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Hosted by Dr. Val Civelli, White Coat Black Sheep explores physiology, functional medicine, and the medical questions most people are told not to ask.
This is where evidence meets curiosity, where dogma gets uncomfortable, and where real world medicine takes priority over headlines.
From understanding your lab work to debunking hormone myths, medication misconceptions, and optimization strategies, this podcast helps you understand what is actually happening inside your body.
If you care about health and think there might be a better way to practice medicine, you’re in the right place.
All right. This is White Coat Black Sheep, where science gets
curious and dogma gets uncomfortable.
I'm Dr. Valerie Sivelia. We talk physiology, evidence, and
real-world medicine, plus the questions that you're not supposed to ask but
probably should. If you care about health and think there's a better way,
welcome to our show.
I have with me today, and I'm so honored, this is Dr. Hugh Beatty.
How are you?
I'm doing fantastic. Thanks for having me on today, Val.
Absolutely. I'm just so glad that our timing worked out.
I know you're very busy. You
have a lot-- I don't even know all the things.
I think I'm scratching the surface of what you do or what you have done.
You have a really thriving practice.
You started in anesthesiology, and then now
you are functional medicine.
Yes.
And
I would love to know more.
Yeah. Well, board certified in anesthesiology, and
I also have an emphasis in pain management.
So I did that probably a good 25 years, and then I started really
focusing mostly on the last 12 years on
functional medicine, since 2013. So almost 13 years now.
Wow.
Yeah.
Was there anything that happened, like a moment in time where you're like, "After
this happened, then I just am questioning
everything, and I need to change, and I'm changing."
Mm-hmm.
I think-
I've always questioned everything.
I always-- No, I think what happened is just kind of, I think it's just all really
God-led because if you were to ask me when I
was 30 years old what I would be doing at this age, I wouldn't have told you
I'm doing this. I had no idea. I had no desire to be in a private
practice. And
I got to a point when I was doing anesthesiology in the '90s, I got burned
out.
Mm-hmm.
And I just said, "Nah, I don't think this is a long-term future for me."
And so I took some time off, and when I came back, I started doing hospital-- I
mean, office-based stuff, not hospital-based-
Yeah
... office-based. So that's what happened.
Man, oh man. What did burnout really feel like
to you and look like to you? Because okay, I'm a baby
doctor compared to you.
Mm-hmm.
I graduated 2023. I practiced for one year, and I
was exhausted. I felt myself
irritated.
Yeah.
And there was no joy about doing the thing that I gave up
everything-
Mm
... to do.
Yeah. That's what probably my burnout was like, too.
I got to a point, I'll never forget, I got to a point one day, I
just said, "I need to take a break." And I did.
I told the group I was working with, I was doing anesthesia then, it was like nine
members in the group. And I said, "I need to take a month off." And they said, "Ah,
you'll be back before then." And then it became two months, and I said, "Look, I'm
not coming back." And at that time, I took some time off,
and I
think it was probably the best two years of my life.
I tried to do other things during that time because I was really at the point of
thinking that I didn't want to go back to medicine at all.
Oh.
But it gave me a good reflection, a good time to reconnect
with God, and-
Mm-hmm
... and when I came back, I said, "Okay.
I definitely want to practice medicine."
Mm-hmm.
"I don't want to do it the way I had been doing it." And so I started doing
office-based things.
Mm-hmm.
And that was a great decision because now I still love it.
But I wouldn't say traditional practice I love.
Right.
I love functional medicine.
I love functional medicine.
I could do this till the day I die.
I get it.
Because patients get better.
We see outcomes.
Yes.
That is like a little reward that just is like, "Yes."
Yes.
"We did this." And it's just a lot of behavioral changes, nutrition.
I mean, just the classic things, and science that we now have,
and biomarkers that we can check, and-
Yes
... you can prove that you're actually doing stuff, not just clinically,
subjectively, but also in the data that we can collect now.
Yes.
So it's just amazing.
So for regular medicine, I hate to even frame it that way, but-
That's why I say traditional medicine
... traditional. That's a better way to frame it.
Yes.
So, we know the regular practice. We both know the
guidelines and why or where they came from.
There's a lot of good, more good than bad, but there's also spaces that
we've all identified that, "I can't help you.
I'm at the end of what the algorithm is.
I can't help you, and I just will pray for
you."
Yes. But I think it's less in functional medicine, you say that.
Right.
I think you clearly said traditional medicine.
Yes. I'm describing traditional medicine.
And-
And it's sad.
Yeah. In fact, I like the patients that come to me after they exhausted everything
in traditional medicine.
Same.
Because now I got their attention.
Yes.
You see what I'm saying? When they-
You've seen UCLA.
Yeah.
You've seen Cedars.
Yes. You've had all these diagnostic tests, because I find in traditional-
Yes, and for-
... medicine, a lot of workup is done.
Yep.
But what therapy follows, you see?
And so by the time they come to a functional medicine doctor, yes, we also
test.
Mm-hmm.
But we spend less time trying to figure out the next step, because-
Mm
... we want to say, "Okay, why are you like this?"
Mm-hmm.
And we start dealing with the why. So patients come to us-
The cause
... they might have a diagnosis of what's wrong, but they don't have a diagnosis of
why it's wrong.
Yeah.
And then that's where we get started.
Yeah. There's a car commercial, or it's actually for car
insurance. It's like you don't want to just have the car insurance.
It's like, "Oh, let's just look at it."
Yeah.
And then they show, like, a doctor, and they show an X-ray, and they're like, "Yep.
There it is." "That's the heart attack right there."
Yeah.
So we're not just looking at it.
No.
We have great tests to look at things, but also to treat and
to fix.
Yes.
And
that's just-
But there's no better joy than in functional medicine, because when the patients
get better, it's exciting.
Right. Totally.
You're like, "Wow." And the patients are amazed by it, but I'm just as amazed.
Yeah.
Because when I say, okay, I'm not doing anything unique, I'm just saying,
"Okay, this is what the body needs."
Yes.
"Let's give them this-
Yes
... and see what happens."
Yes.
Because I don't make them well.
Right.
God makes them well. But what happens is that we give them what
God has designed the body to respond to.
Yes.
And so when they respond-
It's so cool
... it's amazing.
Yes.Yeah. And it's interesting because, I don't know
about you, but I definitely started from a place of
opposite of this. I did not believe that flowers
would fix anything. I was like: "Take a lily.
Sure, you could do..." I just didn't give it any merits.
Yeah.
But now that I'm here and I've done all the training and the boards and it's just
like there's so much. Everything that we have,
the ancient medicine and the traditional, all of that came from the
Earth.
Yes.
All of it came from plants and animals.
Yes.
And so why certain things work, I think
that's where we're in the space of figuring out science-wise to catch
up to the fact that we know things work.
Yes, and there's so much to learn. I'm frustrated at times
when even the functional medicine tools are limited.
Yes.
And in fact, I have a patient right now,
that he has optic neuropathy going on with his eye,
and it came out of nowhere. And
we sent him down to Jules Stein. He's going to be seeing the
neuro-ophthalmologist soon.
Mm-hmm.
He's gone through the ER there. But,
as I do research and I look up things, there's not much, and I don't know what the
neuro-ophthalmologist is going to do.
I told him possible about monoclonal antibodies type things they might try.
Yeah.
But really, it's not a neuritis, it's a neuropathy.
Mm-hmm.
There's a big difference.
Mm-hmm.
Neuropathy, they'll go ahead and put him on megadose steroids.
Yep.
But neuropathy, the nerve is damaged.
Mm-hmm.
The nerve is dying.
Mm-hmm.
And so there are things we try to do in functional medicine for neuropathy.
Mm-hmm.
I do a lot of ozone, I do PRP-
Mm-hmm
... we do NAD.
Mm-hmm.
So all those things you try to do that they help him out, but the
traditional medicine tools are limited when it comes to that.
Yeah.
They don't even have that. And then when they ask the traditional doctors about
these things, they're not really well-versed.
They don't have any comments to really make.
And that's where the frustration part comes in-
Yeah
... for the patients, so.
And they also don't have the time. They're like, "Sorry, it's called a nerve
problem." Respectfully.
They definitely don't have the time.
Right.
In fact, today I had a patient come, she said, "Doc, the GI doctor you
sent me to, is there another one you got?" And I said, "No."
She said, "Well, I think he got mad because
I asked him a question and he didn't have time, so he got angry with me." And I
said, "Well, I don't know what to tell you." I said, "The specialists are backed
up." There's so many patients-
There's no options
... for the amount of specialists that are here.
Yeah. I mean, we are in a unique area.
Bakersfield is between two mountain ranges, for those of you who are watching that
are not from here. I think it's enough of a barrier to
where LA's over here, San Francisco's over here, so you've got
really high level care and centers and specialists.
But here in the Valley, people don't cross the mountain range.
No.
It's scary. There's rock slides, there's
closures, it's windy enough. It scares me a little bit.
I will drive it, don't love it.
Mm-hmm.
I might sweat a little bit with the drive.
But it's enough of a barrier to where if you're here,
you get what you get.
Yes. And I think that people don't come up for care in Bakersfield
because there's a lot of healthcare center, medical care centers down in Los
Angeles.
And our patients tend to go over the Grapevine.
Exactly.
But they don't tend to come our way.
Yeah.
But in functional medicine, I have patients come to see me.
I love that.
They'll come from San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles.
Yeah.
Because I think what happens when they get to a situation where
they need help-
Mm-hmm
... and the ones that come to me are familiar with me-
Yes
... because a family member has seen me.
Yeah.
And they say, "You should go see Dr. Bailey.
Maybe he can help you." So those are the ones I'm talking about.
So they will make the drive-
Yes
... when they get desperate enough, so.
Yeah.
Do you find that there was any
space in medicine, traditional into functional, because
it is heavily misunderstood. We're not holistic doctors.
Yeah.
We're not like, oh... So I did mention flowers, but it does not
mean, and I don't want it confused with, that we think that
regular medicine should be canned. You should still see your cardiologist.
You should still take your cardiac meds.
But why is your heart having issues?
Why are you having atrial fib? Has a proper workup been
done, right? I'm sure you see that-
Oh, you're totally right
... all the time.
You're totally right. And that's what I tell patients all the time.
I said, "Okay, they told you what's wrong."
Yeah.
"But let's deal with why it's going on." And in fact, sometimes they don't even
tell patients what's wrong. That's the frustrating thing.
I'm reading a book right now, the title is, "Don't Let Your Doctor Kill You."
And what is talked about in it is that so many times the patients don't even know
what the diagnosis is.
Yeah.
And things are being done to the patient, and they're just left as
basically receiving the care, but not involved with the care.
So what you're just talking about was an integrated approach-
Yeah
... where I do still send patients to specialists all the time-
Mm-hmm
... because they'll do certain diagnostic tests that I don't know how to do-
Yeah
... and I can't do, I'm not trained to do.
Yeah.
And so I still need their diagnostic workup.
Mm-hmm.
But once we get the information and the patient is just left with taking these
meds for the rest of their life-
Mm-hmm
... and then I'm thinking, well, the heart is inflamed.
Yeah.
Let's at least calm the inflammation down.
It's the clearest, easiest-
Yeah
... simplest, lowest hanging fruit.
Yes. And so I agree with what you're talking about, is that we do work
very well with specialists.
Yeah.
And we're not trying to be lone rangers.
No.
I have never met a functional medicine doctor that's a lone ranger.
You're absolutely right.
They're definitely not.
I hope our doctor
viewers do hear that because I don't want to be perceived
as anti-medicine or
anything like a lone ranger.
No.
We're very collaborative.
No, we're not. And then actually, some of the best care I've given patients
because I was able to use other doctors I'm thinking about one patient I had in
particular. I could not have done with her what
I ended up doing without the specialist.
Mm-hmm.
This particular patient came to me in her 70s, and she had terrible
hips. And she had a walker, and she was stooped over
at about maybe a 70-degree angle. And when she came to see me,
that was her state. She was on all these meds, nine or 10 meds.
Today she's 82, no longer walker. She walks straight up, no
meds.
Oh, wow.
And she's doing fantastic.
Yeah.
But she needed bilateral hip replacement surgery. I can't do that.
She'd need the workups from the cardiologist and things.
Yeah.
So we've done all that. But because she's very compliant with what I
was recommending-
Yeah
... and she had never had that direction of care, she actually did
very well.
Yeah.
And she says to me, said, "Doc, I don't have any other doctors but you." She said,
"But I don't think I need them. I don't have those problems I had before."
Oh.
I said, "Well, if you get to a point where you need one of those other doctors,
I'll send you to one."
That's really cute.
Yeah.
Oh, there was a local hospital that I worked at for a bit,
and I had a patient, he had leukemia.
Mm.
And he was scheduled with a specialist over
the grapevine in LA with-- I don't know which place,
but he was scheduled to get his
autologous stem cell
transplant. So where they would just take the cells out of his
bone marrow and then put it back in. I know you know that.
That's just explaining in case anybody else listening does not know.
So from his standpoint, I
know he's a specialist, he probably has his protocol.
And as I do with any patient and for any person that's in the
hospital, if I know that they're established with a specialist, especially at a
higher level of care, I just pick up the phone and call them.
Yes.
"Hey, your patient's here. This is what I'm doing.
Is there anything additional that you want?"
Yes.
And it's funny to see the response.
I was shocked. I realized I am different
because
it was really truly with this patient and in this moment where I'm like--
He said, "Well, why are you calling me?
You don't know how and when to give..." Because the guy's
hemoglobin was borderline, but it was above seven, so I knew it was fine.
He doesn't need blood. I'm not asking you
for anything. I'm just informing you in case you want to add anything.
It's called communicating.
Right.
So I was communicating and-
It's a lost art.
It's a lost art. He was like... But you know what's funniest?
By the end of the conversation, he's like, "Oh,
you're just
telling me so that I could..." I was like, "Yeah.
I just want you to know who I am in case you need something, you can text
me."
Right. It's called collaborating, Doctor.
Okay? And see, I'm old enough to remember when doctors worked better together.
Yeah.
Because we used to give consultations to one another.
That's true.
Now, the patients come to me, and they say, "Well, I went to go see the
specialist." I said, "You get his paperwork?
He said he's going to send it to you?" "No, I don't have it yet." But before, the
doctors had no problem in picking up the phone and talking to one another.
Well, I guess time got in the way.
They would write letters of introduction.
If I was going to send a patient to you, I would write a letter of introduction
about the patient I'm referring to you.
It feels proper.
Okay. Yeah.
Which it's not.
That stopped probably late '80s.
Yeah.
You probably was in high school. I'm sorry. I couldn't resist.
Well, I was born in 1983.
Oh, so you weren't even in high school. That's funny.
No comment.
Okay. Well, that's good.
But anyways-
I'm glad we got great doctors coming up
... I have to keep going.
Yeah. You sure do. Because I'm going to need somebody to take care of me in a--
I will call your specialist-
There you go
... if you have any. You'll probably be perfect in 180, but we'll-
Yeah. Well, I don't know. I hope so.
Because patients ask me all the time, "Doc, who's going to replace you?
Who's going to be there?" I say, "Look, God always provides.
There will be people there."
There will be people.
And I found somebody, Valerie.
I can't wait to check out your practice, by the way.
Yes, definitely. You're welcome anytime.
Oh. Well, yeah. So just the end of that story basically was like,
a light bulb. I could just see the light bulb.
And he's like: "I really appreciate that.
I really value that."
Yeah.
And I'm like, boom.
So yeah, I think communication, because when you're referring a
patient, there's a question in your head.
Yes.
"How in the world will that person know?" They're just going to do a general
workup, and maybe it catches something, maybe it doesn't.
But if there's a rare thing or you're not in that general population,
it will be missed.
Yeah, I agree. What I like to do when I refer to patients, I remember a urologist
told me this years ago. He says, "I'm getting so many referrals
or consultations requests where the basic
primary care workup wasn't done." Okay?
And I like to think I hand gift the problem to the
specialist. Like I've done everything I can do, and that-
Like they'd be proud of you.
Yeah. Like I've already did the full workup.
You've done the work.
And I narrowed it down. You clearly need the urologist.
You clearly need the gastroenterologist.
Yeah.
And so in fact, I have a patient-
I love that
... right now I'm thinking about who has
been seen by the rheumatologist, hasn't seen the endocrinologist yet.
Primary care hasn't done much. And this lady has severe osteoporosis.
I mean, like plus three. And the thing is
that her osteoporosis is so severe
that I'm
really concerned about her having a fracture.
Mm.
Okay? Hip fracture or something like that.
So what happened was that she was still kind of bouncing off
her primary care doctor and seeing me-
Mm
... because I'm doing functional medicine with her. And so she went.
So I had told her that, "I'm really concerned about your osteoporosis."
I did some scans. Her calcium level was very low in the tissue, not in the blood-
Mm
... not in the urine. Blood, it was normal.
Mm-hmm.
Okay? And so I checked the urine. So her primary said, "Stop the calcium."
And so I said, "Well, look, if she's concerned that it's high in the blood, let
me at least do a urine calcium." I did.
She's spilling a lot of calciumSo at that point, I said, "Wait, this doesn't make
sense. You're low on the tissue, you're spilling calcium, your blood is normal." I
said-
Low on the calcium
..."Look, the rheumatologist is not doing their job, so I'm going to send you over
to the endocrinologist and see what's going on if it's something hormonal."
But she thanked me that she said, "You know, I don't have doctors ever do this kind
of stuff. They never try to figure out why."
That's shocking.
I said, "I can't get you better until I figure out what's why." And that's so
typical, though. And so what happens-
Crazy
...when I referred to the endocrinologist, I wrote a little note saying
why I'm sending this patient. Because what most patients do?
"I don't know why I'm here." They go to the
specialist and they'll say they don't know why they're there.
So I try to help her out a little bit.
I sent my boyfriend to a sleep study
person-
Yeah
...a specialist. And he actually said...
I'm sorry, I've said this twice, this story, but this is just for you.
That's okay.
Yeah. So-
I've been there.
Right. The
doctor was like, "Okay, so why are you here?" He's like, "Well, my girlfriend's a
doctor, says that I snore and I'm ruining her life."
That's a good reason to go.
That's exactly what I said. He quotes me.
Yeah.
Ruining my life. I was like, "Yep."
Yeah.
"I said that."
Yeah.
"You were."
Yeah. But that's critical because you know that not only
snoring but sleep apnea can be signs of some other things going on.
And it can-
Yeah
...worsen his health.
Yeah.
And so.
Why do you think structurally, I know there's weight gain, and then say
you lose the weight, but the structure, the jaw falls
inward.
Oh, yeah.
Is it bone loss? Why is this... Oh, I just-
Well, it's more common in men than women
...feel like I need to learn more about.
As you know, it's more common in men than women, but I think it's a lot of the
anatomy.
Mm-hmm.
And also the thickness of the neck.
Yep.
And the muscles in the neck.
Mm-hmm.
I used to snore pretty bad. I don't anymore.
You don't anymore?
I don't anymore. Well, one, I started doing functional medicine.
Oh, nice. Hey.
So I do. Whatever I recommend to my patients, I do.
So I had a neck size of like 18 and a half. Now it's 17.
Oh my gosh.
So I think that had a lot to do with it.
Did you have a belly?
But I'm not even inflamed. Yeah, I still got a little belly, but not as much.
I don't think so.
Yeah, I got a little belly. For 67- ...I feel pretty good.
But, no, I was definitely more inflamed.
And one day, I'll show you a picture how I-
So the inflammation
...a few years ago. And I'm looking at it saying, "I just think that
overall, I just got healthier."
Yeah.
And it's not unusual for a man to
be able to snore and stop.
Mm-hmm.
I didn't have any surgery or nothing like that to stop it.
Mm-hmm.
And I'm amazed. Of course, I snore a little bit, but I remember years ago, I chased
a friend of mine out of the room. We went out of town, I think we
went to South Carolina, and they had to sleep on the other side of the house, I
snored so loud. But I don't have that problem anymore.
Yeah.
So I'm thankful for that.
Oh my gosh. Some people shake the house.
I believe that.
It's just profound.
So there's hope for you guys-
Yeah
...who snore. But until you get that fixed, you need to really be checked.
Make sure you have sleep apnea.
Yeah.
That's definitely important.
It's worth treating. It's worth undergoing the diagnosis.
Yeah. So I think we have this
upcoming symposium, so I'm looking forward to that.
I know we're going to be talking about hormones and-
Well, you're going to kill it.
Why?
I think you're going to make it happen.
I just want people to know about it.
You bring fire. No.
I want to tell them-
Every time-
...with enthusiasm
...Every time we have a get-together meeting, you're ready.
I feel like I should dial it down.
And I said, "Let me go ahead and do a podcast with her real quick, get her
vibe."
Why does it light me up-
I want to-
...so much?
I want to match that energy, so I had to find out today.
My whole...
But that's good, though. I love the energy.
Yeah. And I don't even know why. I just get-
You're healthy.
Yes.
If you weren't healthy, would you have energy?
No.
No.
And I've been that person before. Maybe that's part of it, too.
That's a good sign.
Right?
That's a good thing, to be healthy.
I felt horrible in my 20s.
Yeah. You didn't know functional medicine.
I didn't.
Yeah.
Yeah. And then 30s, I was doing residency and working
on my doctorate and all that stuff. Miserable.
Yeah.
I was doing Red Bulls and like-
So think about all the people you can help in residency right now. But guess what?
Those women would not be listening to you, because guess what?
They're learning the traditional way of taking care of patients.
Yep.
Go back and try to help them right now.
They-
Pull aside a 27-year-old resident-
Gosh
...female and tell her.
It's laughable. It's like, "Okay, sure. I'll sleep.
Sure."
Yeah.
You're wearing three pagers on your pants that are so
wrinkled.
Or if you just tell them to start taking vitamins and minerals, what they might say
to you.
I couldn't do this anymore. Yeah, exactly.
If I would've taken vitamins, just that alone would've helped me.
Yes. I agree.
I feel like just taking protein shakes was already changing my life in my third
year of residency.
Yeah.
So I was like, "Why didn't you tell me?"
Well, I think just being able to work out.
They can't really work out because I don't think the typical patient
understands how grueling residency is.
Yeah.
It's just life altering.
You think they'll change that?
Probably not.
It's disgusting.
It is.
Why?
Well, I
don't know about you guys, but I remember when I was hearing
about this probably early '90s-
Mm-hmm
...where they were saying they were going to restrict the call schedule for
residents to no more than 24 hours. Did they end up doing that?
Okay, so here's what I want to say. I'm sure
your generation had it worse.
We had it real bad.
But it's still pretty bad, guys.
36 hours straight up.
Okay.
But did you guys get restricted on your hours?
There was something weird like, okay, so you can't work
more than that many hours in a row
over the course of four weeks.
Right? Make it make sense.
That only makes sense.
It doesn't even make sense. So that's how it's written.
Yeah, because if you work 48 hours-
Something's delayed
...you could die straight, if you up 48 hours straight.
Right? So you can't just do that in a row.
So if it happens that you're doing 36 hours over the course of
four weeks, then I think it was fine. All I know is I lived at the hospital.
Yeah.
And it was also COVID, so there was hardly anybody showing up.
Yeah, that's why it's called resident.
Yeah. It's like-
Resident at the hospital.
...awful. I just had to-
So it really didn't change
I don't think it's changed. But I still think maybe yours is worse, but it's hard
to say
Well, they really pimped us and punked us, if
people say those terms.
Oh, I got punked. I got thrown in garbage cans.
Yeah. Resident training was tough.
It's awful.
But it makes you strong, though.
It does.
I mean, because you're not so easily intimidated or pushed
aside.
Or offended.
Or offended.
Yeah.
Because I think you got it tough because the faces that offend you.
So you have to be-
Patients are brutal
They are.
They're brutal.
I'm sorry, patients, but yeah.
What the hell kind of doctor are you? Why would you say that?
I know.
I'm so... I mean.
Oh, boy.
I just ask-
We should do a podcast on that.
Oh, gosh
... even just asking, "How are you?" I feel like, "Well, how do you think I am?"
Yeah.
I'm like, "I don't know. How are you?"
But just don't say this. Okay? What's the thing they always
say? "What now?" Don't say that.
Oh, I won't.
And don't say, "Now what?"
Oh.
I won't.
Okay. Yeah. I don't think the patients necessarily like that.
Oh, my gosh. I mean, for the elderly care that I see especially,
it's entertaining to me. They're cute. It's funny.
But just the fact that there's just such a response
with, "Hey, how are you doing? I'm Dr. Civelli.
How are you feeling?" Oh, it stirs up a hornet's nest.
It does.
"What do you mean? How am I?"
When they grab out their list. Yeah, they bring out their list.
But one thing I will say is that some of my greatest, I guess,
results have come from older patients because they have more pathology.
Yes.
And they have also had, I hate to use this term, but the care
has been neglected longer, meaning that they've been on their meds longer.
Yes.
Nobody has made an effort to try to say-
Yeah
..."Let me take a look at that." I had a guy, he comes to see me.
He's an African American male, 70 years old.
He came in my office, and he had a cane.
I didn't want to deal with that right then because he had other issues.
Mm-hmm.
By this fourth visit, he left my office without the cane.
And the last two visits, he doesn't have the cane anymore.
Oh my gosh.
And it was something very simple, but it was my pain management background.
Wow.
So one day when I finally had kind of dialed him in and we
did all the testing, so now he's on hormone therapies, minerals are right-
Right
... vitamins are right, things like that.
I'm trying to encourage him to start doing some resistance training.
Mm-hmm.
And he said, "Well, Doc, you know my back bothers me." I said, "Okay." I said,
"Take one finger," and I do this all the time, I said, because patients will
quickly say, "I hurt everywhere."
Yes.
Okay? And I said, "No, no, take one finger and point to right where it
hurts the most."
Yes.
And he went right to his SI joint.
Okay.
And I said, "Is that what's causing the-"
I was thinking you were going to say QL back here.
No. No.
But close.
Yeah, it's close. And I said, "How long has that been bothering you?" He
said, "I don't know, four or five years." "Did you injure yourself?" "No, just one
day it started hurting, and that's why I use this cane." I said, "Look, this is
what I recommend." So I did a SI joint injection on him, and he
left that day from the office and not in pain.
With prednisone and steroids in there?
He had a little steroid in there. It was a methylprednisolone.
Okay.
And he left the office, and he's still not in pain. That was two months ago.
Wow.
And he's come back twice. I said, "Where's your cane?" So I'm trying to encourage
him now to do physical therapy because he has a shuffle gait.
He's not moving-
Okay
... like he's supposed to be moving because he's not exercising.
Yep.
The lower extremities, once they go, that's not good.
Yes. I do believe you can heal, though, especially with the peripheral nervous
system. We have proof of it.
Right.
It doesn't mean that everybody will or that it's fast or that they're...
If you're giving the right nutrients and the right stimulus-
Oh, definitely. I agree with that
... you can do that.
I thought you said, "I could heal." No, I can't heal nobody.
You can totally heal them if they-
No, but I can put people in a position to get
healed.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So that's why I looked at you funny at the end.
Yeah.
Okay. No, but I've seen patients with neuropathies get
better. I had a patient who had Bell's palsy, and so, like 90% improvement with
ozone.
Do you think it was steroid or what do you think?
It was ozone. I did.
Oh, amazing.
She had had it for four years. I said, "Hey," I didn't charge her for it because I
said, "I want to just see-"
I love that
... she responded.
Wow.
And so I've seen different. I had a patient come to me.
I don't know if she had partial foot drop or something.
Something was wrong with her ankle and foot.
Mm-hmm.
And so when she came in, I just did ozone injection around her ankle and foot,
and she walked out of there that day and hasn't worn that...
She had like a metal boot on, and her husband said, "Hey,
she's still walking fine."
Oh my gosh.
But what can reverse neuropathy? Is what? Oxygen.
Oxygen.
The tissue needs oxygen.
Do you think a hyperbaric chamber-
I learned that in anesthesia.
Okay, so do you think there's an equivalency with the
hyperbaric chamber and the ozone, or one's superior than the other? Or together?
Well, I prefer ozone for two reasons over hyperbaric oxygen.
One, hyperbaric oxygen is a lot more expensive.
Mm-hmm.
A lot more cumbersome.
Mm-hmm.
Especially when you have to get into deeper pressures.
Yes.
And then it causes free radical, oxygen free radicals.
I want to talk about that.
Ozone does the opposite.
Yeah.
It gets rid of oxygen free radicals.
It makes a carbonated type of antioxidant-
Wow
... that ozone does.
Safer option.
And it's cheaper, and it's quicker.
Mm-hmm.
Okay? And I had one particular patient that came to me, and
I want to tell the story because I think the listeners will like this story.
He had prostate cancer.
Mm-hmm.
And so he had a radical prostatectomy, but the surgeon
wanted to do radiation therapy.
Mm-hmm.
And I always tell patients, "You don't want to radiate."
Like, just to be safe. Just to be sure.
Just to be... Let's make sure we got everything, right?
Yeah. Don't leave bridges.
So his bladder, he ended up getting terrible bladder cystitis,
inflammation of the bladder.
Mm-hmm.
To the point where he was bleeding clots.
Oh.
Okay?
Gosh.
And so the surgeon sent him, the urologist sent him for hyperbaric
chamber therapy. And he did it, I think, up to like 20
treatments, and the pressure was getting pretty high.
He started having eye changes, and they had to stop it.
Wow.
And
it didn't clear him up. Okay? He still was having clots and inflammation of the
bladder when the urologist was look.
And so someone knew me and said, "Hey, maybe you should let Dr.
B take a look." So he came to me, and I said, "Well, look, the only thing I have
for you is IV ozone. It's really good for inflammation." So I did
thatAnd probably about 15 treatments in,
he decided to follow up with his urologist and the urologist put the scope in the
bladder, through the urethra and said "Wow, this
is clear. Wow, what are you doing?" He said, "I'm coming out.
I don't want to do any damage here." And he didn't have any
more problems until about six months later, he decided to back
off the ozone, and he had one episode, he had a little bit of blood in his
urine, and it bothered him, so he came back in.
So now he's on a protocol like once every three weeks.
Wow.
But his urologist did a scope again and said it still is clear.
Now, what was he facing? He was facing possibly what?
A bag outside his body.
Yep.
Okay. Some kind of urostomy-type tubing or whatever.
Awful.
And the thing is though is that he avoided that, so he's very
thankful. But I see him now, he only comes to me for that.
Wow.
And guess what? He looks so healthy because the ozone is getting rid of his
inflammation. He's lost weight, his skin looks better,
and I'm looking at him, I said-- And he doesn't appreciate that because I'm not his
primary.
Mm-hmm.
And I'm telling him, I said, "Hey, it's doing other things
than healing that bladder." So, that's what I love about functional medicine.
But he's looking good, too.
Oh, he's looking great.
I love that.
Man. Do you think that his bladder was thickened?
Do you happen to know the thickness of the bladder wall?
No, I don't know any of those measurements.
I wonder, and I'm just thinking, so we're adding oxygen to
the tissue, and that's keeping it alive.
It's helping it to turn over and do what it's supposed to do.
But is the missing element then the
angiogenesis?
Yeah. It was part of that, but also just the
tissue needed to be healed.
Yeah.
You heard of Otto Warburg, right?
No.
He won a Nobel Prize, and he was pretty much put into obscurity
because he won a Nobel Prize as a cure for cancer.
So you should look him up, okay?
Did he get murdered?
No, I don't know what happened.
Sorry, asking for a friend.
But
it's an interesting story. So that's where I get my views on
melatonin from, from him.
Oh.
Okay?
Okay.
But anyway, so Otto Warburg, it's interesting, he said, "All tissue
heals with oxygen."
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
He says, "When the tissue gets deprived of oxygen, that's where you get
inflammation. That's where you get the disease."
Fermentation-
"That's where you get cancer"
... lacking oxygen. Yeah.
So he's saying cancer doesn't like oxygen for a reason.
Mm-hmm.
You see? And so-
Right
... that's why I'm a big proponent of ozone because it's that extra
oxygen.
Mm-hmm.
Instead of being O2, it's O3. And people freak out, "Oh, ozone.
Oh, it might hurt me," and no it doesn't.
There is medical indication where ozone-
Mm-hmm
... not any of them have been FDA approved.
Mm-hmm.
But unfortunately, a lot of the stuff we do in medicine is not FDA approved, I
mean, in functional medicine.
Yeah.
But it's not illegal.
Right.
It's just that who's taking it through the FDA process?
Right.
And people are doing, what do you call it?
Millions and millions.
MAH IV ozone all over this country.
What does the MAH stand for?
It stands for major autohemotherapy.
Okay.
So, it's actually ozone, the oxygen goes right into the blood.
Okay.
So what I do when I do it, I start an IV at the patient, and then
after we hydrate them up a little bit.
Only reason why we hydrate them up, because we need the empty bag.
Right.
Okay?
Okay.
I don't throw the fluid away. And so we hydrate a little bit.
People are so dehydrated.
Yeah. Yeah, a lot of patients are dehydrated anyway.
Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
So we'll hydrate them, and then we drop the bag, 5cc bag.
Blood goes into the bag, get about 2 or 300cc of blood, and then we
enrich it with ozone.
Okay.
So, the way you kill a patient with ozone is actually
inject directly into the vein. That's called an air embolus.
Okay? So you don't do that.
Oh my God.
So patients freak out, "Ah, fatal embolism" because they read this stuff about it
on Google and online-
Yeah
... and stuff. No, that's not how you do it.
You inject, insufflate the ozone directly into the bag of blood.
Okay.
And then the blood gets very rich. It looks like arterial blood.
So this venous blood gets very red, almost as red as your jacket.
It's a good red.
And
so you just give it back to the patient.
Wow.
It's amazing how the patients do.
So what about for dementia? Do you have any dementia patients?
Are you seeing any results?
Not really. Because I don't see Medicare patients.
Mm-hmm.
A lot of those Medicare patients are, of course, over 65.
Those are more at risk of dementia.
Mm-hmm.
I'm not saying younger people can't, but-
Mm-hmm
... it's more often in people over 80.
Mm-hmm.
So I don't see a lot. I do have a couple of patients that are dealing with early
dementia.
Mm-hmm.
But it's been amazing some of the things I've done to slow it down.
The NAD, the IV ozone, the hormone therapy,
and some of them have gone to Amen Clinic. I know you know about the Amen Clinic.
Mm-hmm.
And, I've had people, the reports come back from
the Amen Clinic, "Yes, what Dr. Bay's doing, keep that up.
Keep doing that."
I love it.
You see. But no, the cognition, we follow the Mini-Mental, and-
Mm-hmm
... they're not falling off very much.
And-
Yeah
... they've clearly been diagnosed by the neurologist of having-
Yeah
... Alzheimer's. It's not me saying they don't have it.
Right.
It's me saying, "Okay, this is what you have."
Right.
"Let's try to optimize your health-
Yes
... as much as we can."
I follow that as well. So I'm not making those diagnoses.
Mm-hmm.
It's a specialist, and then patients come back.
They get their imaging, they get a full workup-
Yes
... with a specialist neurologist,
neurosurgery, whatever is the case.
Mm-hmm.
And then they arrive back.
Yes.
And then from there, we collaborate.
The premise of mitochondria being
a mitochondrial-centric life-
Mm-hmm. Yeah
... I kind of fall into that.
Powerhouse of the cell.
It just makes the most sense.
It does.
The point of life or the energy of life comes from
what, right? So if something is allowing life to
happen, so there is NAD coming out of it, right?
Mm-hmm.
That's like the money of the cell.
Mm-hmm.
And then where does that come from?
Well, that comes from a very healthy mitochondria, which is an organelle,
and I know you know this-
Yes
... inside of a cell. So it takes a lot of
enzymes for this small structure
to work.
Yes.
And it's profound, the shape changes if you have
even a plant in the room or no plants.
Yes.
Or exercise, no exercise. Stress, no stress.
Like-age or a youthful one. So the
amount of like actual money coming out like an ATM
Yes.
It also, in this context, NAD is so much
less.
Yes. The mitochondria is critical.
In fact, that's what I'm focusing on on my next book I plan to write.
Yes.
Because if you think about it, people are fatigued.
The average person is-
They're so tired
... fatigued. And the more inflamed we are, the more fatigue they have.
Yes.
And as you're dealing with inflammation, the fatigue goes
away.
Yes.
And so I love it, and I know you've experienced this too.
Patients come in with a list of issues, right?
And in your mind, you're saying, "They're all inflammatory." They're all
inflammatory.
Same. Yes.
And so you say, "Okay, I know you've had that for a long time.
I know you're dealing with that."
Yeah.
"I know you take these meds, but what we're going to focus on is this."
Yes.
And it takes a few visits for them to understand, but really they-
Yeah
... they dial into it when they start feeling better.
Yes.
When they start getting off meds.
Yes.
When they start looking better. In fact, one of my staff, she's probably going to
kill me for telling her story, but she went out-
So then you should say it
... with a girlfriend of hers. Yeah. Yeah, definitely say it.
But this is good on her part. She went out with one of her girlfriends.
She's 30 and her friend is 31. And
someone said, "Is that your mom?" That's my
employee was the lady she with her mom.
She said, "No," because that's how much healthy she looks
because she's been at my office about eight months.
She's listening to everything I'm saying.
Mm-hmm.
And she needed some... Well, I don't want to violate HIPAA, but she needed
different things.
Mm-hmm.
And she's done those things.
Yeah.
And she's just, her hair is growing, she's fabulous and looking so much
better, and it's because of the proper nutrition and the
sleep and the minerals and the vitamins that she's doing.
Yes.
And then they happen to go out to, I think she said they went to some
restaurant, and they ordered a drink, and they carded her.
So you can imagine how she felt.
That's so cute.
And you with your girlfriend.
I wish she posted that moment.
Yeah. And so she really had a practical experience of
what it means to practice functional medicine.
Mm-hmm.
Because what functional medicine really mean, I tell patients, say, "What's that?"
It's just meaning returning the body to its normal function.
Yes.
And what is illness and disease? Dysfunction.
Dysfunction.
So we want to be functional doctors, not dysfunctional doctors.
I don't want to be a dysfunctional doctor.
And really, we're just zooming in to different mechanisms.
And they'll start calling those other doctors dysfunctional doctors.
You guys are dysfunctional.
Dysfunctional doctors.
You're dysfunctional.
I used to be dysfunctional.
Now you're functional. Okay.
No, that's just clickbait now.
Yes, it is.
We should do a video like that, Dysfunctional Doctors.
Yes.
Oh, yeah. So
I forgot what I was saying.
It's okay.
I was just so excited about how functional
medicine really... Okay, so it's just really about taking what we learned in, say,
biochemistry, and we're like, hey-
Yes. Oh, yes
... when you
eat something, your body needs to have the right pH to
break it down-
Yeah
... to use it. What are the knives of the food?
Well, pepsin.
Mm.
You need all the lipase, lactase.
Yes.
You need all the ases.
Yes.
And if you don't have the ases, A-S-E, the enzymes-
Yeah
... then you are not going to cut food up.
Yeah.
You can't absorb it. It's too big.
Yes.
So that's so simple.
Yes.
Right?
I was a chemistry major in college, and now that I'm doing functional medicine,
guess what I wish I would've done? Biochemistry.
Isn't that so funny?
Because really it's at the core-
I love biochemistry. Yeah
... of all this. And I enjoyed biochemistry, but I enjoyed-
Yeah
... chemistry, too.
Yeah.
I went to college to be a chemist, okay?
And so-
Wow
... in the middle of my...
When I was going to college, I worked at Dow Chemical in that
summer, and I said, "No." I was at a lab all the time.
It was boring, all them toxic fumes.
I said, "No." So I went back and I decided- ... to go to med school.
It was the hood for you, right?
The hood.
It was the hood for me.
Left the hood and got into another hood.
That's the chemical space that you work in, and it's like, it's just
fumes. You're just breathing fumes.
Fumes. Benzene and stuff.
Smells horrible.
And what do you know as a sophomore going to your junior year in college
about the harmfulness of those chemicals? You don't.
Yeah.
They don't tell you in chemistry, this benzene is going to damage your liver.
Or nonpaline. Oh, my gosh.
Yeah.
There's so much with that.
Yeah.
That's mothballs.
And so I'm thinking about it now, like, I'm so glad I stopped doing chemistry.
But anyway, so I had to take biochemistry to get into med school.
It was one of the prerequisites.
Yeah.
And I just loved it that year, and I said, "Boy, this would've been an easier major
than the chemistry stuff." Physical chemistry and P
chem-
Less smelly
... and all this other stuff.
Oh, boy.
Man. It's funny, I think back to all of the
pre-med, all of those prerequisites, where like organic chemistry,
bio,
zoology, all of these things, O chem, organic, and I'm just like,
why? Then I was mad. I'm like, "Why do I need this
so I can be a well-rounded human?"
Mm.
I just want to be a doctor and actually just take care of patients.
Do I need to know how to make a salt? Or if I put a salt
into something, this pH, like this happens.
Or
how you break up different molecules, or what's the end cap so that you can't break
something down.
Mm-hmm.
But now that I'm here-
Mm
... it all comes together.
It comes together. But a lot of it was hazing, though.
Okay. No, that's really true. No.
They were trying to weed people out.
That's still true. No, that's very true.
Because where I went to college, I went to Occidental College.
Still true.
And
I would say probably 70% of the student body came in, the freshmen came
in wanting to go to medical school. They were pre-med.
And by the end of the first year, they got weeded out-
They're like, "Forget it"
... with all that zoology and biology and chemistry, and I think a
lot-
Medicine
... has to do with that. And the other day I was looking.
I happened, for some reason, looking at some numbers, they say
750,000 people apply to medical school every year in the United States,
and only 20,000 get in.So I did the numbers. That's 2.6%.
Oh my gosh.
So you're part of that 2.6%.
Oh my God. Hey, you know what, though?
You actually got in.
So I'll tell you, my path was very
tortuous.
Mm.
I
was married when I was 23. I started as an MRI tech, and
I did a two-year program in radiology.
So I did two years. So at age 21, I
had a full-time job, and I was a professional in the workforce
doing and existing, and I was like, "Okay, I'm too young to peak."
And I love the medical field.
Yes.
It was very much inspired by the people that I worked with, just in
radiology alone.
Yeah.
And by age 23, I was an MRI tech. I was an MRI
tech as soon as I started post-X-ray, which is
abnormal. But I did that, and then I
had about six to seven, no, probably 10 years of MRI
tech. But halfway through that,
that's the point that I chose to become a doctor.
And there were enough experiences where I'm like-
So what age did you go to med school?
Ah, gosh. I was probably-
20? 26
... 26.
26.
Yes. But I had a five-
That wasn't too delayed. I went at 22. So you're only four years behind me.
Well, okay. The long part, though, I think, is I had a gap.
So after I graduated med school-
Mm
... which is 2015, then I applied to
residency. And I went to a Caribbean school.
I'm mediocre in my scores. Nobody's impressed.
It's not what, like, it's going to-
You're doing the best right now, functional medicine.
You could be a top of the class, straight A student from Harvard.
If you don't know functional medicine, it's a big difference.
I-
And I know you know that now
... right.
Yeah.
And it's so
crazy to think because I knew I was smart-
Yeah
... but I was just like, "I'm not trained to take tests like this."
It's just a different just tidal.
Those type A's questions are tough.
They're weird.
Yeah, they are. Is it A and C? Is it A, B, and C?
They're all right.
Is it D, or is it all of them?
You think what I'm thinking.
You think what I-
Go ahead.
And then you got to do that for what, two hours of all those
questions? Your brain is fried.
Depends on which test you're thinking of. Now it's two days long.
And C almost is right.
Oh my God. Awful.
Aren't you glad you passed all that?
Oh my God.
So you
go through all that. So residency, just that whole leap
from post-graduate into it, it's just insane.
And it's wildly expensive now.
Oh, yes.
I-
Oh, it is?
It's wildly expensive.
To become a... In residency it is? Or you-
So-
... talking about med school
... so you have to apply, I don't know if it was this way for you, but you have to
apply through a central application-
Yes
... database. I think it's called AMCAS.
Yeah.
And so you put into that. And so for family medicine, you
spray and pray if you're a Caribbean grad.
Yeah.
So I applied to hundreds of programs, and
that's very expensive. And then I put in a few for internal
medicine, too. So there was one year, it was probably $30,000 for that application.
So this is against residency, to match.
Yes, for the match.
Oh. I don't even want to tell you how I matched. The system was totally different.
One, there was more residencies training spots than
applicants.
Wow.
That's the first thing. Okay?
Wow. That's crazy.
And for me, I never even really went through the match.
That's crazy to-
What happened for me-
... not struggle
... I went, I did an internship. I did
an elective rotation at Howard University in
DC.
Mm-hmm.
And when I was there-
Go Howard.
When I was there, there was a couple doctors liked me, and so they said,
"Hey, you want to come here and do your internship?" I said, "Yeah." And so they
accepted me, and so that how that worked out.
And then in residency, I did a anesthesia rotation at
Harbor-UCLA.
Mm-hmm.
And I guess I impressed some of the professors there.
And so I told them I wanted to come there, and so I didn't even really go through
the match.
Oh.
So I knew where I was going.
The level of
just emotional highs and lows that you-
Oh, yeah
... I-
No, I've seen this much worse, though. I see people don't get residency spots.
Yeah.
So what happens there?
That was me.
Oh, ooh. That's tough.
So, I applied three years total. The third time I applied,
I got it, but really I would've applied five years in a row, but it was so
expensive, I couldn't afford it. So I applied, and this is meaning I
maxed out my credit cards. When I say I tried, my family
couldn't help me. Anybody I knew and loved, they're like,
"We believe in you."
So you have a passion. I see why you're so passionate about medicine.
I struggled.
Because you really worked hard to get in there.
I struggled. I was like, "I'm too far deep to go that way."
Yeah. I understand it.
There's no exit.
Because I did not want my story to be,
no matter what age in the future,
"Oh, I would've been a doctor, but..."
But after all that, you still look young. Baby, I'm getting so old.
You're like 32 years old.
I'm taking it backwards.
So here I am sitting you. You're talking about you went through all that, and I
can only say, "Wow, how'd she do all that and she only is 32?"
I feel like an 80-year-old man sometimes in wisdom.
You might
think like an 80-year-old, but you don't feel like one.
Okay.
Because functional medicine, I think you probably, just like me, you probably do a
lot of stuff for yourself, don't you?
I-
You can't help it
... a lot.
And in fact, it's easier to promote it to patients when you're doing it.
Yes.
Like I say, "Hey, I've been doing this, and this is why."
Yes.
And then I show them why they need to do it themselves.
Yes.
And
because I think it's a lot more credibility.
In fact, when we go to conferences, what they're always saying, the functional
medicine doctors, "Hey, I've been doing this.
This is why I'm doing it."
We all look good.
Yes.
And it's not-
Oh yeah, they do
... not just filler. It's not just synthetic. That's the funnest.
Yeah.
That's the most fun part of the whole thing.
Yeah. I went to a conference down in Pasadena this past weekend.
Uh-huh.
It was a wellness conference, functional medicine, and everybody looked healthy.
It's just amazing. Where do all these people come from?
Glowy skin.
It's like models in here and stuff like that.
Yeah.
But it's because the same thing at A4M as you know.
Yeah.
You see a lot of healthy looking people, so.It's almost embarrassing if you
say you're a functional medicine doctor and you don't look the part.
I know.
You look sick and old and tired.
Did you just start?
Did you just start? Yeah, because when I just started-
I feel like that's insulting
... I was in flame.
Me too. I did not start like this peppy.
Yeah. The skin glowing, the hair's shiny.
You're right. I never thought about that.
Because I walk around, Apron, sometimes I say, "Well, boy, he needs to
work on himself." Maybe just start me.
Yeah.
I never thought that.
I'm going to ask somebody that. Did you just start?
What, what-
Oh, boy. That's funny.
Yeah. How many years?
Have you done any fellowship training courses yet?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's just crazy the difference. And like performance too,
like how long you can last with something.
Oh, yeah.
Do you wake up feeling good?
Are you able to keep your cognitive focus for a prolonged amount of time
or are you hitting crashes?
Yes.
Yeah.
And I'm working out with a trainer now, and he's now getting me to do certain
things that I didn't know I couldn't do.
Oh, okay.
He's trying to get me to do certain stretches or certain things, and I'm getting
better at it. And one thing I do know for certain, when you get to a certain age,
your legs go.
Yeah.
They get weak. And so he's really working on that.
And I got compliments here and there of people saying, "Oh, I can see it.
You're starting to... You look better across the chest and arms."
You were just hiding your arm. I was like- ...
"Okay."
And I was like, "Okay."
And I never had any definition all those years.
You looked hung.
And so it's good. So even at 67, you can still get better in
functional medicine.
Totally.
Which is great.
Yeah.
Totally.
Age is literally just a number. There's so much, and when it
comes to proving on the inside that you're making change-
Totally
... and using those biomarkers,
I think unless you do those tests, it's hard to really even
picture what it is. It sounds a little like foo-foo.
Mm-hmm.
But I mean, Harvard made it, so laugh at Harvard, don't laugh at me.
I didn't make it up.
Yeah. I have a scan that I use on patients.
They said, "How does this work?" I said, "I'm not a bioengineer." I said, "But it's
like, how did the blood pressure machine work?"
The gods of medicine.
How did the anesthesia machine work? I don't know.
All I know is that I know how to use it.
Yeah.
I don't even know how my car works, okay? It starts when I drive.
Totally agree.
But
can you actually use it to help people to get well?
Yes.
That's the important thing.
Yeah.
And all the equipment I have in my office is all used for the
betterment of patients.
Yep.
And so that's what I focus on. And one of the things that I find is real
interesting is that I always tell patients that we need to get baseline
testing done.
Yes.
And I had one patient, it was probably, I should say a couple of years ago, because
I don't want the person to figure out who it is, but she came to me, and
she wanted emergency wellness. There's no such thing.
She couldn't sleep.
Emergency wellness?
Yeah, she couldn't sleep. She was sleeping two hours a night.
Oh, my gosh.
And she had been to her traditional doctors, actually, a couple of doctors.
They had her on all these different meds.
Mm.
Trazodone, Ambien. She said, "Give me something." I said, "You're already on all
this stuff.
One more drug might kill you."
Send an elf.
Yeah. And so I told her, I said, "Look, we're going to have to go through
the process. Continue to see your doctors." I said, "The main thing,
you don't have sleep apnea, right?" So we went through a couple of things.
Mm-hmm.
But anyway, so by the time I worked her up and finally was able to do what I had to
do and got her hormones balanced, she's sleeping like a baby now.
She said, "Ah."
Amazing.
And her sister's come to me because she's sleeping.
Yeah.
And that's the thing. When patients get well, it's a great marketing tool.
Oh, the whole family?
It's an advertisement.
Yes.
Okay.
Yes. I don't do any marketing, do you?
Not really.
It's okay if so. You can.
It's probably-
I just assumed you didn't
... social media, if you can call that.
But no, I don't-
Okay. I assumed you didn't
... advertise other than that. No.
Yeah.
I tried a couple of times. I tried when I first did shockwave therapy.
You know shockwave therapy?
I do.
The GainsWave.
Uh-huh.
But
the commercial was very good. It was on TV and the radio.
And it was doing really well until the pandemic hit.
Oh.
Then no one would come to the office.
Wear your mask. Here are your shock waves.
Finally getting great results, and then all of a sudden, COVID wiped that
out.
No.
And I was getting up to, yeah, I was probably seeing, because my office is a small
practice, I was probably doing about 15, 20 of them a month.
Wow.
From before advertising, maybe six or seven a month.
And it was gaining traction.
Wow.
And we did the commercial about six weeks, and after that, the patients went, "Oh,
Doc, I don't want to come in, COVID," and this and that.
And I just said, "Okay, well." I never went back to advertising again.
Do you still have the machine and everything?
Yeah, but only about one or two of them.
Can I borrow?
Yeah.
Can I borrow your shock wave?
You can come get it.
I'm not using it. I'll just-
The thing is, though, is that I think it became more of a commodity.
So many things, equipment that we have, become commoditized.
Mm-hmm.
Because what happens then, the public gets it.
Now they start selling shockwave you can buy on Amazon.
Mm-hmm.
You can, all this other stuff. So
I think part of that, that's what happened, and you started getting competitors
to it. Because the name of the machine was GainsWave.
Mm.
And I can't call it GainsWave anymore, that I do GainsWave because I'm
not part of their network.
Right.
When I was part of the network, I could say GainsWave-
Yeah
... in my office advertisement.
Sleep wave.
But now I can say shockwave. Yeah, there you go. But shockwave works really well.
Yeah.
Even on
tired, fatigued muscles that are spasm.
I had one of my staff do the shockwave therapy on my lower back, and it felt
great. It really works.
What depth do you think it can be effective at?
I probably can penetrate maybe two or three inches.
Okay.
I mean, with red light therapy, they say it can go down at two or three inches
deep. I use red light therapy for my eyes and skin.
That's a good idea.
Yeah.
I currently do, I don't know if you've heard of Recovery, but it's like you have
light therapy-
Okay
... the sauna, lymphatic massage, and then the cold
plunge.
Oh, okay.
So I'm a newbie with the cold plunge.
Oh, yeah.
So I'm still-
How'd it work?
It is amazing.
So why does it work, though?
It surges-
Blood flow
Yeah
It's all about blood flow.
Blood flow.
If you don't have blood, you're dead.
I tell people all the time, "It's this healing power in the blood."
It, yeah.
So whether you heat it up first or you freeze it down, as long as you get the
blood flow. What is the importance of ozone?
Ozone is enriching the blood with oxygen.
Mm-hmm.
But again, it's blood flow. When we do PRP, well, it's based on blood
flow.
Mm-hmm.
You see? And so
that's what I tell people it heals, that that blood is very precious, so...
Whenever you have extreme cold or extreme hot or heat-
Mm-hmm. Yes
... and really it takes a lot less heat exposure as opposed
to cold exposure, but you still get those heat
shock proteins.
Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah.
And those are such weird things to read about.
Mm-hmm.
I feel like I learned just enough to know I have 100 more
questions with it.
Mm-hmm.
So I'm like, okay, well, they're just weird, kind of like stem cells.
Mm-hmm.
What exactly
is the point of them? But it does, I think the endpoint is that it's
angiogenesis, so increased blood flow.
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Is there anything more to it than that or you think that's like-
No, I mean, there's-
... bottom line?
The thing that's so amazing about the body is that the more I learn, the more
I realize what not only I don't know, but
we as a society don't know.
Yeah.
Because we get patients where we can't help them. It's sad.
It's so sad.
Think about the people that you tried all the tools you have, and they
still aren't helped.
Right.
But I think that most common issues that
patients have, we do real well with.
Yes.
Like the diabetics, the hypertensives, the heart disease patients-
Yes
... the patients with kidney problems, things like that.
But when it comes to some of those end-stage things-
Mm-hmm
... or if the patient's waited too long to come to us, that's where-
Yes
... it gets really frustrating.
Yeah. I totally agree.
Yeah.
Well, I don't want to take too much of your time.
Is there anything else that you would like to share before we wrap up for
today?
No, not necessarily anything in particular, but just be easy on me at that panel
discussion.
Oh my gosh, you think I'm going to shred?
I think you'll do great.
I am so positive and supportive.
No, you are. No, you are. That's why I wanted to do a little test run on this
podcast.
I would piggyback off anything that you said-
No
... in a very supportive way.
No, I think you're going to do great.
I think we're both going to do great, and I'm actually looking forward to it.
Okay.
I'm actually glad this year that they're going to add on
a functional medicine panel.
Me too.
They call it the hormone panel-
Yeah
... but I look at it as the functional medicine panel.
They don't even know.
Yeah, they don't even know.
And that's why I kind of said-
That's the best part
... that's what I kind of said. I said, "Well, if someone makes a comment, can we
make a comment?"
Yeah.
And they're kind of like, "Well, no, that's going to be their comment." It's like,
I might want to-
You know what?
... piggyback on something.
You're even nicer than me because I wouldn't even ask.
I would just grab the mic, "Okay, so
my comment is..."
And I really think it really should be longer than an hour.
And-
I think it will be longer than an hour
... yeah. And I think that one of the things is that I think is
interesting is that it doesn't take away from traditional medicine.
What we do in functional-
Yep
... we don't take away from it because we still need those doctors.
Mm-hmm.
And the vast majority of people will not pursue or seek out functional
medicine.
Yeah.
So it's those patients who want to be well seek us out.
Yes.
And everybody doesn't either understand what wellness is or
functional medicine-
Right
... or they don't know it exists.
Yes.
And so those who find us, it's frustrating.
I've had patients over the years, I know we're trying to wrap this up, but I will
end with this.
Oh, you're fine.
That I've had patients for many years say, "Where have you been?
I've been looking for a doctor like you for 20 years, 30 years."
I know.
And so you say, "Well, I'm here now." Because you really can't say anything.
And some of the things they've been dealing with, you now have answers for.
Yes.
And they say, "I've been asking people this." I had a patient not
too long ago say that
he had been suffering with his lungs and couldn't breathe and using his inhalers,
and I told him it's his sinuses. His pulmonologist had been seeing him for 20
years, never even mentioned that to him.
He went and had nasal balloon sinuplasty, and guess what
happened? He's breathing. He don't even need that.
Oh, wow.
He said, "I want to go back and punch that doctor."
And I said, "Man."
It's not his fault. He just doesn't know.
He just doesn't know.
It's not normal to know these things.
And it's amazing. But if you just say, "Why is this guy can't breathe?"
Yeah.
There's a differential diagnosis.
You think structurally that would... Did anybody look in there?
Probably not.
You're like-
For me, it's detectable. I love functional medicine because-
I do too
... you have a chance to like-
Love it
... try to figure, and especially if they've been suffering for years with this,
you say, "I can't do any worse." I can't do any
worse. I mean, either I'm going to help them or I won't.
Yeah.
Nobody's helping.
The bar is already low.
It's f*****g low.
Everyone has failed you. Everyone.
Everybody's failed you.
Everybody.
So if I can help you a little bit, I've succeeded, so-
Yeah
... and a lot of time you do a lot. But anyway, I know you want to wrap it up, Doc.
I really appreciate you interviewing me today.
No, thank you so much. And this is not going to feel-
Was it an interview or was it a collaboration?
I think it was more of a collaboration.
No, collaboration. I'm definitely not interviewing you.
Yeah. Yeah.
Thank you so much, and thank you guys for joining us.
Yes.
Until next time.