Hello and welcome to the Business of Architecture. So I'm your host, Ryan Willard, and today we've got a really exciting guest, Dr Ray Andrew, who is a rather unusual guest for us on the Business of Architecture, not a architect, but a clinician, and a clinician practicing and specializing in the realm of burnout and fatigue, and who has a number of very interesting and alternative approaches to dealing with energy and vitality, something that, as we discuss, often ignored or not talked about in traditional medical practices. So it's a pleasure to welcome Andrew to the to the podcast today, after completing his doctorate in medicine back in 1998 Andrew dedicated his career to understanding how we can truly optimize our health and well being from his clinics in Springville and Moab in Utah. He works with patients from all over the country, helping them not only recover their health, but also improve their performance in daily life, be it at home, work, school or even in sport. His practice focuses on extending both lifespan and health span, ensuring that his patients not only live longer, but live well, many come to Dr Andrew after being told your labs are fine or it's just part of getting older, so all those aches and pains and lethargic experiences that we have, Dr Andrew deals with this in a different way. At the prestige wellness Institute, he and his team offer much more than a conventional diagnosis, they provide compassion, understanding and most importantly, results. It's not just about treating illness, it's about building lasting health and vitality. In this episode, we will discuss burnout and fatigue, what it actually looks like as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, and the symptoms that you really should not be ignoring, even if the doctors are telling you that everything is okay, we look at an alternative approach to health and vitality and energy, and we also discuss some of the conflicts that modern Medicine has to deal with in terms of finance and health. So sit back, relax and enjoy. Dr Ray Andrew, this episode is sponsored by Smart practice, business of architecture's flagship program to help you structure your firm for freedom, fulfillment and financial profit. If you want access for our free training on how to do this, please visit smartpractice method.com or if you want to speak directly to one of our advisors about how he might be able to help you, please follow the link in the information. Hello, listeners. We hope you're enjoying our show. We love bringing you these insightful conversations, but we couldn't do it about the support of our amazing sponsors. If you're a business owner, or know someone who would be an excellent fit for our audience, we'd love to hear from you. Partnering with us means your brand will reach over 40,000 engaged listeners each month. Interested in becoming a sponsor? Please send us an email at support@businessofarchitecture.com Ray, Welcome to the Business of Architecture. How are you? Great. Thanks,
Ryan.
Absolute pleasure to have you here a little bit of a different type of guest today on the on the show, you are a physician, a doctor, and you have known for a long time that you were on a mission to heal and to be working to help people. And we got introduced through Nicole, who's on the team here at Business of Architecture. And one of the things that was, I was really excited to have you on the show was because you treat and work with a lot of people in as patients who are dealing with over hope from burnout, or overwork or exhaustion caused by from through working, particularly the sorts of things that we see many entrepreneurs and business owners suffer from. And you've got a very interesting alternative way of of treatments and actually identifying how, but yeah, what are some of the sort of signals that people suffer from? So welcome to the show. Very excited to have you here, and perhaps you could tell us a little bit about who is it? What is this thing, burnout, and how did you become a specialist in this area?
Well, it was kind of by accident, just because I would see people who are in their peak, their prime, when they're in their business, or whatever their activity is, and you would think after they've. Have gone into whatever this, whatever profession, they've chosen, architecture or or any other business, and they're in love with it, and they're doing very well. And, you know, they're at the top of their game. And then they feel like it's they're asking themselves, is it time to throw in the towel? Is it time to to sell out or quit or whatever? Because they just don't feel they have it anymore. They don't have the passion that they used to have for it. And it's, I kind of think of it as a marriage, you know when at one point in your life you decided you love each you loved each other, and now you're talking about divorce, what happened along the way? And so, so I see people who should be still in love with what, whatever their mission in life, they've chosen, and yet they're not. And so we can think of it on on psychological terms, but oftentimes it's not the psychology of it. It's not that they've really lost their love for their profession. They've lost their love for an enjoyment of life and and that's a completely different beast, and it's and it's good to know. I think it's refreshing for them to realize, no, it's not that you no longer love your profession in in most cases, it's just that you have some physiology, some health problems that you don't even recognize, and it and it has a lot to do with what brought you to where you are. So talk about,
yeah. So, so is it, is it a physiological thing, or is it a psychological thing, or is it a psychological thing that has an impact on physiology, or the other way around, or both?
Well, I do think it's a combination, certainly, but we have so whether we're professionals or whatever we are, we live in a society that is full of stress, right? It's full it's full of toxins, it's full of pressure to be the best, and we put a lot of that pressure on ourselves, and so we overwork ourselves. We don't get enough sleep. We we we people load up on on caffeine to keep themselves going every day, and and, you know, it's a dog eat dog world in business. And so people give their business everything they've got, real, not realizing that they're sacrificing their health, both mental and physical, along the way, and so what we're focused on then is unpacking the the problems that have accumulated, both physiologically and emotionally, So that, so that people can get that mojo back that they once had for their for their passion, for their their calling in life, if that's what they you know, whatever they've chosen,
what what sorts of physiological symptoms do you typically see people who are beginning to experience when they're having this sort of loss of mojo, if you like,
you know, the first thing people complain about is, I'm tired and and, and that may be the only thing they complain about. And then when we get talking, then we start finding that there is they have digestive disturbances and they're not sleeping at night, and they're depressed and they're anxious and they're irritable, and their family members can't stand them, and they're finding And they're finding they can't stand their co workers, and so it's funny to to watch, because that's the number one complaint that we see, is I'm tired. But then when we start talking, it comes out that there's a lot more. And it's really interesting, because we I find that we get used to our level of dysfunction, and so we, we don't realize how far we've gone. You know, we we talk about the the straw that broke the camel's back, and that's really what happens, is we just, you. Uh, push and push and push, not realizing that one after another symptom is piling up, and then finally, something just pushes us over the edge when we say, Okay, I gotta get help. But, but we often, uh, ignore as business professionals, you know you're too busy to be thinking about your health. Yeah, that's the last thing you have time for. You've got meetings, you've got deadlines, you've got projects, you've got all kinds of demands, and devoting attention to your health is a big problem. Is the last thing on your mind. But not only that, but we also have a problem in our society is we don't know what real health is anymore. Our our idea of of health is not having any serious disease and this is interesting people. This is one of the biggest problems we see from people who've gone to doctor after doctor is they will go and say, I I'm tired or whatever, and and then the doctor will run a few really basic tests, and they'll say, Well, your tests are all normal. You're fine. And the and the person will say to themselves, but I'm not fine, because I'm having this and this and this. I'm not sleeping. I'm I'm exhausted and and, and the doctor will say, Well, you know, you're not getting any younger, Jack, and they'll just talk it up to age and and every time I hear this, I think, you're, you've got to be kidding me. You are. You are calling this age. I mean, it's, it's funny, but not funny. You know, I'll have a 30 year old in front of me, and I'm almost twice as old, and they're and they're saying, Yeah, I'm just getting older, Doc. And I'm thinking, I'm thinking to myself, well, I've got a lot more energy than you do, and I'm twice as old as you are.
Now this is really interesting that actually the model of health that we have as a society is a bit it's gone skewed. And I've often thought this interesting with the medical profession, how the main focus of it has often been just the removal of disease, as opposed to the promotion of, you know, what, what is? What is full health for a human being like? What does, what does vitality look like? What does it look like to be a fully energized person? And clearly so much of our lifestyles are really like as you're saying, they can be very detrimental to our energy and and perhaps in a way that we we're stopping when we're not listening to what our body is actually trying to communicate to us and our ambition or need for work or competition or all these sorts of things, actually makes us ignore keys, signals to what could be a high level of energy. Yes,
you know, you brought up two points that I that I have to talk about. The first is you, you mentioned that that we focus on eliminating disease the ironically, we don't. We're actually, we're actually focused on managing disease. In medical school, I was, I was taught, you know, here's the drug for diabetes, here's the drug for heart failure, here's the drug for high blood pressure. But I was, I was never taught. Here's the drug to eliminate heart disease, or here's the here's the here's how you prevent a stroke or Alzheimer's or cancer or whatever that's that's the first part is our education is completely backwards, and that goes along with the second part. The second part is what you are talking about with, with building health, our our focus in in America and in medicine should be not how I how I manage disease, or even how I prevent disease, it should be on how I build health, because if we build health and we can't be sick, we can't get disease if we're building health, so we should be focusing on what it takes to build health. Now the other part that you were mentioning is ignoring the symptoms and I have to tell a story about a young man who I met probably 10 years ago. He was notorious as a child for having gas that he. Called clear the room gas and North normally we we think of things like, you know, gas and belching and bloating and heartburn and and all of the constipation. We think of these things as nuisances in our in our society and and we think of them as as social problems. You know, you don't want to let out gas or belching at the wrong times when you're in in company. But in, in my field of work, we don't look at those as nuisances. We look at those as warning signs. Those are lights on the dashboard that are red, that are saying there's engine trouble, and if you don't fix this, there's going to be problems down the road. And incidentally enough, he then developed type one diabetes, and then he developed Crohn's disease and and I thought to myself, if someone had recognized, I mean, it's not like you're going to take your your child, you know, he was a kid at the time that when this, when he had this clear the room gas, but it's not like you're going to take your kid normally to the doctor, because he has cleared the room gas. But you should, but, but if you go to your regular doctor, they're going to give you some drug for gas, instead of, instead of looking at why this kid has gas, there are really good reasons for it that are important. And if, and if those, if that had been recognized by his parents and then subsequently, by the right kind of doctor, the properly trained doctor, they would have said, This guy's at risk for some serious problems down the road. And lo and behold, what does he have? Serious problems? He's got autoimmune diseases, two of them now, because that was not recognized and dealt with properly.
So what are, what are people to do here? This sounds quite like there's a lot of fundamental issues or constraints with even consulting a regular, a regular doctor, where things might just be prescribed a drug. Certainly, you know, my own personal experiences with a lot of a lot of doctors. Sometimes you go to the doctor and you just get a big bag of pills, and you're like, okay, maybe I would have preferred something else than than doing that. And then end up avoiding going to the doctor for not for, like, intuitively, doesn't it doesn't always feel right,
right? I think, I think you have to recognize what, know what you're looking for to begin with. And I suppose it wouldn't hurt to to make some calls before you make an appointment, make some calls to find out what that I guess I was going to say, find out what the approach of the doctor is. But nowadays, I'm thinking, in the past, nowadays, you can just go on websites and you can get a a much better feel. I think if you want to go in the right direction, the shortcut is just to look for functional medicine doctors. You know, that's a that's a really broad category, and there's a wide range of training, of education and experience among functional medicine doctors. But at least, at least by looking up someone, for example, on World net.org, or or, IFM either one or or just Googling functional medicine, would get you in the right direction, because otherwise you're going To get somebody who's going to run some pathetic labs, and then say they look normal, because most of the time they do, unless you have some bad disease, because they're looking at the wrong labs, and they also don't know how to interpret labs. So that's an that's another thing that you have to watch out for is we have so much misinterpretation of labs in American medicine, so
so we have a number of issues here. One is the the actual the individual themselves, kind of ignoring signs of the body and potential illnesses and diseases and and, and also we're kind of culturally trained to look, you know, to kind of accept aging and illness as just being well, that's just what happens. Or we've got, maybe, maybe better put, we've got a lower expectation of what the human body can actually do, or we've got a low expectation of what vitality looks like in. People. And then, compounded with going to, in general, most doctors will be quick to prescribe a drug to manage the symptoms of something, then I can, I can understand how lots of issues kind of end up either going unnoticed, and then it's a good reason for why there's so much lifestyle disease at the moment. Yes,
what's interesting? One of the things that we run into is when I'm going over labs with a patient and and they and I tell them that you're such and such should be between this and this, and I'm showing them the lab report, and they're saying, well, the lab report says that I'm normal, and I say exactly you are normal, and in America, normal means you're going To get cancer, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's, diabetes, osteoporosis, arthritis, and you're going to be sitting in a rocking chair staring at the four walls of the nursing home when you turn 70. So so people who come to us don't want to be normal, they want to be they want to be healthy. And those are two very different things.
So, what is it that you do with, let's say somebody comes to you and they're experiencing fatigue and exhaustion, they've lost that kind of zest for for life. What's the sort of tests or diagnosis that you would run on them? And then, what's the, what's the pathway to unlocking a new level of health and vitality. And what does it What? What does high levels of health and vitality look like?
Well, high levels of health and vitality look like, feeling and and functioning like you're 20 or 30. I guess I help you 20 or 30 year old, which there may not be too many of those left, but, but doing the things that you want to do without limitation, I think that's the biggest thing, is not having to think about, oh, I can't do this because x, because I'm In pain, or because I don't have the energy, or I used to enjoy this, but now I've tempered my expectations for my body, and I can't do that anymore.
Well, I guess that can also the tempering our body because I'm in pain can end up compounding the issue in the as well, right? Like so, for example, if I've got back pain, and then the best way that I can manage it is to not do anything and to become inactive. It's only going to compound Further more, more more ailments
it will and so in in conventional medicine, when a person has pain, what do we use? We're taught either you need surgery, you need physical therapy, you need time and just hope it goes away, or you need medicines that kill pain, and those are can be anti inflammatories, they can be anti depressants, they can be anti convulsant drugs depending on the type of pain and and they can be narcotics, and They can be other analgesics. But what are we doing? We're just dulling the pain for a period of hours so that we can do what we want or or just get out of bed and and get through the day, as the case may be, but we haven't fixed anything, and so we have to look to to physicians who have other tools, and there are a lot of them for dealing with pain, but it's not I mean, we have machines and we have peptides, and there are stem cells and there's exosomes and and all kinds of high Tech and and more expensive things, but we also it's, it's interesting. I have to tell you a story about a a young lady several years ago, I was talking to her and said, after the evaluation, okay, so you need the first thing we need to do is detoxify your liver. And so she went home and started our seven day liver detoxification protocol. And on the third day, she called back and she said, can you ask Dr Andrew, if this can. Fact, hip pain and and when I got the message, I said, of course, but why? And she came back saying, I have been seeing a chiropractor twice a week for the last two years, and this hip pain hasn't budged, and it's gone. And she was on day three of a seven day liver detoxification. And and that's that's where it's at. We have so many symptoms that we are are trying to affect the downstream effects, the symptom itself, and we're not recognizing where the cause is and so a lot of pain in odd places is from inflammation that is actually coming from completely different sources than we would expect. And so what, what you were asking earlier, is, what that what the evaluation looks like before someone walks in the door. It's really interesting, because I I already have a fairly good idea about what is wrong. What is going wrong in a person's body, to to a large extent, not not completely, but to a large extent, before they even walk in the door. And this is why we're able to help so many people who live far away. Is because we don't even have to have them physically in front of us to know through our through the workup, the the pre visit, workup, a lot of the things that we can do, or I should say, that they can do, to dramatically improve their health. And then, of course, once, if they are physically present with us, if they can be in the room. Some you know, some live locally, several travel for hours or even fly. But for those for whom it's not possible to make it to the office, there's just so much can be done, because we have them fill out several questionnaires that identify patterns of common problems. You know, we all live in the same society, so we are exposed to the same forces, the same physical stressors, the same emotional stressors. And so we can identify these patterns. And already know a lot of the things that are are going on in a person's body. And then we have the face to face visit, whether that's whether that's remote or in person, and and then ask a lot more questions to get to the bottom of what's going on. And then from there, either we have biofeedback, which can be done in person or remotely, which provides additional information, and then we come to labs, and then and the difference in our office from what most people have experienced is we run a lot more labs to because there is so much more information that can be helpful to find out what's going on in A person's body. Then I learned about a medical school.
So with the example of someone who's suffering from exhaustion or burnout, and they come to you and they're fatigued, what would a let's call it, let's say a regular doctor normally prescribe, versus the sort of practices that you would go through with a with a
patient? Well, I would say the first thing they would do is make sure they're not anemic, because that's that's an easy one, that's a no brainer. And then, and that's why they you know, when they're not anemic, which is most often the case, yeah, unless they've been hemorrhaging or severely iron deficient, or B 12 or folic acid division, they're they're not anemic, generally. And so, so yes, they're fine. And so typically, you know, when someone's tired, it's not uncommon that they're also depressed. And so what do they do? Well, why don't you take this antidepressant and and then, you know, come back in six months and let me know if you're any worse or. Or if you're not better, and then, and then they're, you know, they're kicking the can down the road instead of getting to what's the underlying problem and, and that's the the sad thing about it is, let's say that, you know, fatigue is one of the major symptoms of depression. So what if the she or he was depressed, it's still not the answer to give them a drug to cover up the problem. The question, the question the doctor should be answering is, okay, why is this person in front of me depressed? Because there are lots of reasons for depression, and it's not just one of those things like, Oh, well, you know, it's that's just a part of life is being depressed. Well, I guess nowadays it is, because that's the norm in our society. But there's always a reason, or multiple reasons, and so you want to get to the bottom of it.
And so what? So going back to this idea, then, of like, of what health and what vitality can look like in a person, what, what's a really extraordinary example of of a healthy person? What does this look like in in 2024
Well, in 2024 I would say that's a person who who gets a good night's sleep and is excited to get out of bed and doesn't have to resort to drinking anything or taking any pills to wake up and get going and keep going and able to enjoy whatever he or she wants without having to think twice about it, able to read focus. You know, work on the computer, work on whatever their work is, or on whatever their their recreation is, if that's the agenda for the day, and and not wonder, okay, what was I doing, or what am I going to do today? And, and, and, and be able to relate to others and interact with others in not only an intelligent manner, but also a with patience and love and understanding, which, interestingly, this is a sidebar I like sidebars a lot of people lose when they lose their mojo, they also, when we start talking to them, admit that they're not patient with with other people, and other people get on their nerves and and they don't get along as well as they used to, and they're, you know, the relationships at home aren't as good as they could be, and they just and they start to think that this, this is a character flaw, that they are being a bad person, and they don't realize that that is a that there are physiologic reasons for that There, there are hormonal problems, or vitamin or mineral imbalances or or infectious causes and so. So if you when you're going back to vitality, just being able to enjoy life and and be able to do the things that that bring you and others joy and and a better quality of life without without limitation.
Amazing, um, you mentioned earlier a little bit about the the liver detox, for example. Um, what? What other sorts of practices do you engage with, with with patients, in terms of this kind of holistic approach to restoring health?
So I think, I think it's best to talk about it in a framework of a little pyramid that I describe a pyramid for building health. And the foundation of that pyramid is a healthy mindset and and the first thing that we work on, and this happens in the first visit, is bringing the person out of the dumps of both their expectations and for themselves and their and their expectations for their health care. You. Because, you know, they're used to being told there's nothing wrong with you, or there's nothing, yeah, you've got this disease. Sorry, it's too bad. I mean, I had a patient the other day who came in with sarcoidosis, and she was she was told by her doctor, well, the bad news is you've got sarcoidosis, and this is a and you'll have a miserable life. The good news is it won't kill you, and you will live long and and so patients come in beat down with no hope. So the first thing we we work on is hope and you need to raise your expectations. Yes, you can get better. Yes, if you follow what I recommend, you will get better. And so we work on things like affirmation statements and and forgiveness of yourself and others and love and so first thing is healthy mindset. Secondly, then we talk about what it means to have a healthy diet and lifestyle. And we don't know what that is in America anymore, because our idea of of you know, lifestyle is, get out of bed, have your coffee, go to work, have your coffee, have your coke, have your donut, have your bagel, You know, then go out to lunch, eat junk and and just keep and go, go, go. So we talk about exercise, we talk about, you know, really simple things I don't really get into, you know, I know a lot of doctors are very dogmatic. And I'm not into dogma about, you know, this is the one and only true diet. You have to be vegan, or you have to be paleo, or you have, you have to be keto. This is, you know, the diet that came down from Mount Sinai. No, there are a lot of different diets that can be helpful and and we do have people follow specific diets for specific purposes, and then they finish that and then move on, but just focus on on general principles. For example, I know people. I shouldn't say this out loud, but sugar is a poison and and that's the fastest way to get unhealthy, is to put sugar in our diet, along with vegetable oils and, you know, highly processed foods and anything White, anything that has any toxin in it, so without getting too deep into the weeds.
Well, no, I mean, that's, that's, that's very, it's quite a strong, powerful statement. Actually, sugar is a poison, but it's also an addictive poison. Yes,
I mean, what I was when I was speaking of that, you know, when I had my children were all young, and I would read them bedtime stories. I remember reading the story of Sacajawea and and Sacagawea told about how they how Lewis and Clark took sugar to trade with the Indians for for pelts and horses. And they gave the the sugar to the Indians to gave him a to give him a taste of it. And the Indians came back in the night and stole from the from the quote, unquote, Americans. The sugar because it was so addictive, because that was a foreign thing to them. You know, we can actually people live 1000s of years on planet earth without sugar, without refined without refined sugar. Of course, we have sugar and fruit. That's a totally different beast then what, what we're dealing with today? Yes, very addictive, but not to get too sidetracked. So going going back to the framework the second point was a healthy diet and lifestyle and focusing on things like what we put in our mouths and what we put on our bodies and and our physical activity level and our sleep sleep is a big topic because we don't know what healthy sleep is anymore. In America, our idea of healthy sleep is take a drug to knock you out and and. Unfortunately, the knockout drugs, whether that's alcohol or ambient or anything else, or Benadryl, those in studies don't demonstrate healthy brain waves, so we're not getting the recovery that we need even though we're unconscious. So we talk about all the things involved in in restoring healthy sleep. And then, thirdly, the third part, as we go up the pyramid, is restoring what the body is lacking. And that, unfortunately, even with the best diets nowadays, we do not have the vitamins and minerals in our food that we used to have, and even the US, government statistics demonstrate that, for example, our magnesium in our soil is a fraction of what it was in 1950 and so we have to find out what is lacking in a person's body in terms of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fatty acids and hormones. And this is where testing comes in. And then next up on the pyramid is removing infections and toxins. In other words, things that do not belong in the body. I should, I should add to that negative thinking, because that also doesn't belong in the body, and that is very toxic to to human health. And then lastly, before, before I let you take over again, is we use a number of tools to help the body heal itself. Instead of using tools that work against the body, that block this and block that, like the drugs do, we use a variety of tools that help the body heal itself, and those, and incidentally, the simplest of those are millions of years old, and that is herbs. There are a lot of herbs that can be very helpful. And I'm, I wouldn't say I'm an herbalist, but I use a lot of combinations of herbs that have been found to help restore the body, as we say, to factory settings. Now, of course, we have a lot of high tech machines, and as I mentioned, we use peptides and other things that that help the body heal itself, but, but we're always trying to work with the body instead of against the body.
It's very it's absolutely fascinating that and very, very kind of simple and beautiful illustration of this, of this pyramid of of health and and there's a kind of simplicity and something quite natural about it as well. There's like, it's almost kind of instinctive in terms of, it's a of its approach. Do you? Do you have a lot of doctors who would, who would be kind of quite against this approach in general. Is there a is there? Do you find, like traditional doctors, they might be looking at what you're doing and and saying that, well, you're missing x, y and z, or how is it typically received?
Well, yes, I I learned long ago that you can't, you can't convince someone who, who has been brainwashed when you think, when you're taught that the only things that work are drugs and surgery, then when somebody comes along with with a screwdriver that isn't a hammer, then, then the then it's not accepted. You know, the the common phrase is what doctors are not up on, they are down on. And it's ironic, because there is so much in the National Library of Medicine. There is so much data published on natural things, on vitamins, on minerals, on fatty acids, amino acids, shock wave peptides, biofeedback, pulse, electromagnetic field therapy. We use these things all the time, and yet in medical school, I never heard of any one of those. And so when doctors are completely unaware of it, unfortunate. Fortunately, they're, they're quick to be down on it. And, you know, I can't, I can't blame them, because they've been raised as was I in a system that poo poos everything. In fact, I remember everything that's natural. I remember. I remember being in medical school, and I was reading the journal of the American Medical Association, there was an issue, an entire issue, that was devoted to natural supplements. And I'm reading all these medical studies, and every single one of them concluded that the particular natural supplement that was being studied failed to reduce this disease or reduce that disease. I'll give you a simple example. One of the studies was on vitamin D, and it demonstrated that it it proved that vitamin D did not reduce heart disease. And so I'm looking at this study, and I see that they studied like 400 international units of vitamin d2 and they studied people for one year, and they saw that the people who took the vitamin D did not have lower heart disease. And I thought, these guys are idiots. They I have patients taking between four and 10,000 units of vitamin d3 not vitamin d2 so, and you don't study people for one year and then and then say that an intervention didn't work. People live more than one year. Fortunately, most of us do. And so they actually, what I discovered in that journal issue, that entire issue, is that these researchers, all of them set up natural agents to fail. They anybody could have told them that those interventions were going to quote, unquote fail because they because they weren't studying the right things and so. So what do we expect now, when doctors are in practice, then they say idiotic things like, Oh, you're just taking expensive urine. You're just creating expensive, expensive urine by by taking these pills. Of course, that's what they're going to think and so. So I decided, you know, it's not worth trying to convince sure other doctors I don't care, to to try to evangelize, because patients are driving this movement toward natural health. Patients are seeking it out. How
did you become interested and become well versed in these kind of, let's call it alternative practices. I don't want to use your alternative, but you know, it's not, yeah, it's not the not the mainstream. Let's say,
right? Yeah. Well, the alternative existed prior to 1910 back in 1910 Rockefeller wanted to create a new kind of medicine, drug, medicine, which became very successful. And so everything prior to 1910 was actually real medicine, and now it was pushed into the realm of alternative, but that's a whole different story. So how did I Well, when I was growing up, my parents would go to an acupuncturist, and they would go to they would take me to a chiropractor, and they would also take me to a regular doctor, a regular, quote, unquote, regular, conventional doctor. And so I was exposed to both, and I I wasn't poisoned from the beginning, toward natural approaches. And, you know, my parents, they didn't know a lot about natural medicine at all, but they knew enough to know that, for example, fluoride was toxic and so so early on, I knew that some of the things that I was being fed by by the media and The authorities, the so called authorities, were not true as as was the case with fluoride, which is, which is a well known toxin. But with that said, then I got into medical school and I started grab. Towards the attending physicians who took a more natural approach. And then I worked with some what, what they called, they called themselves preventive cardiologists. I spent some time with them. These guys were just phenomenal. You know, a heart calf makes 10s of 1000s of dollars. But instead of doing, I mean, they did heart cats, but then they would tell their patients, I don't want to see I don't want to be doing another heart cath on you. Now we need to talk about your diet and lifestyle and and then. And then, once I got out into practice, then I quickly discovered that the drugs I was taught to use were not solving people's problems. They were, they were solving, you know, they were addressing some of the symptoms, but they were creating new problems, and they weren't solving all of their problems. And so, so I just, I was just curious, and I just started calling doctors around the country and saying, how do you deal with this problem and that problem? And then that led me to going to conferences and trainings and seminars and and and so instead of, you know, back in the day, I was taught, you know, you go to in medical school, you you go to one continuing education, continuing medical education conference per year, so you can keep your license and keep up to date on the latest drugs and and diseases. And now I go to between four and 10 a year, but I don't, I don't keep up on the latest drugs and diseases I now I'm keeping up on the latest ways to help people build health.
Fascinating. It's interesting. I have a friend, a very close friend of mine, who's been dealing with colorectal cancer for the last few years, and he's been incredibly ferocious with his and rigorous with his own personal research into different treatments. And, you know, and very quickly became disillusioned by a lot of the the treatments that he was being offered in in in, let's say, on the NHS in the UK, and was looking at lots of other alternative treatments, and also just other treatments from different pharmaceutical companies that were that were available. And it part of it brings up a question around the influence as well, of of you know, of doctors kind of pushing a certain treatment onto somebody to manage symptoms. And, you know, part of his his explorations, the questions that came up were, were around, well, what's the influence of business here on medical practices, and why are there different types of research and treatments available in other places that aren't readily available over here? What are your thoughts on that this is more kind of broader question on the on the influence of of how a lot of modern medicine is has a strong business component to it? Do these do these two interfere with each other? Yeah,
that's really a sad story. I was at a conference some years back when one of the lectures was on the roles of melatonin in cancer and and at the conclusion of of this lecture, this doctor said, The problem is, you're never going to have a conventional oncologist prescribed melatonin, because melatonin costs pennies, and chemotherapy might cost between 15 $150,000 per dose, depending on what it is, and so, so first of all, oncologists don't even learn about it, and yet, you know, you can look it up. This isn't, you know, this isn't. You don't have to go to the catacombs of Egypt. You can just look in the National Library of Medicine database, under in PubMed, and look up studies on the roles of melatonin and cancer, but cancer doctors, I should say, all doctors do not study the medical literature because they don't have time, and so they what they learn is what the drug rep tells them when they come and bring lunch or or what they learn at that, that annual seminar where they learn about the latest drugs and and diseases, which are pushed by, they're driven by what is profitable. You know, there's no drug rep who. Comes to my door telling me about the benefits of the hormone DHEA or magnesium or zinc. They're going to, you know, they're going to talk about the latest drug that costs $300 per month. But they assure me, and this is back when drug reps used to come to my office, before they just stopped coming. For some reason, they would tell me about how their drug works, you know, 5% better than the competitors drug and then they would and then I would always ask them, so, so how much does this cost per month? And they say, well, cash price, it depends on the pharmacy, but it's about $300 and I'm thinking, you know about my you know patients who are on social security, who bring in whatever it is, $800 a month, or some absurdly low amount of money, and the and there's and then, and then the drug rep, in the next breath says, but we're covered on all major insurances, and so they they would just have a minimal co pay. Well, minimal co pay or not if, even if, you know, the insurance company is getting a discount and paying $150 it doesn't matter. It's absurd. I mean, that's just one drug, and these people are on 15 different drugs. That's called bankrupting society. Even if the patient doesn't have to pay that, you can't sustain that as a society. So yes, the answer to your question is, it's all, uh, unfortunately, what is done in conventional medicine is all driven by money, even, even if the doctor, him or herself has the best of intentions, that's the system that we are in.
Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's quite fascinating and slightly disturbing as well, that there's, there appears that these kind of deep rooted conflicts of of interest and, and certainly from a number of, you know, I've had some some clients and some close friends who have dealt with cancer and, you know, and this frustration that has kind of come up with, I feel like we're being pushed down this particular treatment, which is not it's serving it feels like it's serving something else or not and not us. And I find that that's very interesting, well,
and there's another aspect to that, and that is conventional medicine is very cookbook oriented, right? So, so we're, you know, we're told, you know, I used to go to these conventional medicine conferences and and they have this diagram. So you have this complaint, you ask this question, yes, no, yes, you go this way? No, you go that way, and then you run this test. Is it positive? Then you then this is the correct treatment, and if it's negative, then this is the correct treatment, or this is the correct test. And so you've got this little cookbook, and then you come out at the end, and basically a computer could be a doctor in in that scenario, we could easily replace doctors with computers with AI, because all they're doing is following these cookbooks. And that's why, of course, patients feel like they're being pushed in a certain direction, because that's all doctors know. And when we're when we're trying to focus on real health, it doesn't matter whether the patient in front of me has cancer or diabetes or stroke or Alzheimer's or autism or whatever it is, or, you know, Hashimoto, hyrodis and not autoimmune disease? Yes, there are treatments that are that we use that are specific to that condition, but we focus on the foundation. We start with, what's your mindset? What's your diet like? What's your lifestyle like? What deficiencies Do you have? What imbalances Do you have? What toxins Do you have? What infections Do you have? We focus more on the person than on the disease. And when, when you focus on what the person what's going on in this person's body, it's a lot easier to deal with the disease.
Fantastic. I think that's a perfect place to conclude the conversation there. Dr Ray, absolutely fascinating and and if people are listening to this and they want to get into contact with you, what's the best way for them to do that? And we can put all the information into the into the text of the podcast here. Yeah.
Yeah, just go to www dot prestige, wellness institute.com,
Amazing. Thank you so much for your time and expertise today. That's been a really brilliant, brilliant conversation.
Thank you, Ryan. It's
been a pleasure, and that's a wrap. Hey, Enoch
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