Quest for Healing: Bi-weekly support and inspiration for your Medical Medium® health journey
Quest for Healing: Bi-weekly support and inspiration for your Medical Medium® health journey
Integrating Conventional Medical Care with a Holistic Health Journey with Nguyen Phan, M.D.
#025 - My guest is Nguyen Phan, M.D. Dr. Phan is a board-certified doctor of internal medicine. On this episode, we delve into his journey from practicing internal medicine as a hospitalist to finding Medical Medium information and how that changed Dr. Phan’s approach to helping his patients. We also talk about some of the challenges and limitations of traditional medical care and some suggestions for you about how to best work with traditional medical care and Medical Medium information as you explore your own health journey. Additionally, he sheds some light on how blood tests work and some tips from making the most of the information that those provide.
You can find Dr. Phan on social media at
Instagram @mdwithspirit
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NOTES FROM THE SHOW:
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Books referenced:
($$) Medical Medium, Secrets Behind Chronic and Mystery Illness and How to Finally Heal (Revised and Expanded Edition) by Anthony William
The Quest for Healing Podcast is hosted by Kerstin Ramstrom. For more information about Kerstin and her health coaching practice, Carefully Healing, please find her at
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This transcription below was provided to you for your convenience, please excuse any mistakes that the automated service made in translation. I'm Kerstin Ramstrom, a certified holistic health coach and welcome to the Quest for Healing Podcast. Whether you're just starting out on your health journey or you're farther down your path, I've created this podcast to inspire and inform your health journey through first, some extraordinary healing stories from real people. Second, an exploration of some intriguing healing modalities. And third, through conversations with enterprising people who are making a difference in the health of our world. Welcome to Episode #25. This week, my guest is Nguyen Phan, M.D. Dr. Phan is a Board Certified doctor of Internal Medicine. Today we delve into his journey from practicing internal medicine as a hospitalist to finding Anthony William and his Medical Medium information and how that changed Dr. Phan's approach to helping his patients. We also talk about some of the challenges and limitations of traditional medical care, and some suggestions for you about how to best work with traditional medical care and Medical Medium information as you explore your own health journey. Additionally, he shed some light on how blood tests work, and some tips for making the most of the information that those provide. I'm so grateful to Dr. Phan (and his wonderful sense of humor) for being on the show. As I know I found this conversation very helpful as I try to best fit the puzzle pieces together between Medical Medium's information and more traditional medical care for myself. And I hope you find it helpful as well. And with that, let's go to the episode. Dr. Phan, thank you so much for being here today.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Thank you for having me.
Kerstin Ramstrom:I'm so excited to learn about your experience with Medical Medium. It's such a gift to have somebody who's a medical doctor, who can talk about, you know, the Medical Medium information from this perspective. It's fairly rare in our community to find medical doctors, so I really appreciate your time here.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Yeah, it's an honor to be here. And if we can spread information in a way that helps somebody make a connection, that's why we're doing this stuff. You and I are... we're just throwing it out there and helping people listen. And it just feels really good to do that. You know, and when we get more people on board and, and they're seeing the benefits and are able to help themselves, empower themselves. It's just... you can't put a price on that.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Absolutely. Absolutely. And so can you talk a little bit about your background before we really dig in?
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Yeah, so after I got to jail, I went to medical.... I'm joking. Afterwards, I was dropped in the head by my brother, I've got this weird sense of humor since then. But
Kerstin Ramstrom:And thank goodness for that. We all appreciate that.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Like many Asian families, you know, parents were like, Hey, you know, you want to do like be a doctor, right? Are you an engineer or a lawyer, whatever. And it was like, kind of agreed, right? So, my sister's... I call her a drug dealer... she's a pharmacist. And, you know, it was kind of expected that I kind of go down that route. And you know, I got a degree in journalism, actually, because I wanted to stand out a little bit, right? It didn't really come in handy at all, but it was nice, was fun. Um, and so you know, I applied to school, I took a bunch more classes and went to medical school, and you learn the stuff. And if I fell into internal medicine, because I had a role, I guess, a mentor, that led me the direction. And so you get through the training, and you do all this stuff. And you, you, I became a hospitalist because of Internal Medicine. Typically, the outpatient training is not as strong, and we're more familiar in the hospital setting. So as a hospitalist, you only see patients in the hospital. And I was doing that. And I settled.. come back to Houston, where my my family is, and I was working in the area. I'd get these cases where it turned out to be kind of challenging, and I'd get six different specialists involved and they wouldn't know what's going on. It happened to mostly be women, and they'd have the e symptoms that didn't rea ly match up. And sometimes som of the doctors would pull me a ide and say, Nguyen, let's s nd that patient home. And like, h, why? He said well, because he hospital is a place for the v ry sick or the dying. And t is patient is clearly not dying. So let them take care of it as an outpatient , you know, with their outpatient doctor, th y can go follow up and stuff li e this. Okay, fine. But, you know, invariably, they come back a month later with the same symptoms. They had seen the specialists and could never figure it out. So that kind of like, you know, it opened my eyes a little bit saying, hey, there's a place and a roll for Western medicine. Yeah, if you have a heart attack, you have an appendix that's bursting, if you're having... you've broken something, emergency medicine is very, very important. We have the great doctors to take care of that. But when it comes to long term chronic illnesses that are somewhat mystery, as Anthony calls it, we're a little lacking. And so that kind of kind of interest me and as I opened my own practice, I was, you know, I had a kick me sign or, you know, a difficult cases sign on my back, and people would come see me. Because I... maybe because I would listen too much and I'd do too much, right? And I'd send them to all these people who'd never figured it out. So at the same time I have patients who come and see me and, okay, Dr. Phan, I've seen two or three different endocrinologist and they kept on reducing my thyroid medication dose. Can you get me back to a dose where I was fully functional, where i could actually work and earn a living? I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I want to help this person out. So we do that and I started going down into the natural desiccated pig thyroid world and hormones and all this other stuff. I was kind of like the Oprah Winfrey of thyroid at one point, I was like, you get thyroid, you get thyroid, you get hormones. And it came to dawn on me that when you keep on giving thyroid hormones to somebody, guess what the thyroid does? The thyroid's like, oh buddy, you got it? I'm gonna go take a nap, I'm heading back, right? So you're making the patient more dependent on thyroid medicine, right? And then, all of a sudden, they're wanting more, they're wanting more thyroid medicine. So you up it or you crank it, because their belief and my belief was well, if you're overweight, you need a little help in your thyroid, so we'll give you more thyroid (medicine). But I'll tell you after doing this for over a decade, more thyroid medicine is not the answer. In fact, you make it worse. You actually push the adrenals more. One day I had a patient come to see me and she's like, hey Dr. Phan, how do I fix my thyroid without medication? I was like, I have no clue! I'm sorry, the books don't.... not even the alternative books that I've been reading. If you've read... if you're versed in the alternative thyroid world, there's a lot of authors out there. They're very smart people and they've got industry... you know, they've got their whole supplement line behind them and stuff like this. And I was trying to follow the rules like, you get your Free T3 here, Reverse T3 here and the ferritin here, and etc etc. And I had with perfect looking results and they felt crappy. And I had people bad, bad lab tests and they feel great and it's like what's the difference? And then, you go, it must be adrenals. So you go down adrenal route, you make them pay for an adrenal saliva test and...
Kerstin Ramstrom:I paid for that, yep!
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Yeah, right? And you think... and there's always a new test, there's always something. I have patients with stats and tests. Like I've got this allergy test and I've got this muscle testing and I've got these other urine, you know, organic acid... all these different tests. Lyme test, and it's just like so much. It's like, well, that's just overwhelming. How am I supposed to be a specialist in all these different things, right? And people spent money going to overseas, and to Portland and Florida and California, flying off. And I said, that's nice if you have the money and the cash available and the energy to go. But not everybody has that, and so it's kind of, you know, it's kind of difficult to justify, tell a patient, Hey maybe you want to see this specialist who's hormone... whatever... in California. And by the way, it's cash pay only and I don't know if you can afford that. It's just hard, right? So you try to learn as much as you can, but it's confusing because all this information is conflicting. It came to head when one of my family members came to me and needed help for her son. And basically she had taken him to the pediatrician and the pediatrician talked to her about this problem which was that he was kind of slow to develop. You know, being verbal and whatnot. And so the pediatrician says well, you know, he's in a bilingual family, that's why he's slow, you know. And she just didn't take that as an answer. She said, look I got plenty of friends who have bilingual kids and they're not... they're just leaps and bounds developmentally compared my child. So she brought him to me. And I'm like, you do realize I'm an internal medicine doctor, right? I don't do kids, you know. Why did you bring him to me? She's like, oh, because you're family and you're free! Well great, yeah, I said great, let's do this, okay? So I went to the occupational therapist and I spoke to the occupational therapist and she owns the clinic and she's been doing this for 30 years. And she said, look, I'm not a doctor so I can't make a proper diagnosis, but based on my years of experience this child has severe autism. I was like oh my gosh, this totally.... totally makes sense. You don't have to be a very astute doctor to realize these symptoms there, right? So if you know autism, there's not a lot of treatment. There are behavioral treatments and you know, we went looking at these different treatments. You know, you're talking about behavioral therapies and food diet, you know, chiropractors and functional medicine and homeopathy and all these different things. And when you're a parent trying to help your child, you're just throwing.... you're making it rain money at other practitioners. And here I am, and I have a medical training background and I'm listening to this stuff, and I'm like, yeah, I guess that sounds kind of legit, I mean, there's some science behind that. And when you're trying to help, you're just do whatever you can. Like it's expensive, right? So after a few years, the mother's like, look, Nguyen, hey you know, I am not made of cash. And my kid's a guinea pig to these folks, and you've got too much invested in this because you're trying to prove to our family that you're a good doctor by fixing my kid. Oh my god, you're totally right, you know. You're right about your child.... your intuition with your child, and you're right about this right. So let's is take off everything... stop everything. You know, but meanwhile, the child's still getting worse. I mean, he had severe anxiety. Taking him to the dentist's office, you have to... you know, you have to basically knock him out. An anesthesiologist, I mean, costs$4,000 because she didn't have dental insurance, right?
Kerstin Ramstrom:Oh, wow.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Yeah. And, you know, the fact is, I sat in because, I was watching him. And it's dramatic because I was watching him like, Oh, my God, you know, the kid falls asleep and he's looking at you going, I hope you know you're doing me, right? And you feel so guilty, you're like, ah! And the anesthesiologist, because he knows I'm a doctor, he's like, oh, he'll be fine, no big deal. He just.... I mean, you look at the medications he threw at him and you're like, Oh, my God, I don't know these medications. You have to trust the anesthesiologist. And I had spoken to the dentist, I said, hey, look, we want to be as holistic as we can. And he's like, okay, yeah, he's like, yeah, we'll do that, we'll do that. But when it comes down to it, it's the anesthesiologist who is in control. So all these medications, right. And I don't know how... if we messed him up even more, right? So, you know, he started developing seizures. And, you know, I said, we got to take him to a neurologist. The mom's like, Look, I don't want to do any more. We've done so much, right? Every time I hold him down to take blood, he's looking at me, and I'm crying. And he's crying. And it's just traumatic for both of us. So she said, I'll take my chances, you know. And at this point, Mom and Dad are so stressed out, they're sleeping with the boy every single night in bed, because they have to watch him. And they're running on, you know, adrenaline, you know, and almost PTSD. And so, I get desperate. And I'm looking for answers. You know, I get back on... having had read all these, you know, books and summits and stuff like this online, you find Anthony William, right? You're like, hunh, that's kind of interesting. And so what did I do, I think I went to his website or something like this. And I'm like, Okay, let's try this out. Right. And so I just put our name in, like, hey, let's put our name in there. I tell the mother later on, she's looked at me... when she finds out, she looks at the web, she goes, god, Nguyen, you and your cockamamie crazy ideas, right? I know, I know. But don't you want to know when the kid's 30 years old, having a seizure every day in an institution that you just threw the kitchen sink at him? She's like, yeah, I guess so.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Yeah. And so when was this? What year was this?
Dr. Nguyen Phan:I think it was shortly after the book.... No, sorry. Before the book was released, actually. Okay. He was on the Hay House. He was giving these a radio shows basically, right?
Kerstin Ramstrom:Yep. He started those in like mid-2015.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:I think that's what... How I.... because, you know, Hay House, right? I'm listening to Hayhouse and stuff. And that's how I think I got his name.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Okay. And then his first book came out in November 2015. Okay,
Dr. Nguyen Phan:But I think we got to... we talked to him before the book came out.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Okay, so when you got online, you got on the list for a consult?
Dr. Nguyen Phan:We got on the list, right? Yeah.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Awesome.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Okay. It's a lottery. Okay, fine. Great. We'll wait. We'll wait. So a few months later, we get this call, Hey, let's set your appointment with Anthony William. Oh, great. No problem. And all this time I started.... oh, like, did I do the right thing? You know, this spirit thing, I don't know? Am I gonna get myself all.... Like, you're kind of second guessing yourself, right? You're like, oh, what if I talk to him and he thinks that I'm an idiot or something? He knows my... like he'll pick up how stupid I am. Like that. Right. And I think that's part of my... one of my.... I don't know, character traits that is a double edged sword, right? Because when you're a doctor, and you have this.... not self doubt I would say, but you can kind of see things from a different perspective, you can accommodate patients better, right? I don't want to call it humble because I'm not humble at all. But I kind of, I can see it from different perspective. So then, you know, okay, so a few months later... we got the consult, we talked to the guy, we're talking to Anthony. And the mom's like, if he's that good, he'll know, we won't have to ask him too many questions, he'll just tell us what we need to know, right? And I'm like, God, in hindsight, you're like, damn it, I should have written all these questions down.... you know, all these things I wanted to know. Because you know, it takes effort. Any good practitioner who's giving Medical Medium consults, the more they have to use their intuition or whatever, the harder it is. They have to put an effort into it. But if you give it to them, okay, this is my... these are our medical issues, these are what we want to address. It's a lot easier and less energy expended for them to kind of pull it out of you. Does it make sense?
Kerstin Ramstrom:Absolutely. And that was sort of my approach when I had my call with him. I had already read the book and it was probably early 2016 but I gave him like, okay, I read the book. Here's what I think I have, you know, here's a little my background. Here's what I think I have, now we can fast forward through that section because that's a give, I know what that is, and then we can we can get to the harder stuff.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:And that's a fun thing to kind of think about because we didn't have the book at that time so... And even for us now, as practitioners who have kind of known his information, The information out there now is so vast compared to when we started out.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Oh, my God. Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:And so anybody coming in, I mean, if you watch him on a Live, people are asking, so is gluten bad or not? Can I have sprouted gluten? Can I have organic gluten? And you're like, Ah, you know, but you know, everybody starts somewhere.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Absolutely. And with six books, it's a lot of info. And it's one of the reasons.... So we're taping this right before the New Revised Edition of his first book, Medical Medium, Secrets Behind Chronic and Mystery Illness and How to Finally Heal is coming out. And one of the reasons why I was thrilled that he was actually replacing that book is, it's not adding a seventh book to the arsenal, it's keeping it at six. Now, granted, this book is going to be bigger. Yeah, it's a small... you know, six is still smaller than seven. I mean, if you're going to have 20 books, and you've got to go through 20 books to figure out what's wrong. That's a lot to ask somebody when they're really sick and have a lot of brain fog. So
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Brain fog is a big thing that we have to deal with. I mean, in a certain sense, it makes our jobs, our job as a practitioner easier, because it's like, we're gonna reset the basics. Some people who don't have brain fog, and they know the information, then obviously, you go to advanced stuff. But you know, the first visit, let's say they never heard about it, you can just hit the small stuff, the easy stuff, and just build on that. The nice thing about, I think, this revision is I think it's the book that he wanted to put up the first time around, but people weren't ready for it. Right?
Kerstin Ramstrom:Absolutely.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Yeah, he couldn't mention all these different things, especially the, you know, the pandemic stuff. So it's just really, I think it's.... we're excited to see this stuff. Especially if it's autism, come on, you know, it has your place here. So I want to see what else new stuff he has to add about that. And I think he can be more forthcoming now that people have been warmed up to his information, and he's proven himself. And it's just certain people, not everybody, but to many people already.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Yeah, yeah. And I found that original book one, when I read it, I mean, I sat down and read it in like a day or two. I just ripped through it. And it was, and it was easy enough to consume. And it was, it's so spoke to me, which is why I read it so fast, right? Because it's like, oh, my God, this explains so many things that are going on in my life. And it... it was easy to get through. And I hope that the New Revised Edition is going to be that easy too, just with more information.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Yeah, I think it will. It will appeal to me, you know, to different levels of people, right, because people who are seasoned, they will have more information. I think it's like 100 more... almost 100 more pages than the previous... the original book. Great. So that's, that's recipes and whatever else he has added, but yeah, so we're looking forward to that. Yeah. But when we spoke to him, you know, we kind of got the rundown. And he, you know, me furiously writing this stuff down. We said, Well, I mean, oh, my God, I have to get him off eggs? I mean, he's already he's already gluten free and dairy free. You want to do this? And he's like, yeah, you just got to do it. Right? Because if you don't do it, he might get worse. And I was like, Okay, well, let's, we'll try this out. And we didn't, we didn't do perfectly at all but in three months, we saw this change in him that we didn't see... There was three months of no seizures for some odd reason.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Wow.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Yeah. So it was like, that's, that's the longest thing we had. And it's like, you know, so the the mother's like, there's something there. There's something there, right? And so we didn't even do it 100%. You know, the thing you have to worry about when you have children is that the family's with him? In this household, there was grandpa and grandma too, right? Okay, so somebody is eating their way. And he's looking at it. He's like, I want what they're having, why can I have what they're having? I must be a bad boy, or I'm being punished or something, you have to take that into account. You have the whole family kind of getting on board, or at least trying to hide the food, so that he doesn't go run and get it, you know, because it's like, it's difficult.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Absolutely.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:But there was something there. And when the book came out, I grabbed it and I read it, I was like, wow, I gotta change how I practice. Because I've been looking, I'd been looking and how can I... What can I get behind that would.... that anybody can kind of pick up and use and explain it. Because either Anthony William is an evil genius, and he knows to put all the pieces together, or the information is real and true, right? So then, you know, I started using it. I'm like, Yeah, I know you know about gluten. I know you know dairy right, but let's look at eggs again guys. And, and people were like hearing that. And so I tested it on patients and you see like, they're slowly getting better, right? Now, of course, holidays would roll around and they'd go eat their crap and then they'd, you know, fall off the wagon and they'd feel bad again. And as I got better... and I'm a slow learner just to tell you the truth... and so it takes me a while to figure out, what's.... what am I missing and what's going on here and stuff like this. But you know, I had already spent years learning conventional medicine, you know, medical school and the training, spending a good amount of time and of course money. And then I started learning alternative medicine. And not getting officially certified in that but learning all these principles about it, and seeing firsthand how labs and stuff based on the books and thyroid and stuff tell you to do, and I had to let that go too. So anybody coming into and saying, hey, look, you know, I've read all this stuff. I've had been, you know, paleo, keto. I've done, you know, Atkins and Zone and Eat Right For Your Blood Type. I'm like, Yeah, you've learned a lot, and you need to let that go. Now, just like I had to let it go. And I had to let go, a lot of money and training that I spent personally on this stuff. Mm hmm. And I think it's harder for people who are influencers, who are very well entrenched in their programs to backtrack and go, Oh, oh, Anthony William's stuff now. Because I've been saying XYZ for so many years. I'm nobody in the field. So I don't have that, like, you know, I have to keep... oh I said this and that in the past. But it's hard for those guys. And I think many of them, as Anthony has alluded to, listen to him, or at least read his book, just to know what the quote unquote competition is doing. And then they'll just slowly change, you know, you'll see them change their thoughts. Right.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Right. But there's some ego in the way there of a faster shift. Yeah,
Dr. Nguyen Phan:There's a lot of ego and doctors, especially doctors, having been trained or whatever, you know, you've earned your degree, you've gone all these different things. And, you know, some guy in a white coat is gonna... like me, I'm gonna tell you to listen to a guy with a voice in his head. It's kind of hard. Right? So they want to be based in science and research and clinical and very like... science based. And Anthony says, look, the science that we have in technology, computers and cell phones is different than science, you apply to healthcare, to really treating people. Because there's so many variables that come in, right? Yeah, it's nice algebra and calculus, you have an equation to solve for these variables, you have an answer. Even if it's an irrational number, right? But when it comes to healthcare, oh, man, there's so many things. No, did you have exposed something that day on the way to the clinic? And then treatments or stuff like this? Or, you know, so people would think, oh, it's nightshades, it's, you know, I need protein. And these all... I need vitamin D even. Vitamin D is not as important as we think it is, if you listen to Anthony's stuff, it's mind blowing. And it's hard for people to like, kind of take that and go, I've been doing this wrong for all these years. No, either I'm wrong or he's wrong. He must be wrong. That's the same with doctors, doctors have this ego. They think, okay, I'm a smart doctor, I've done all this training, I've had years of experience and this patient come sees me, I can't fix the patient. Guess who's... What's the problem? It's the patient?
Kerstin Ramstrom:Right.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:There's something supratentorial, as they put it, right? So supratentorial means 'in their head'. Yeah, it's in their head, heavy metals are in their head. But you got to know how to pull them out, right? And, the thing about this information, we get excited about it, because it's like, man, think about it. We're empowering ourselves to learn this stuff. And if you learn this stuff, you'll know more than 90-95% of doctors. You know, I send people to specialists, consultants, guys in the medical... you know, the Medical Center in Houston is kind of known. It's
Kerstin Ramstrom:Yeah, it's a big one. MD Anderson?
Dr. Nguyen Phan:MD Anderson, you know, all these different places. And I know, when I send them, I take it with a grain of salt, they're going to have a conventional diagnosis. And their treatment is going to be along the lines of conventional treatments and stuff like this. But I have to know that doing that with the patient, kind of like.... you have to straddle both fields, both sides, conventional, and alternative. And when I say alternative, I'm talking about Anthony William's stuff, right? There's alternative stuff that's not so hot or costly, and there's Anthony William's stuff. And so I try to frame the patient enough so they understand because I know that.... I have to let people have enough, almost like rope to hang themselves, because they they have to prove to themselves that this is what conventional medicine is going to do and it's not going to be as effective. Because conventional medicine is like everything, we can treat everything. Now reverse and cure, they can't make a.... they can't make a claim. And neither does Anthony. Anthony doesn't say I can cure this. He just said, Look, we can get you better from this or we can you know, get your functional at least. So when you're doing.... when I'm sending people, I said I know that they're going to give their explanation. And it gives patients a peace of mind knowing that they've kind of gone to the conventional route and kind of work them up some up. And then I said, Okay, if you want to do that, I'm going to support you 100%, whatever you want to do, I'm going to support you. Because it's ultimately up to you, whether you want to do that keto or carnivore diet, do that. But why don't you add some of these other things, so you don't kill yourself. You know, your kidneys, whatever it is. And when they when they kind of exhaust it, they come back to me. Sometimes it takes a year, sometimes it takes two, three years, they come back and they're like I tried that, you know, I got luke warm results. And I said, Look, if you're ready, this is an option, but you're going to have to go full force. Because if you kind of do it, you kind of get results. And then you'll say, you know.... you kind of basically... it didn't work, right? Yep. So that's how I got... to make a short story long. That's how I got to Anthony William and where I am now, I hope I hit the big points.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Yeah, absolutely. For people who are following Anthony's work, how can they use this with their doctors, and obviously, most of the doctors out there aren't like you, they are not tied into Anthony's information. And so, and I see this a lot in the Facebook groups, people are really reluctant to go to their doctors, but they have some health issues that need some attention. Yeah, and so they end up going to the doctor, but they, you know, the doctors say something that they may or may not agree with, and they can't figure out how to fit it all in together on their own.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Well, one of the things you can do is you work with a experienced practitioner, it doesn't have to be me, you have to be MD. You work with a practitioner who has some experience. And they can say, look, we expect the doctors to say this, and these things you can do or ask your doctor, because it's very important that you always talk to your doctor and stuff like this, otherwise, there's a liability issue and things like this. The doctor's job is to make sure there's not a big old problem, you got a big old mass in your brain or something. So you want to use the tests, like, you know, to make sure there's not a big cancer going on or something bad that could be averted, like, you know, certainly, you know, a structural problem let's say. You know, you got a block in your intestines or you've got mass in your liver. So you use that, but you also go... you go in and again, Anthony talks about giving your doctor the book. Okay, nine times out of 10, or eight times out of 10, probably the doctor won't have time to read it. The doctor has enough trouble trying to finish his charts and make sure insurance coverage and all these different things. But if they happen to be open, they'll take it. And that's one more person that is open to it, at least. And this is how change occurs. Change happens one at a time and it happens slowly for some people, right? But if your doctor like me, and I got the book, I'd be like, Oh, thank you, I don't have to pay 20 bucks for a book and I got a gift and I dig into the right. But you may you may be the one that changes. I mean, you may change the doctor's perspective, who then can influence 1000s of other people because he or she sees patients, many patients. He says Well, I don't know, try this book and they read it and they change your life. You don't even know it's just like another ripple effect. Right? So that's one thing. But you work with your doctor, and you understand that he may not have all the answers. He doesn't have the understanding that you might have from the books. And here's a quick example, you're going to get blood drawn. So he writes all the tests out or he draws it. I draw my own blood because it's very cathartic. I stick people with the needle. I'm like 'argh!' Stress! And that day, they call me Dr. Acula.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Dr. acula. I love it.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:But you say, Okay, well, maybe you have these tests that he's written. And then you go to the test facility or the phlebotomist in the office that day. Then you say, I'm only going to give you three vials. I mean, really, if it's like a lot, he specializes, maybe four depends on your adrenals. And you say, I can only give three. If you need more. I'll come back another day.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Okay. Oh, and that's really important. And I know that Anthony has talked about that recently. And, like, I hadn't heard him speak about that for a long time. But yes, having Yeah, vials, and vials and vials and vials and vials of blood drawn is really harsh on your system.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Yes it is. When you take out your white blood cells, and you take out the volume. And so the body has... the poor body, it's like you're already dealing with stuff and it's like I have to make more blood, you know. And then you've taken away the white blood cells, which are your immune system shoulders out of your system. So now it can't fight the virus back and the virus is going to have a heyday, right? A field day. So you do that, you say, you know, I understand but let's... let's just give me three for now because I'm gonna, I'm gonna faint and you don't want to pick me up because you know, I pee on myself or something. So you just give them three vials. And you come back another day. You know? And and that's one simple thing you can do for instance, right?
Kerstin Ramstrom:Okay, great.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Talk to your doctor about it if you... I mean, there's even Epstein-Barr virus testing you can do. Most doctors don't know how to check it. I mean, you can check for Hashimoto's, some doctors only check one antibody instead of two. Whether you have one or two, it doesn't matter. I mean, whether you.... even if you don't have Hashimoto's markers and you've got thyroid issue, you see that you know that this issue, you know it's Epstein-Barr, regardless of whether the Epstein-Barr comes back positive. The reason I test Epstein-Barr Virus is to help the patient kind of make that link, and they go 'oh, Nobody's ever checked that before'. And I do see that on a piece of paper... because doctors and even patients, they like metrics. They like concrete evidence that there's something there and they can actually say, see, they go to their husbands and say 'see, I'm not making this up'. There's something there and it kind of validates them. I like to give them that validation. And again, there are cases where I do blood testing. There's nothing on there at all. They're like 'see, Dr. Phan, you told me there was Epstein Barr, I don't see it.' I'm like, I know. But there are variations and mutations that don't show up on tests. So the blood tests are just a snapshot in time. So that's another thing... another pointer for you to realize is that blood tests are a snapshot in time, they're not the end-all, be-all. They're like taking a quick snapshot on a highway at a certain time of day. So if you check, you take a picture of... where I live, there's a Trans-star camera, if you take a picture at 5am at one intersection and a picture at 5pm, they're two different pictures. They're the same, I mean, they're the same location, but the traffic is different, you know, all these different things are different. So just keep that in mind. And Anthony has said, in order to get a really reliable reading, say, for the thyroid, you got to take blood three times a day for 30 days and average them. And nobody's going to do that. And I hope you don't do that, right? So that's another practical example, saying that remember, blood work is not end-all, be-all, right? So those are some ways to bring it into the thing. And he does have some parts of the books and the blogs about how to interpret the tests a little bit, so you know. You know, allergy tests, are they either good or bad? I really don't think they're a good idea. I think, you know, just circling around, you know, looking for something that you don't really have. Allergy tests, remember, they don't tell you if the food feeds the virus, it just tells you have a blood response to the food itself. And so you'll see the test, you're like, Oh, my God, I'm allergic to pineapple. But I don't eat pineapple? How does that work? You know, and it just changes so, so quickly.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Right? Plus, you've got 72 or 128 needles stuck in your arm or your back that day.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Yeah, that's fun. That's that's acupuncture. Right? So...
Kerstin Ramstrom:Practically, yeah, it's just a little more concentrated all the way up your arm? Yeah.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Well, the iron maiden. Um, yeah, but those are some things I don't know, does that answer your question about...
Kerstin Ramstrom:It does and I've got another question on the blood test. So, and Anthony has talked about this, and you've stated it. And you have shown some very good examples in your Instagram, where you have posted some... like one test versus another, which has been wonderful. And Dr. Phan's, Instagram is @MDwithspirit, all one word, so the letter M letter D with spirit. But there's lots of good humor on there, in addition to lots of good information. So if somebody, for example, comes back, and they have a thyroid test, and it's showing some thyroid antibodies, and it's showing some of their levels off, where we know that the tests aren't great, and are often not accurate, how do you interpret... like, what can you actually reliably take away from that? I mean, is that reliable to suggest, yes, you probably have some Epstein-Barr going on, or could it really just be you have nothing going on and the test is completely wrong?
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Okay, so a couple of things, two pointers, more practical pointers. Again, most doctors will look at the test. And if they even ordered the ones that I typically recommend or Anthony recommends. Anthony recommends the TSH, I think the Free T3, the Free T4, he recommends the antibodies. Most doctors only check what's called the TPO antibody or thyroid peroxidase antibodies. There's another one called the thyroglobulin antibodies. And then he does not recommend the Reverse T3, contrary to what people say, and the Reverse T3 is more costly, it takes more time to do. So it's just easier... in certain labs - Quest - you have to spin it down and you have to get a separate vial and so just another another complication.
Kerstin Ramstrom:And another vial of blood that you may not have wanted to donate. Okay,
Dr. Nguyen Phan:So those things are some simple tests you can do. If you're hyperthyroid, maybe the TSI, called the thyroid stimulating immunoglobulin - that can be helpful sometimes. There's and then, of course, the Epstein-Barr protocol. The Epstein-Barr panel that I recommend getting - they used to have it all in one panel, but then they separated it. And so it's called the Epstein-Barr Antibody Profile. And then there's one called the Epstein-Barr, early antigen, IGG.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Okay.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:And the way that I've learned it, I could be totally off. Someone's going listen to show and say Dr. Phan, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Well, anyway, I like the early antigen, Epstein-Barr early antigen because it kind of gives me an idea that it's still actively replicating in the blood stream. Remember, I said, we're only getting blood.... we're only getting blood, we're not getting.... I'm not taking a piece of your liver. Because Epstein-Barr resides in the liver. It resides in the thyroid, it resides in your ovaries and stuff. I can't take a piece of tissue out of you. It's called a biopsy or autopsy and those are not convenient for anybody. So it helps me saying'hey, look, there's something there', right? Okay, so with the TSH, the Thyroid Stimulating Hormone, there's a range and typically the range is like 0.45 to 4.5, I think it's picograms per milliliter, I'll need to check on that one. But that's a big range. It's a tenfold range. So the doctor looks at it and there's no flag or bold that's saying out range. Most times, I'd say five or six out of 10 times, they're just going to go'you're normal, see you later, no big deal.' But I say if you're more than two and a half to... there's something brewing there. And you couple it with your symptoms. Now, here's the other thing. Most people think that hypothyroid symptoms are weight gain, hair's thinning, cold, fatigue, brain fog, swelling in the legs. If you have been around and you've heard of adrenal fatigue symptoms, okay? What are the differences... Kerstin, what's the difference between adrenal fatigue symptoms and hypothyroid symptoms?
Kerstin Ramstrom:That's an excellent question. Having lived through all of this myself for years before I found Medical Medium, it's all the same thing.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:It's all the same thing, right? Because when I ask patients, I'm like 'quiz time'. They're kind of like, a deer in the headlights. They don't know what to say, right? And I'm like, Look, I don't know the difference either. Because they're almost... they're the same. Right? If you actually read, like, all the symptoms, of hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism, they overlap too. Then you're like, what? What we know is that Epstein-Barr virus screws your adrenals up, right? And we also know from other books, not just Anthony's books, okay. You're like, always address the adrenals, the adrenals are the foundation from which you build thyroid health on. And Anthony's said, if anything, Anthony has said, like, protect the adrenals like gold at Fort Knox.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Yes.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Because if you fix that.... if you keep the adrenals safe and strong, you will not have other problems. But the problem is, most of us don't realize that and we go go go because our society asked for XYZ. And especially in women, right? Women are the ones who have to bear the brunt of not only societal norms, but also family things, and it's just, you know, having babies, and more... it's just so much stacked against women. And I tell people, jokingly, you know, I don't have the balls to be a woman in this society, because you have to have a lot, you have a lot of resilience, you know? In fact, if you go further, and ask Anthony, that's why women are targeted, you know, with these pathogens that come out. And women bear the brunt of these things. So when you ask yourself... when I tell a patient, I said, you ever noticed that there are more women with thyroid disease than men? Did you ever notice that there are more women with autoimmune diseases? What do you think? Why? And they're like, oh, it must be my hormones, hormones. You're right, you're totally right. Because the virus, these viruses love hormones. And when you're eating eggs, you're feeding those hormones... I mean you're putting that hormonal cycle into play and stuff. Dairy the same way, you know. So, getting back to the point is that when you look at the thyroid, you may not be an expert at interpreting it, but if you kind of know, let's say, my TSH is greater than two, there's something going on that day. Now. You can check it again, a week later and see if it drops below two, you're probably okay. Your thyroid fluctuates. It's not like a static number. Some days it will go up and down, up and down, depending what your body's doing. So one number a diagnosis does not make.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Okay.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Okay, so if you've got any... so anybody with hypothyroid has Epstein-Barr. That's just the nlb. Right. I mean, yeah, there's like a small percentage, like radiation induced, you know, I got a lot of flight attendants who have got hypothyroidism, you know, right? Radiation. But that's, that's kind of a minority of people who got, you know, radiation induced hypothyroidism. The majority is Epstein-Barr virus. Of course, there's the Unholy Four that play all into this. But, that's one thing to look at. If.... I have people with Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which is the most common cause of hypothyroidism, Hashimoto's, which is considered an autoimmune disease. They have negative tests, but you do an ultrasound and you see a little bit of inflammation. And the radiologists. if they're good, they're like, Oh, that's representative of chronic thyroiditis or thyroiditis. When you're looking at ultrasound, they'll just say, tissue is... the tissue of the thyroid is heterogeneous. Okay? So in a normal thyroid, it's homogeneous. Homo means kind of the same or smooth throughout. Hetero means it's different, it means there's kind of an inflammation and so the tissue is not, kind of, uniform.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Okay.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Now that can go away over time, a long time, right? And I got plenty of.... if there's a nodule, if there's a cyst in your thyroid, you know that's Epstein-Barr Virus. It doesn't have to.... you don't even have to have heterogeneous tissue yet. But what is that? Well, it's the virus going into your thyroid, because remember, the thyroid has hormones and viruses love hormones. So it's a buffet time in thyroid.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Buffet Time, I love that.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:The body is trying to encapsulate that virus with a cyst, a water filled sack, a cyst and then it can go to a nodule or a mass, right? So when you see those things, that's a good sign Epstein-Barr there, right? I've talked to many people and they're like 'I don't have any thyroid problems, Dr. Phan." Yeah, but you got half your thyroid cut out five years ago, right? No, but that's not thyroid disease. I'm like, because they didn't find anything, the biopsy was negative. I mean so many women lose part or their whole thyroid because there was a mass or a nodule and they did a biopsy and, by the way, Anthony says.... he says that when you put that needle in, you're just kind of irritating it. You're almost like 'I wonder if that's a hornet's nest? Let me just poke it and see.' You may be seeding these things a little bit, opening.... it's like pushing the egg yolk.... you kind of damage the membranes.... anyway
Kerstin Ramstrom:Right and then it explodes.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:It explodes, right? So many women get this biopsy, they did the first biopsy, and it's like, we're not sure, you know, there's some changes but not exactly cancer. We'll do this next year and they do it again. And then, you know, the second and third time, they're like, you know, just to be sure because it's getting bigger, just cut the whole darn thing out. You'll be fine on Synthroid or whatever pig thyroid that we put you on. We'll replace it and you'll be fine. Now a lot of women wish that they never did that because they, in fact, they're never fine after that. So if you can prevent that from happening -and you have the tools with the books to do that - you know, you'll be much better off in the future. One of the biggest reasons to do these protocols, right, is to not only heal yourself and get a better quality of life but think about it, you got a daughter, you got a granddaughter? If they go through the same thing or half of the stuff... the crap that you went through, do you want that for them? That's why I try to motivate.... I was like, look, I know you feel great, I know you love eating your Papa John's on Friday or whatever it is. But think about in the future, right? If she has this issue and you've been to five different doctors already, do you want her to go to that? This is the real reason to do this, now just for yourself.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Right. I don't have any kids and it hits me all the time, it's like, we have to get to the people who have the kids so that we can... we can help heal the other generations. And it's one of the reasons why I wanted to help people because it's like, I don't have kids, I don't have the next generation behind me that I can help heal, to keep, you know, part of this world healthy. So it's like okay well, I can work with other people who have the kids. Like, it's the only way to get there.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Yeah well, things like this podcast, I mean if we get out there and only one person listens then that person isn't you know listening to people or they're not listening to us. But if one person listens to this and decides.... you never know what happens. You know, I mean I can give you stories about people who've changed their life. But you don't always hear those because they don't ever come back and tell you, oh, by the way I didn't have to have the surgery, I didn't have to have this thing... they just think that they dodged a bullet and they're happy and stuff and they're too busy to tell me this. You know, it's nice to actually hear these things sometimes just to kind of validate what you're doing. Yeah, it's you know, sexually transmitted tumors as I put it, I mean kids.... you know, you want to help them in the future so they don't have to do this. Because they're more challenged with environment, you know, we didn't have all the crap that they have to deal with now.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Absolutely.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:The pandemic is a good example of that.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Absolutely and I even think back through, like, the 70s and 80s and just the proliferation of pesticides and chemicals and everything else that's entered our environment since then, like, it just gets worse all the time.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:And how it's homeopathically, you know, transferred to our offspring, it's just.... You can think about it, you get kind of depressed and that's why maybe, you know, the book came out, when it came out. Just to kind of try to.... in this tide of bad news something to kind of lift us up a little bit, right?
Kerstin Ramstrom:Right, absolutely. So if you were talking to somebody who was just finding Medical Medium information and had some advice for them, what would it be?
Dr. Nguyen Phan:I guess until I find a better way, I do what I do when I see my patients and I say look... I kind of introduce them to the principles, and you know, what is it specifically that we're trying to address? And if it's in the book, hey great, there you go. Read this whole section about what it is. But I would say the easiest thing is.... it's like if you walk into my dojo the first day, right? Martial arts studio. You know and like, Okay class is your first class today, we're gonna do a flying scissor spin kick and we're gonna catch your partner's head and flip him to the side. And then you're like, excuse me sensei, can you teach me how to tie this belt first.
Kerstin Ramstrom:That's me(laughing)
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Yeah if you're new to this information, you have to go step-by-step and you have to give yourself some time, right? When I started this stuff, I cut out, you know, one at a time, right? And then slowly over time.... if you had told me seven years ago, whatever, eight years ago, Hey, you're gonna be plant based. I'm like, you're crazy and start crying all of a sudden. I've said that exact same statement so many times, yeah. But as you go further, you're like, what more can I do? And you know, I gotta walk this talk, I can't just tell my patients, you gotta get off all these foods and then go across the street and have some fast food and stuff like this, right? I have to walk the talk. And so what I had to do was go one at a time, one at a time. And if you fall down, you get back up. You know the journey of 1000 steps starts with a lot of bitching and moaning. And so you get through that and you get off the foods. Then you try to eat more regularly. The whole picture I would say is, you don't feed the virus, you help your adrenals, so that your sugars are stabilized. And when you stabilize your blood sugar, your adrenaline doesn't go off as much. That adrenaline feeds viruses and makes you stressed out. And it makes your liver gunked and make your fat on the belly. So you help your adrenals out because you need your adrenals to help you pull the toxins that you're gonna keep pulling on your body.... the dead virus corpses that you're killing by starving them will start to stack up and you got to pull them out. The adrenals help you do that, right? And then you bring in the supplements and the herbs that will help you, again, kill the virus and support your nervous system and other things like that, so it's like a kind of a three stage deal, right? Knowing that you're doing the best you can is very helpful for you, right? But there's some accountability that you have. That's why you try to find a practitioner or a support group that can be there for you because, unfortunately, you know, spouses and kids and stuff... if they've eaten this way, it's hard for them to get off. And it's like, oh there goes mom or whomever again on her crazy, you know, kick, you know. And when you get better and they can tangibly see it, because it takes time for them to really realize that, oh mom's not doing this anymore, whatever. I say mom because it's just the most common, notbecause i'm trying, you know, to single anybody out. It can change and you just have to know that you have to keep it going and you have to kind of play at it, play a lot at it. Because if you kind of do it, that one egg that you get during Easter time, or whatever, and it could be what's holding you back. Because Anthony said, it can stay in your system for...was it 90 days?
Kerstin Ramstrom:90 days, yep.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:And you think, whoa 90 days, oh my gosh!
Kerstin Ramstrom:I know, so if you have one every 90 days you still have egg in your liver.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Yeah I mean, there are other people who just two weeks out... man, they're fine, they're awesome and great. You might be that person but just understand that you may not. And you have to keep it going. And that one thing that you take comfort in, because there's an emotional attachment you have to certain thing, because it's culture, because of growing up, you know... When you let that go, you're growing spiritually, for sure, but you also may be helping physically as well. Just something kind of interesting to know. So to answer your question is, you go slow, you go one at a time, and you get support. You've got to be careful about the support. Maybe your support is a practitioner that you feel good about, right? Maybe the support is a friend who's doing with you. Maybe the support is a group online or something, there's a bunch of people who are practitioners who have created groups and stuff. There are bad ones out there.... there are bad Medical Medium groups out there, because they're spouting out like all their... they're trying to fuse information, right? Because they have to be... you have to have it grounded in scientific research to kind of backup what they say. And again, if you're waiting for science to kind of come to your aid for chronic illnesses, you may be waiting a long time.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:So, you don't need a scientific study to realize that I shouldn't let my baby play with scissors, you don't need that. You can kind of figure that out. So.....
Kerstin Ramstrom:My background's all in.... my undergrad degree's in math and physics, so I have a science background and when I started reading Anthony's first book, I thought, Wow, I'm really going to start basing some of my medical decisions on a guy who hears a spirit in his ear. I'm like... I'm a little more rational than that. However I thought, Well, this is going to be my scientific experiment. I'm going to see if it works. I'm like, what's he asking of me? I'm gonna eat more fruits and vegetables. Is that really all that crazy? I think I can handle that. Let's just see how it goes.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Yeah, I mean even looking at religious standpoint - I'm not a religious person - but they say test the spirits, right? So this is what we do. We test it, we test it. I test it on my patients and if it was really bad source of information to be like eat more fruits and vegetables, you know eat more.... you know use herbs and natural supplements, rather than pharmaceuticals. I mean, it doesn't make sense that that would be the case, right?
Kerstin Ramstrom:Yep.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:So there's definitely a benefit and you don't have to have a research study to tell you that fruits and vegetables are good for you. But it's not just fruits and vegetables, it's a little deeper than that obviously.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Absolutely, but when I was starting out, that was sort of my focus. Take out the no foods, add more fruits and vegetables. Basic. And it was like, let's see what happens. And I saw some results on my brain fog really fast. And it was like, oh wow, I've never had any relief from that, so there's something in this. And so i just kept testing. And digging deep.... as you were saying, just, you keep digging deeper at that point and you keep digging deeper.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:That brings another point in... a part of this is that.... get on Instagram get on Facebook and read or even the lives and see people who have stories like you, or similar to you, and it gives you a little bit of motivation to say, you know, if that person can do it or this person was in a similar circumstance, then I think I can relate and I could do it that way. Because you're going to be on this journey, he says three steps forward two steps back, right? It's a cha-cha. It's not going to be linear from point A to point B. And we see that all the time, so patients will get frantic, like, oh my gosh, my rash got worse or whatever. I'm like, it's okay, you know. If you really worried about it... and one of the biggest things is for those who are seasoned, is detox. Am I on too many supplements? Too many things are killing me, so slow slow slow down slow down. That's not exactly how it works if you listen to, you know, some of the other practitioners and even Anthony, is that you may want to try.... and if you're particularly sensitive, I call these people unicorns.... they got to go slow. But if you've been doing Anthony William's stuff for a year or two years and all of a sudden you get this reaction, it's not necessarily detox per se. It's something that's shifting or something else is coming in, and you didn't notice that coming in. It's what they call a trajectory, right? And I think on my (IG) post, it was like, here's the airplanes coming down..... you know crashing right. And then you make a phone call to your mom, like oh I love you, I'm gonna be you know, it's going down. Well, your phone call didn't cause it go down further, it was just coincidental.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Absolutely. And I see that... I see that in the Facebook groups a lot. It's like, but I've been doing this for five weeks and you know, I've started gaining more weight. And it's like, you're gaining more weight because your liver was clogged up before the five weeks. It takes... give it some time. You're heading in the right direction but there's just... there's still stuff coming down the pike at you from before.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Yeah and it's helpful to me, at least, to make some metaphors. If you're going to go clean your garage out that you haven't touched in five years, as you open these tarps up and this dust flies out everywhere, are you making things worse? Or you actually cleaning it up? Well you're just dusting things up and it's gonna come out somewhere. Don't be fooled that that's the only thing. Obviously, if you have anaphylaxis you'll know better than that. But most people don't develop that (major shifting) for months or even a year into Medical Medium stuff. Unless you've got a pocket of crap that's coming out of you, you just hit that pocket in the liver. Like, I've got probably seven Happy Meals to come out of my liver one of these days. And you'll see it in your skin or something like this right, it's just something to take into account.
Kerstin Ramstrom:One of the reasons why I wanted to have healing stories on the podcast was to give people a place where they could hear how a healing journey looks, how a health journey looks, right? Because to your point, it's three steps forward two steps back. It's messy, it's not a linear path. There's all kinds of things that happen. There are new issues that get introduced, there are other things that go away. It's all over the map and I felt like a podcast was a wonderful forum for being able to explore that long form versus in a six paragraph Instagram post.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Right exactly, it's like it's not enough. You want to know the details that you can relate to. And like, oh, that one little thing helped me understand this. So it's always good to hear those things. I was looking for testimonials too when I was like, I got this patient and she's saying it doesn't work. And I'm like, is that you know.... is there something more I can see and maybe I've never dealt with a case of psoriasis this severe, you know? So it's nice to see the stories, like wow these people look pretty bad. And not so bad now.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Yeah and I will say, after your episode airs, I have some really, really, really good healing journeys coming up that I think people are going to love.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Good, awesome, cool.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Well thank you so much for being here Dr. Phan. I really appreciate it, I appreciate all your time. And as a reminder, why don't you tell people where they can find you on Instagram?
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Yeah, so my handle is at @mdwithspirit and hit me up there. I do do consultations online but I try to filter out people who are.... have done things and maybe are stuck at a point. They need maybe more of a medical view or perspective on this. I can't be your doctor online but I can try to fuse the two and kind of see, hey, this is what I've found and talking you down. I mean, the benefit of talking to a guy with a white coat is that you feel more confident about this information. And that's sometimes all people need to kind reinvigorate their belief or whatever it is. So, but yeah, and if anything, just some stupid fun, you know, posts just to kind of keep a light heart.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Absolutely you do wonders with some of the graphics and the cartoons. And I do appreciate the humor.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Yeah, the wife's like, why are you doing it? You're wasting time. But it's fun.
Kerstin Ramstrom:It's fun. You have an audience for it. It's wonderful. It's wonderful to bring some levity because you still have like Medical Nedium and medical things in those posts, but they are good humor.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:That's the thing, keeping a light heart keeps your adrenals better. It helps you get the information better too. When you're relaxed and stuff... when you're tense, it's hard to get that information because you're like, I hope I'm not doing this wrong. Oh, gosh, there's so much riding on this. And then we can just kind of step back and relax and make a good fart joke. It's just healthy.
Kerstin Ramstrom:Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate it.
Dr. Nguyen Phan:Thanks for having me. Spiritual high five to everybody!
Kerstin Ramstrom:I hope you enjoyed this episode. Show Notes for this episode, Episode #25, are available on my website at CarefullyHealing.com/podcast. If you'd like to find me on social media, I'm on Facebook at Carefully Healing and on Instagram at CarefullyHealingwithKerstin which is KERSTIN. If you've been enjoying the Quest for Healing Podcast, please feel free to share it with a friend that you think would like it too. Next week, my guest will be Jennifer Fry, whose health journey started early in life with a myriad of symptoms. Then in her early 30s, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and she found Medical Medium during her treatment. This is a very touching and heartfelt conversation and I really hope you'll tune in for it. Thank you for joining me today on the Quest for Healing Podcast. These discussions are not intended to provide medical advice but rather to give you examples of methods and modalities that you may find interesting, informative, or helpful. Please work with your doctor as you undertake your own health journey.
