Healing from Anxiety and Acid Reflux | Julie’s Story

I absolutely do not agree with some of the ways that my internist recommends handling gastric issues or even anxiety. Because the pharmaceutical way of handling these, you know, altering the acid that's happening within the stomach, depending on which way you're trying to angle it, it doesn't correct the problem. It's like you're going to have to take this medication for life and it's not even the best way to approach it. They say that adult onset intolerances and food allergies are not reversible. That is what I have been told and that's what I've studied in the books as well. So that was what I sort of accepted to be the norm. It's like I need an actual medicine that actually works and I was so grateful to be able to find something that was natural and healing and something that heals the body and then it's like I don't need it anymore. It's like now my body is back up to normal. I just remember the day, it was probably like a year ago, and I was like, I think this is the best I have ever felt. My energy feels good, my body feels good, my mood is good, I'm like, I am a new me. Hi, I'm Dr. Alex Hine, author of Master the Day, and today we're here with a patient from my practice and a success story, Julie. So Julie, thanks for being here. Now I always like to start with, you had seen other medical practitioners, like your internist and other East-West practitioners. What did they say specifically regarding your condition? Were you going to need to take medication for life? Was this reversible? What was the situation? You know, my internist gave me dietary recommendations, which is understandable, but his fix was going on a medication called Omeprazole, and I took it for about two weeks, and then the situation would subside, but the problem was it just kept coming back. And that was the problem for me, is that I didn't want to constantly be on medication. There really was no fix for managing or curing the symptom. It was about managing the symptoms, basically, and it seemed to be a pattern where I was just constantly going to be on two weeks of Omeprazole, and then it'd be fine for like six weeks, and then I'd be back on it. So it just wasn't fixing the problem. And for me, it's not just about changing my diet, it's about how am I going to heal what is wrong. So when I was seeking out a solution, I wanted something that was going to be natural, that was going to heal my body, like correct it, as opposed to just continuing to put me on a medication. So in regards to the treatment of the anxiety and more of the adrenal fatigue, what were they recommending? He did give me Xanax, like a benzodiazepine, to use if I needed to, which is not my first choice. And as far as fatigue, I had him run my blood panels in order to look for iron anemia, and of course cancer, because any time I don't feel good, I'm like, I got cancer. But he didn't find anything, and so I continued my journey in trying to find a remedy to the situation to then consulting with the functional doctors and osteopathic doctors. So then all of a sudden I had these two different opinions about my blood work, and then it still just didn't fix the problem. What is the cause? Where is this happening? How are we going to fix this? As for me, as a single mother trying to manage all the things and take care of myself and being able to show up to take care of my kids, it's like I need an answer. And trying to navigate that in the medical world is just overwhelming. Now paint me the before picture. What were the symptoms you were experiencing? How was it interfering with your day-to-day life? Was there one particular bad day that was the day where it had to change, or was this something just chronic where your quality of life was being eroded every single day by how bad it was? As far as my digestion, I think everything started even a few years ago. I was living with these very mild symptoms, just having this gnawingness or even this constant feeling of almost being hungry, but not hungry. So I think that the disruption in my gut started years ago of having these symptoms of just a gnawingness or a burningness in the stomach area or just the GI tract in general. And then it progressively got worse into actual acid reflux that just wasn't going away. And I think with all of that, of having the anxiety, for me it was just like my mind was always going about my circumstances and how I was going to keep myself safe and the changes that I needed to make and how overwhelming that was. And then of course that mental spin starts to disrupt your sleep because you're not sleeping well and then you're waking up in the middle of the night. I just feel like all of that together, because the body, it just works together between what are we eating and how is that supporting the brain health and then how is the sleep affecting the hormones and then how is the digestive system being altered. So it was just, it was like one thing just started to tip like a domino through the entire system. So even as I'm talking to the doctors, it's like, well, where do I start? Sure. Do I start with the mind? Do I start with the gut? Do I start with the sleep? It's like, which one is the right way to go? Now what hesitations did you have about seeing a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine? I mean, to some people this is hocus pocus, right? And it's voodoo and it's esoteric, right? Did you have any hesitations about coming to see someone like me? You know, my hesitation in stepping into the Chinese medicine was just simply like, is this going to work? You know, because I had seen people before and it didn't really make a difference. And I mean, I was blown away by the way that it corrected the GI symptoms of the acid reflux and all of the indigestion. And then it didn't come back. So what were your results? And describe a little bit about the treatment that we did and what your actual treatment protocol, for lack of a better word, looked like. So I remember coming in and having sort of a list of, like, this is what I got going on and all of these different symptoms and things that I wanted to address. And I just remember, you know, starting with one type of formula. I think it was the cinnamon toast crunch, like my favorite formula. And I was most impressed because I would have all these reactions, like an adult onset, like intolerance, let's say, to like bell peppers and like the most bizarre foods. And it was like, I knew it worked because at one point I had some meal that had bell peppers in it and I was like, oh darn it, I'm going to get like acid reflux and I got none of it. And I was like, okay, this not only works, but it's actually like healed and changed my system. So surprisingly, I'm able to eat, you know, anything I want, I can drink all the coffee I want. Thank you so much. I love my coffee, you know, without any type of acid reflux. But after going through that, I could just tell, like my system just felt better. I wasn't having those types of reactions. I can eat those foods and not have that type of, you know, gastric acid reflux. And so everything felt better. My digestion was better. And then of course it started to correct, you know, my energy because all of a sudden my system's actually digesting and absorbing all of these nutrients. And then when I get more sleep, when I got better sleep, it's like, then I can think better. So it's like, once you start to heal one part of the body, it just starts to affect the other parts of the body and, you know, the whole organism is just like working in concert with itself. Now, at this point, would you agree with the advice your traditional medical providers gave to you regarding medication for this condition? I absolutely do not agree with some of the ways that my internist recommends handling gastric issues or even anxiety. Because the pharmaceutical way of handling these, you know, altering the acid that's happening within the stomach, depending on which way you're trying to angle it, it doesn't correct the problem. It's like you're going to have to take this medication for life and it's not even the best way to approach it. So I love that the Chinese medicine actually goes into heal whatever is wrong. And the thing is, is that you don't have to continue to take them after a certain amount of time where my internist, it was a medication that I would constantly have to take, constantly have to revisit, like every six weeks, I'd have to go back on this Imeprazole for like two weeks at a time. And I'm like, this just isn't getting better and it's not fixing the problem. What advice would you give to someone who you know can be helped by this, but they are just too on the fence to want to try it? You know, when I try to describe this to my friends or even some of my own patients, I describe it as like taking the most medicinal parts of plants and putting it in your body. And you really can't understand it until you've experienced it. You know, you have to see how your body works with it in general, but Chinese medicine is just this ancient way for the last 2000 years, so they must be doing something right, of being able to heal the body with just these natural medicinal parts of the plants. And if you look even further into it, in Western medicine, they use those parts of the plants to make the pharmaceuticals. So it's like the root of all pharmaceuticals is going to be the Chinese medicine. Like, why not just go straight to the source and get the absolute highest dose of what you need to heal the body from the absolute source of what it is? And do you have any further thoughts for someone who needs help, but maybe is too skeptical or just aren't sure if this is right for them? I have a lot of thoughts about that, actually. I think the first thing and something that's very unique to your clinic is simply you. Because there's always a bedside manner with doctors about people who actually care about the patients who's in front of them. And people who want to really dig deep and investigate and find the source of the problem that's going on with that human being. Because we may come in with certain symptoms, but there's always an entire world that that person is experiencing, and a medical history, and it's like, what is the medical mystery right here? To just simply have a doctor who's going to do that type of work, I think is definitely a big part of the magic of the medicine here. And then for people who are skeptical about Chinese medicine, I think it's really understanding how many thousands of years this medicine has actually been in practice, and to know that there are peer-reviewed, published studies on the medicine, just like Western medicine has, about its efficiency. This is a medicine that is also supported by insurance companies, so there's validity to this. It is recognized as something that is a primary care option. So there's a lot of scientific backing behind this practice as well. It's not just this voodoo, airy-fairy medicine. It is actually science-backed. So it's really about treating the body with nature. And I know that sometimes in our culture, that's not how we're trained, right? We think we need these chemicals from a lab in order to fix the body, but the body can heal itself when it's given the right components. And so to really understand that this medicine comes from a natural source that just helps heal the body directly, and it's actually healing to the body, it's something that's going to correct the body, not just manage those symptoms. How long did it take you to go from, I think this might be doing something, to this is clearly doing something? I feel like when I first started to take some of those bitter formulas for the gastric, I could start to see the improvements within, I want to say, two to four weeks. And then I think it was like three months or so after being on the formula, probably with slight variations just depending on what I was going through when I came into the clinic. I think it was like after about three to four months where I started to eat foods that once gave me a bunch of heartburn that all of a sudden I had zero reaction to. And so I thought that was really quite incredible. And then after I stopped the formulas, I really haven't had to go back on them. So it's like not something that I've had to continue to take, it's like the body is healed and now the body manages just fine. It's almost just like the formulas just needed to correct what was ever wrong, whatever damage had been done. And then it's like kind of allowing the body to heal itself and then it's like ready to go.