help, but we don't ask. And so that is one of the most common issues that many of my patients come to me with. They'll come with a family member and they're like, but I'm so independent. I don't like asking. Asking for help, you know, and they will literally suffer when there are people sometimes in their own home that may not tell about their diagnosis. You know, I've had people that have not told spouses or children or people that live with them. And even if they do tell them, they may just suffer in silence because they don't want to bother other people. So that support system and that tribe and that network is extremely important. And I also love, you know, all of what you said, but particularly the part about, you know, those about rest. Now, we could spend a whole episode on rest, because that's a whole word, you know. And I often tell people what we look at are often what we portray as self care is really recovery. Right? So we're not doing it, you know, to help our bodies. When our bodies are feeling good, we're exhausted, depleted, and then we go to the spa, and then it gives us just enough to get back to where we were before we were exhausted and depleted. But we're still not pouring into the tank. While the tank is partially full. It's kind of like going to get gas and wait until you get completely on E and you only got two miles left versus if you, you know, fill it up when it's halfway full, it won't cost you as much money and it probably won't do that much damage to your car. But I want you to weigh in here, Dr. Bo Brand, about the role of the healthcare provider in this wellness process. And you've talked about it in the things that you've said, but what's the role of the doctor? What's the role of the physician? Right. I'm often tasked with, hey, Dr. Mitzi, you're my last hope. They told me to come to you and you will fix everything. And I'm like, well, I don't know if I can live up to that, you know, which usually I can't. So what is the role or expectation of the healthcare provider in this whole process?

I think I've come to look at myself as a vessel. I am a facilitator of your healing, so I will welcome you into my space. I will listen to you, I will love you through the process. Sometimes I will give you a swift kick and tough love when you need it. But as far as being the health care provider, I am simply your partner. I may have information, yes, I have the knowledge and expertise, but I do not live in your body. And my role is to help you. Tell me what your body is telling you. And if I do not create the space, in many ways, the physical, emotional, spiritual space that will allow you to get in tune with your body and tell me what's truly happening. I have failed. As far as I'm concerned, I have failed in my role as your health care partner. And I, I believe that I, I look upon it as okay. And I ask God, there's a prayer that I say, use me. That I may know the joy of being used by you every morning. That's by Marianne Williamson. And I say it every morning because I feel that we have been given this gift of being health care providers. It's a gift, it's an honor to hold people's hands as they heal. It's not something that I'm arrogant about or it's about my ego. It's about truly forming soul connections with the patients and saying, I am here for you. Tell me what you need. But in order to do that, I need to give you the space and permission as well to heal. Because many times patients do not want, do not feel they deserve healing. They are holding on to this because they feel they deserve it. They've done something wrong, so it's punishment and I want it. And part of the key factor in my mojo process is the soul joy, part of self awareness, self love, self acceptance and self forgiveness. And I tell, okay, as of this moment, whatever happened, you are allowed to leave here now and leave it at my doorstep. And you then go on to heal because you talk to. I talk to patients all the time. And they go back to the past. And a lot of it is stored trauma. A lot of it is they just don't feel worthy of healing. So the disease process is stuck because they're not allowing themselves to release it because they feel that I deserve this because I did something wrong years ago. When I start having these types of conversations, that's beyond the diets and nutrition and the exercise and the detoxification, beyond the sleep and stress management and all of that. When we start to talk about the self worth and the self acceptance and the self forgiveness, that's when I see the aha moments coming in. That's when the breakthroughs come, come. That's when the tears come. And when the tears come, I know we're making progress. And I have a room that I gently take them in. And I said, this is where we're.

Going to process this.

You're not going to process it. And my office does not look like a doctor's office at all. But that room does not look like anything they've ever seen. It's dark, it's quiet. It has aromatherapy, and it has everything. Once I put you in there, we know some processing is going to take place, but I can't process it for you. I have just created a safe space where you can process this all for yourself. And many times the aches are gone, the back pain is gone, the headache is gone. There are times I put people in there for 15 minutes and two hours later they're coming out, you know, and that's. They haven't slept like that in years. Well, your body needed it, so I left you there.

Yeah. So important. It's all connected. It's, you know, it's all connected. You know, in some, you know, you have a very different. I won't say different style, but almost different style of practice. You know, for those who may not be able to, you know, have that space, I think it's important to incorporate our mental health providers, you know. You know, because in some neurology clinics, just depending on the space, you know, obviously we would all love to sit. And I do a lot of counseling. I have the ability to do that because of the way my practice is set up. But many of my colleagues, depending on time constraints, et cetera, may not have that space. So it's important to make sure that we're incorporating the importance of the mental health journey in that aspect, because it absolutely affects everything else. Right. And so what you're saying is so key that sometimes it is things that people have stored up in their bodies. And I just started reading this book called the Body Keep Score that talks about that, you know, but we have to recognize that our body stores much of the trauma and things that we've experienced and that it can manifest as physical disease, you know, over time. Because we just have been. We feel like we have gotten over it, and we feel like we're functioning, but we have never dealt with it. So that is so key and so important. This is such an amazing conversation. Listen, I need to have y' all back to do a part two, but before we wrap up, one thing that I did want to make sure that we touch on is misinformation. So there's a lot of amazing information out of there, you know, out there with these. Beyonce's Internet, whoever's Internet it is today. I don't know whose Internet it was Beyonce's Internet yesterday. But there is also information that's not necessarily solid. And sometimes when people are in a vulnerable position, particularly if they've just been diagnosed with a chronic condition, they may be looking and grasping at anything that says it's a cure that's going to make it go away. So how do you navigate information, you know, particularly. I'll start with you, Victoria, as a person living with a chronic neurologic condition, how do you kind of navigate that information? You know, because it's always tempting, right? Somebody's like, oh, I cured my Ms. When I stood on my head and spun around in a circle three times. Or I cured my Ms. When I jumped out of that window. And I'm like, well, don't jump out the window, sugar, not today. You know, so how do you. How do you navigate the abundance of information, you know, that's available in trying to figure out what works for you, what doesn't, what you want to try, what you don't want to try.

I, I had to consult with, with multiple physicians to just to hear their perspectives around things. That was my first, My first avenue to help with overcoming misinformation. Because like you said, there's a lot of information out there. And even before even knowing that it was ms, but looking at test results and where it was like, rheumatoid was high and this was high and this was high, and, you know, you Google these things and then it can. It gets really scary, and then you go down a rabbit hole. What I decided to do was I sat down with the ENT at the time that I was going to ear, nose, throat therapist, I was going to. And then I sat down with the neurologist that I knew at the time, and I asked them a couple of things just for them to give me some information. So, like, what is it that I really need to know at this time, even though we don't know exactly what it is? And then I called three. There's three different integrative health practitioners, and I had to do three because it's a slippery slope in that space too, because people are trying to capitalize on people that are vulnerable. And unfortunately, that happens in that space and then also in other spaces. But what I was able to gather from them were the common threads, like what seems to be true from what some of these individuals are saying, and then make sure to pick the resource that made sense for me and start to, to read up a little bit more, listen to diverse perspectives. So for me, I needed. Okay, that's a Western practitioner's perspective. But then what are other practitioners saying that are not necessarily in that space. And what I realize is, even in responding to that, that that requires a lot of time. Right. But it was worth it because it. It helped me reduce the anxiety of being overwhelmed unnecessarily and focusing on a couple of key things. So what I heard initially was focus on your gut, the gut brain barrier. Focus on the body and what it is that you're. That you're giving it and what you're not giving it, and then focus on some mindful techniques. Okay, I can do that. And went into those resources and learning more about a topic will help you kind of go through and say, I can kind of call BS on that. That doesn't really make sense. There's no way that it should cost me a thousand dollars just to have a conversation with somebody. There's no way that I should be spending a thousand dollars just to get these blood panels done. And I have one right in front of me that I did a couple of days ago. So those types of just using the resources. But it does take time. Like, I can't lie as a patient to overcome misinformation. It did require more time, but having the diverse perspective around me, having an acupuncturist breakdown, what's happening in my body, and me being able to allow for him to observe what's happening and me be able to say, okay, that makes sense, because my other doctor over here said that they saw this or this is what I was feeling. And the more that, again, the story that's being told starts to show up as, yeah, this actually might be true. Okay, great, now I have something to work with. Now I can say, all right, let's focus on breath work. Let's focus on this, on that. So it is. It's time investment. It's consulting. But just like anything else to your point, Dr. Mitzi, social media and just overall Internet, the algorithms are designed to keep people in their own funnel of information, Right? So you have to actively go out and find dissenting opinions. Just like what you did with this podcast. You brought in, two of you, our specialists from very different areas of practice, but yet common, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And I love that because it's. You have to do research, and everyone does it at their own pace. Sometimes, you know, in that first year of diagnosis, people are really just kind of grappling with that. So I'm not a person that's like, okay, you got to go out and do this. And do this and do that. But I do tell people that we, we research things all the time. Yes, it can be overwhelming, but research is all around us. If you want, if I want to find a new loctician, guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to look on the Internet, I'm going to call my friends, I'm going to say, okay, if I want to get sisterlocks, what should I be looking for? What's the correct price range? What is a, you know, a reasonable time frame in which. And I'm going to be ready. If I want a car, I'm going to say, what's the specs? You know, when I see somebody driving it, how do you like it? I'm going to get multiple, I'm going to use multiple sources of information and get several things and I'm going to see, like you said, what's the common thread. Right? Okay. So everybody consistently said this, this, this, this. And so that's probably true, you know, but who better or what better to invest in than yourself, right? If we're going to research, you know, a hairstylist, a school, you know, house and all these things that we research, I think there's no better investment of research than in yourself and your own health. And so it's so important to get those diverse opinions, see what makes sense and then do what makes sense for you. You know, just because somebody said they had an extreme result, if that does not fit anywhere in your lifestyle, then that does not make sense. So it's all about that tailor made process and that's gonna be different for each person. And Dr. Bobron, just for you, you know, where would you tell people to start? So we're way over, we're over time, but this, this conversation is so good. So just tell me where you would tell people to start. Right? So they're thinking about integrative medicine, they're thinking about holistic health. You know, Victoria said she found several integrative practitioners. Where would you tell folks to start? Like, you know, I'm really interested. I don't know where to start, I don't know where to look. Who should I go see? Who is an integrative medicine specialist?

First of all, I think we should set the intention that the right people come in, that if we ask for, you know, Mr. Roger says, ask for the helpers, look for the helpers. If we set the intention that, and ask the universe to send us the right people, they will start to come across you. And it has happened to me several times so that's setting the intention that you are open for the right person for you, and then not closing your mind off to who that person could be. See, we sometimes have a format and we say, okay, they must look like this and they must sound like this, and they must practice like this. I do not think that my patients who came to see me ever expected me to be pulling out tuning forks. And it took me a while to tell people, listen, I also offer this therapy. Once I told her about it, her eyes lit up. She was open to healing in whatever form. And I said, listen, I feel very strongly that this would work for you. She herself had set the intention that she would be open to healing on different levels. I, as well, was. I remain open and I researched for myself. I'm constantly doing continuous education. I read a lot, I look at things. So I am ready for when a patient says, I saw something on social media or they come with the printed thing off the Internet. I can then say, listen, as much as this sounds good, I can tell you that the last conference I went on and they were these specialists in that the latest research says that this is not quite so. So I think we as healthcare practitioners need to be continuously educating ourselves. The things are changing all the time. What I learned in medical school in the 80s, sometimes it's just out the window. And if I stay stuck in that, I will never be able to truly help my patients get the healing they deserve. So I'm continuously educating myself so that when they come at me with that, I can speak from a place of authority. And I can say, I'm not gonna say, oh, I don't know. I cannot say, you know, this doesn't work. And the other thing is, when I did the alternative medicine, I did herbal biology. One of the reasons I studied herbalogy, because in the Caribbean we have a. A culture of using herbs. Mix herbs with pharmaceuticals, you get a whole reaction. So I can say with things, you know, this is going to react to that. So perhaps you should say that rather than coming from the spaces, don't take the herbs at all. Herbs are bad. Guess what? They're going to take your prescription for the pharmaceutical thing, toss it around and continue taking the herbs and come back to you and lie and say, yes, I've been taking the medication, you know, and then you treat based on false information. So I think we must always be open as patients and doctors, set the intention for the right experience, the right person, and the right opportunity to come into our lives and be open to, however it may Come.

Yeah.

And recognize that it might look like a tribe. It may not look like just one person. Right. And so the beauty in your practice is that you do have those. The cross discipline and to bring your patients. And there are others where, like, for me, it looks like a tribe. There's an acupuncturist.

Yeah.

Herbalist. I have my yoga practitioner and my meditation practitioners that. That I work with through certification. I have my vestibular rehab therapist. The different is that I make sure that I share some of the high points that I'm learning with all of them so that they all are in the loop. Somehow, to me, it feels that to me, feels like I have a healing crew. And if I have an IV therapy clinic that I go through, so I think it's just going to look different for all of us. But being with. To your point, Dr. Tanya, you feel like you feel good with someone, and then you build off of there and commit to it.

Yeah.

May come from being on a podcast, because your talk about rest resonated so deeply with me, and I realized that you're right. I have been filling up when my tank is almost empty, and I need to start tuning in when it's half full. And see, this is when you need to rest. And. Absolutely touched me so deeply. And I thought, oh, I needed to hear that at this.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

The answers will come.

Absolutely. And I think it really is about, you know, the. The longer I practice, the more humble I become in realizing that I don't know everything, you know, and so I would love to go back and get my integrative medicine certification. I looked at that fellowship, and I was like, not right now with all the stuff I got going on. So I just have to be realistic, and if I don't have that expertise, I have to be okay with saying, you know what? I don't know everything about that. But let's go over here. Okay. Let's see what the plan is, and let's discuss it. Right. I think, you know, one of the things that can be difficult about being a physician is that often we are kind of given this thought. We're supposed to know everything, and then if we don't know, oftentimes we say, that's bad because we don't know about it. But it may not be now. Some stuff, I'm like, yeah, okay, that's bad. Like, don't do that. Right. But there are other things where you just have to be open and say, you know what? See the, you know, integrative specialist. See, there and then let's come back and let's talk about it. And then also educate yourself, as you said, Dr. Tanya, because I don't want you to be taking this and to interact with this. So, you know, if someone gives me an article and I'm like, you know what? I don't. But let me. I don't know right now, but I'll know by the next time I talk to you in a couple weeks or give me a week, and I'll look it up and I'll see what I can find, you know? And so I think it's that sense of humility, right? Realizing that the answer is not always in one space and that we just have to be open to where those solutions come from and just make sure that we're communicating, you know? And so I like to think that I try to give people space to communicate, but I'm telling you, the longer I practice, the more humble I get, because I'm like, you know what?

That actually worked well, doggone.

Okay, well, let me jot that in my little notebook. Tuck that in the back of my head, you know, for the next person that comes to me and says, you know where I used to say, no, don't do that. That's crazy. I'm like, you know what? It actually worked for somebody. And so that sense of humility, I think, is so important. And listen, y', all, I'm gonna have to break this into a part one and part two. This was so good. This was so good. I was about to say.

And.

No, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. If you wanted to say something else.

No, no, I was gonna. I was gonna say. So true. Because I would have never thought that two years ago. Listening to you are the placebo by Dr. Joe Dispenza, his work of neuroplasticity and the placebo effect, how the brain can really heal your body through meditative practices. I would never have believed you if you would have said, yeah, you can heal your balance. You could get rebalanced and calibrated and be able to walk around here on both. Both of your feet and not feel like when you turn your head, you got the matrix effect. I would not have believed you. But having listened to that before, I even knew I had ms, but while I was in a chronic state, it's like, wow. But taking. Just like taking that one book of a resource that cost, like, $12 and be willing to listen to it and then be able to go to vestibular rehab therapist. And then she was like, okay, well, here's some exercises. Like, there's no drugs involved right now. It was just me trusting my body and listening. It jumped off from, literally from a book. And so to your point, Dr. Mitzi, we have so much access to information that we just have to be willing to receive it.

Yeah. We have to be open. We have to be open to the people that are meant to help us in that healing journey and open to recognize our healing may not come in the form that we originally thought it would and to just be open to different ideas that may lead to that. So listen, this has been an amazing. Okay, okay, one last point. One last point.

Healers, we have to also understand that in healing patients, we are being healed. It took me a while to realize that the healer needs to be healed. Part of that healing process is actually using the tools that we are and healing the patients from this place of humility and this place of saying, I truly want to serve, and I am going to serve in whatever capacity this patient needs me to serve them in. But in doing that every single day, as draining as some of the days can be, as a physician, I realize that I'm also receiving healing when I'm serving from this space. And it's the most profound, awe inspiring gift and experience I've started to experience when I'm doing tuning Fox Therapy and receiving it. And at the end, I am feeling filled up because I'm seeing this patient get off the couch who was down and drained with amazing smiles and you could see her energy change. Yeah, that heals me.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. All right, tell the people where to find you guys.

I am based in St. Lucia. You can find me on tanyabobrun.com I work in person, person and virtually. So you can find me. I'm here to serve. I really awesome.

Is there any information you'd like to give out, Victoria?

Sure, you can find me on LinkedIn. Victoria L. Rogers with a D. You can find me on LinkedIn. Easiest way to connect with me and let's have a conversation. Always.

Perfect. Perfect. Well, listen, this has been an amazing brainchat. I am the nerdy neurologist and I am so grateful. Every conversation I learned something. But listen, I got so much out of this conversation that I need to take home and I need to marinate and meditate on myself. So I thank you for sharing your wisdom with our audience and I know that our listeners will get a lot out of this episode. All right, everybody, thank you. This is another episode of Brain Chat and we will see you all in in two weeks time.