Embark on a journey with Dr. Heather Stone, as she champions a healthcare revolution that hears and heals. This episode peels back the layers of systemic oversight in women's health, particularly chronic conditions like fibromyalgia and thyroid disorders. With Dr. Stone's expertise in functional medicine, we confront the one-size-fits-all approach of traditional treatments and unravel the 'Root Cause Approach to Healing.' Discover how understanding the full narrative of a patient's health can be life-altering, and why a personalized, empathetic healthcare regime is the cornerstone of true well-being.
Amidst the serious discussion of healthcare, we interlace moments of levity and personal touchstones, from the culinary delights of Brussels sprouts to the heartwarming lure of romantic comedies. These snippets reveal the human side of healing—how the foods we love, the films that transport us, and the melodies that soothe us are integral to our health and happiness. As I unveil my preference for the wisdom found in self-help books and the comforting twang of country music, Dr. Stone emphasizes the importance of creating individual sanctuaries for relaxation and self-care.
We wrap up the conversation with actionable insights on the 'Seven Pillars of Functional Medicine' and dismantle the self-limiting beliefs that often hold women back from achieving their full health potential. By challenging the myths surrounding accessibility and affordability of alternative healthcare, we encourage listeners to prioritize their well-being and make informed, proactive choices. Join our vibrant community ‘Happy, Healthy, and Lean,’ where women support each other towards thyroid health and holistic wellness, and take a step towards a future where your health narrative is in your hands.
Thanks for listening. Please check out our website at www.forsauk.com to hear great conversations on topics that need to be talked about. In these times of intense polarization we all need to find time to expand our Frame of Reference.
Embark on a journey with Dr. Heather Stone, as she champions a healthcare revolution that hears and heals. This episode peels back the layers of systemic oversight in women's health, particularly chronic conditions like fibromyalgia and thyroid disorders. With Dr. Stone's expertise in functional medicine, we confront the one-size-fits-all approach of traditional treatments and unravel the 'Root Cause Approach to Healing.' Discover how understanding the full narrative of a patient's health can be life-altering, and why a personalized, empathetic healthcare regime is the cornerstone of true well-being.
Amidst the serious discussion of healthcare, we interlace moments of levity and personal touchstones, from the culinary delights of Brussels sprouts to the heartwarming lure of romantic comedies. These snippets reveal the human side of healing—how the foods we love, the films that transport us, and the melodies that soothe us are integral to our health and happiness. As I unveil my preference for the wisdom found in self-help books and the comforting twang of country music, Dr. Stone emphasizes the importance of creating individual sanctuaries for relaxation and self-care.
We wrap up the conversation with actionable insights on the 'Seven Pillars of Functional Medicine' and dismantle the self-limiting beliefs that often hold women back from achieving their full health potential. By challenging the myths surrounding accessibility and affordability of alternative healthcare, we encourage listeners to prioritize their well-being and make informed, proactive choices. Join our vibrant community ‘Happy, Healthy, and Lean,’ where women support each other towards thyroid health and holistic wellness, and take a step towards a future where your health narrative is in your hands.
Thanks for listening. Please check out our website at www.forsauk.com to hear great conversations on topics that need to be talked about. In these times of intense polarization we all need to find time to expand our Frame of Reference.
Welcome to Frame of Reference. Informed, intelligent conversations about the issues and challenges facing everyone in today's world. In-depth interviews to help you expand and inform your Frame of Reference. Now here's your host, raul Labresch.
Speaker 2:Well, welcome everybody to another edition of what is this show called again? Oh yeah, frame of Reference Profiles and Leadership. I swear to you, sometimes I have forgotten that too, and it's just. It's one of those things where you have a moment where you just go oh my God, I forgot the name of my own podcast, but I don't know. I guess call it Sum Timers' Disease or something. Anyways, enough about me. I'm Raul Labresch, and my guest today is Dr Heather Stone, and Heather Stone is one of the top functional medicine practitioners in the world. That's right in the world, you heard it right here. She has over 20 years of clinical experience in private practice. And that's all I'm going to say about her. Because, dr Stone, first and foremost, welcome to the show. I'm so glad to have you here today with me.
Speaker 3:Thank you, I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Well, and I am not going to do any more introducing of you, because I made a New Year's resolution this year that I was going to stop introducing people from the words on a page and insist, I insist, that my guests introduce themselves, because you know you better than I know you and you would be much better at convincing people that you are you than I can be convincing them of the same thing. Dr Stone, who are you?
Speaker 3:Well, I am a functional medicine practitioner and my mission is to change the face of healthcare and I have a big focus on helping women really to empower women to take back their health and to be their own advocate and not settle for all of the symptoms and diseases that we are essentially kind of pushed into accepting, and accepting a life that is less than what we really could be experiencing.
Speaker 2:You know, I find that such an interesting premise too from the get go, honestly, because it's been my feeling and I, you know, I'm a man so I may be way out of my league here, but it has been my feeling that women for far too long have been sort of discounted for the issues that they go on. I think of my wife struggles with fibromyalgia and you know, for years, I mean, that's been around, the symptomology for that had been around for decades, you know, if not longer. They didn't really understand. I mean, I don't think even women understood this constellation of symptoms and what is this.
Speaker 2:But then to have it be discounted by medical professionals for so long, you know, and just in women in general, I think, oftentimes there have been poo pooed, especially when the medical industry was more dominated by men. I think that there was just an understanding or an implicit sort of you know. Well, you know it's just a woman thing or whatever, and I really applaud you for taking the reins and getting into a field like that. But I also wonder how you kept from killing us for so long. I really want to know that. How did you?
Speaker 3:Well, we could certainly jump off there. I think that you know we can. We can definitely go down that rabbit hole and I think that you know that kind of is why I do what I do is because you know so many women in the traditional model that we have now. Don't get me wrong, there's always a time and place for traditional medicine. But when we're dealing with chronic degenerative diseases, that is really where medicine fails, because they're trying to handle all of these symptoms and diseases with one drug after another. That doesn't really resolve or look to understand the root cause of why we have these symptoms and diseases. But really it's to override the body's physiology to essentially just shut down whatever symptom that is.
Speaker 3:And I think so many women get stuck in this place and I mostly focus on women who have low thyroid and autoimmune conditions, and you can pretty much lump fibromyalgia right into that class, because you know it's frustrating because many of us don't necessarily have a diagnosable disease or if we do, they put us on the medication but that doesn't really resolve all the symptoms that we're struggling with.
Speaker 3:And so then it's like oh, you have pain, we'll just take this painkiller and then, if it doesn't work, you know, I don't know what else to do with you, just live with it. You can't lose weight. We'll just go eat less and exercise more, and it gets way more involved than that. Or if you have depression or anxiety, just take these medications and we'll continue to try to work with these medications. But it's almost like we get looked at as hypochondriacs and then we just keep getting one medication after another and then it's like oh, you know, you can't sleep. Well, here's a sleeping pill. And it's like oh, here comes this lady again, like why can't she just deal with these symptoms?
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 3:I think it's. You know, it becomes really frustrating to be stuck in that model where you don't feel listened to, you don't feel like they believe what you're saying is true, and it's like even in our society, not only doctors, but even spouses and significant others and family members are like you're on the medication. Why can't you just get over it? And I think these symptoms become really difficult to deal with.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, why can't you? Come on, you've got a pill.
Speaker 3:I know it is. You know it's kind of surprising. I do make us. Every time I look to accept this patient into care, I always make their spouse or significant other join us for that visit while I go over and we're uncovering where all these underlying issues are coming from. And it is like nine times out of 10.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for making me be here, because I didn't understand why she was still feeling this way even though she was on the medication, and it just didn't make a whole lot of sense. And so really getting down to the root cause of why we are, you know, feeling, the way that we're feeling, is so important, because the symptoms that the body is giving us is the way the body communicates with you to tell you that something is not right and just to ignore it or shove it down or medicated those symptoms. What may go away, but they'll come back as something else, and the body is always trying to protect us and let us know hey, I need some help here, like something is not quite right. So, yeah, I think it's a need, a great need for all people, but just for me specifically. I work with women because I feel like we have the biggest circle of influence and we're going to influence the other men in our lives as well. To kind of help them get back on this track.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and I've often thought it's not fair because they're really, if we're going to talk about that sort of you want to take a pill for it it's like, well, why isn't there a pill for being a jerk? You know here's an anti-jerk pill. Why aren't you not a jerk? Yet? You've been taking these for how long, you know? I mean, it just would be. I think that would be much more helpful to the world in general. So well, I warned you ahead of time that we like to start the show and you know we kind of we already went down the way, but that's good. It's good We've established our rapport, as we say. But to start out by talking a little bit about what I call my favorite things and boy, if I had all kinds of money, I would pay Julie Andrews to do a special recording for that so we could just play that underneath while as we launch into that part of the podcast. But I think I explained to you.
Speaker 2:It's a kind of Rorschachian thing. I say red, you say blue, I say favorite bird, you say peek up. True, whatever. However, it works, that's fine. There's no right or wrong answers, there's only that one's difficult. So if you give me that answer. I will try to give you space to figure it out, but please, please, come up with something. Even if it's a lie, I don't care, so no one will know. Anyways. So first question. I'm going to start off something easy Favorite food.
Speaker 3:I hope. Favorite food? Well, it's not really that easy, but for me my favorite food is one that I can grow on my ranch. So there's a lot of different favorite foods but, if I can grow it, I'm going to love it.
Speaker 2:Okay, so homegrown food is just generally it Okay. Do you have any a particular like favorite vegetable or a favorite fruit? Maybe Narrow it down a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my favorite vegetable is Brussels sprouts or Swiss chard.
Speaker 2:No, my mother would love you. So let me tell you so. She tried throughout her entire life to get me to eat Brussels sprouts. I'm like no way am I eating that thing, no so that's funny.
Speaker 3:If it's on a menu, I will order it and I grow it and I can eat them at any time.
Speaker 2:What Somebody's telling me? That cooking them in like butter is really tasty too. That they're the fried Brussels sprouts.
Speaker 3:It's really tasty, yeah, and you know what I found? I was really surprised by when you steam it is really. It completely brings out a different flavor, and then you can add all of your seasonings and maybe some butter or whatever kind of oil you want to, but it's really great.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, how well along those lines. How about a favorite fruit? As long as we talked about, you know, fruits and vegetables, we got to have fruits represented.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, let's see my favorite fruits probably blueberries. They have the highest antioxidants and they're pretty easy to grow.
Speaker 2:Well, except people will come around and pick them all the time. If I lived near you, you'd have no blueberries at all growing, because I would just be coming by going yeah, I think I need blueberry pie tonight. Well, that looks about enough, and I might want some more, so I'll take some more. So how about? Do you have a favorite movie?
Speaker 3:Well, I am not a movie buff Now. You and my husband probably could really get along.
Speaker 2:Well, you could go get him quick, if you want, will? He and I will talk movies while you. Okay, that'd be fine.
Speaker 3:I usually watch what he watches. But if there's any violence I completely turn it off. But any kind of romantic comedy I am up for, so romantic comedies I'm good.
Speaker 2:Romcoms. Yeah, my wife, I'm a weepy male, I really am. I love romcoms, I love storybook endings. You know, that sort of thing it's totally unrealistic. Most of the time it's like, yeah, that would never happen, but it's just so fun, you know. So I get it. I get it completely. I think, what is it? The vacation? Do you remember that movie? It's kind of a holiday, or the holiday, that's what it's called.
Speaker 2:Yes, I do remember that, that movie, every time I see that. I love that end scene where all four of them are together with the little girls and I'm like, oh, so wonderful, yeah, yeah, but I could watch the violence packed ones too. I can go both ways. So tell your husband I won't just be weeping. We can watch the Rambo movies or whatever else. There you go. How about? And not your one? You've written okay, but do you have a favorite book?
Speaker 3:Oh, I have a lot of favorite books, but right now one of my favorite one is becoming Super Natural by Joe D'Spinza. But I am always reading self-help, self-development books that I have stopped reading anything for, like nonfiction, I mean, yeah, fiction books a long time ago. It's for me right now it's all about self-help. Well, it has been for the last like 25 years.
Speaker 2:I find my fiction is all in movies and my well, although I do watch a lot of documentaries too, I'm really quite boring that way. So, but I'm always looking for things, although lately I'm kind of concerned about myself. I've been watching a lot of true crime movies and I think my wife is starting to wonder what are you thinking about? It's like no, I'm sure. I just love to see all these guys get caught. That's just so much fun. So, but anyways, how about you have a favorite kind of music?
Speaker 3:I do. You know, I'm from Texas, so my favorite music is country music.
Speaker 2:Amazing. Oh my God, how can that be? So? Any particular artists that you want to share with people.
Speaker 3:Right now I'm loving Zach Brown, so Zach Brown is my favorite. But I also will tell you that whenever I'm working in my garden, we I always listen to jazz or classical, because it actually helps your plants grow exponentially better. So I always have jazz or classical music in the garden.
Speaker 2:I had read that. You know, I've always thought that, like some plants should wear berets, you know, and just go kind of do this, or they, if they had fingers and thumbs they could just go, yeah man, no right man, so, or classical, and give them little batons or something. I think that would be kind of fun to watch plants. You could see that little top of horrors, you know, the big Venus flytrap instead of you know the Venus flytrap could have that sort of thing going on. Anyways, I'm with you on that. I had a roommate who was a jazz player when I was in graduate school and undergraduate school, so I didn't even know there was such a thing as applied saxophone. So he has a master's degree in applied saxophone, so, which I thought was a little bit of a cop up, but it was his money.
Speaker 3:So that's interesting. I don't know a lot about music, but I do know that the research shows that jazz and classical it mocks the birds singing and chirping in the morning, at sunrise, so that's when I try to play.
Speaker 2:Okay, there you go Makes sense. I wonder if they will remember that when, if they take things out into space or Mars. So I have to make sure they have a good jazz library and a good classical library on MP3, so they can handle all that.
Speaker 3:There you go, orson birds that could live there, right.
Speaker 2:There you go. So what's your favorite place to go to when you need to just chill?
Speaker 3:Well, I go a couple of places. If I want to go chill, I love to go to the beach or to Italy, but if it's like on a daily basis, I go hang out in my chicken coop. My chickens are amazing and I have some turkeys and they are just so calming to me. It is. I don't even love chickens and all of a sudden now I'm the chicken lady and I've got over 80 chickens and like seven turkeys.
Speaker 2:So your husband comes home and he says where, where, where? Oh, she's with the chickens.
Speaker 3:Okay, he knows, he knows where.
Speaker 2:All right, makes sense. So, yeah, I don't, I don't have chickens. My dad had chickens when he was growing, but they were for food, so that didn't. I don't know. He talks about that and I'm like dad, I could not do. They said, well, you know, you want to eat, you want to eat. So I'm like, yeah, but when you're four, I mean, come on, so how? Last question how about do you have a favorite? I guess I'll take this way when you think about your life and you know, as you're living through, is there a way that a favorite way that you would like to be remembered, or a favorite kind of theme that you would like your life to be about, so that when people come by and you know, look at your epitaph or whatnot, they think, oh yeah, there's Dr Stone. So I, you know, she was really all about building the blank.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think about this often and you know, my mission is to change the face of healthcare and to really impact as many women as I possibly can with education and empowerment. And I that is kind of how I wake up every day and how I plan my year and what I'm really doing on a daily basis is to really, you know, contemplate is is this helping as many women as I possibly can? Sure, and so that's that's kind of like how I live my life daily.
Speaker 2:So excellent transition and segue. Here we go, this exit stage left and enter into the house right. So how did this journey happen for you? So I know one of the first questions you had was that you had this sort of inspired practice in healthcare from, and it really became kind of centered around realizing that there was significant amount of suffering that you were linking more and more to low thyroid and Hashimoto's disease. So how did that correlation happen? How did you, you know, realize that? You know there's something here where I really need to dig into deeper and figure more out, because there's a lot going on here that people are just kind of brushing over.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So you know it starts with my own story and my own journey. You know I was really struggling with weight and I was fatigued and, you know, my hormones really, really out of balance. And you know I go to doctors and they would just kind of brush me off and say, nothing drawn with you and oh, by the way, you're probably not going to be able to have kids. Naturally, you'll need fertility treatment and you know, just go go deal with it. Right, there was no solution.
Speaker 3:And I thought to myself you know, in the this was early on and I was in pre-med at the time, in undergrad, and I'm like I was trying to figure out what kind of doctor I wanted to be. And you know, this is a blessing and I'm always grateful for the experience that I had because it allowed me to say you know what I do, my life is not going to be that way, like I have a lot to do and I am supposed to be going to school and getting a doctorate and blah, blah, blah. I can't be tired and dealing with life this way. So I said I have to figure this out. And so, as I was figuring it out, I'm like, oh my gosh, there are millions of women who have the same experience, but they don't know that they could do something about it, and they are just listening to the doctors who are supposed to be helping them and essentially they're just told that they have to live with these symptoms. So once I figured it out for myself, I lost about 50 pounds.
Speaker 2:My oh, you're breaking up, oh, okay.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, that's okay. Okay, can you hear me now?
Speaker 2:I can, I can. It's just all of a sudden it went dead and then you've got little pieces of words and so you were just talking about um gosh, having the realization that how doctors were treating things wasn't working very well. I think it was when it started out.
Speaker 3:And so you know what I was saying is I had lost 50 pounds, I got all of my hormones back on track, I had great energy, my brain was functioning well. I think I said I had two healthy boys. Now they're 20 in like two days. One is 20 and one's 17. So you know, it's been, you know, quite the journey from when I first started this.
Speaker 3:But as I started to realize that there were literally millions of women who were struggling and they were labeled with low thyroid or they had an underlying autoimmune condition that was causing low thyroid that was never even checked, that these women really needed so much help. And then you know, that's kind of like the start of it, because when they get diagnosed with low thyroid or Hashimoto's, they have loads of all the other symptoms, right Like they can't lose weight, they have low energy, they may have fibromyalgia and muscle pain and joint pain and anxiety and depression and their hair is falling out. So, like they, the reason they have so many symptoms is because the thyroid is one of the only hormones, if not the only hormone, that has a receptor site on every single cell in their body, from head to toe. And so you know, a lot of times they're told just to go take your thyroid medication. And literally last month I don't know when this is going to be published, but in January it was thyroid awareness month and I walked through the airport, says I was traveling and there was a magazine dedicated to low thyroid.
Speaker 3:I'm like, oh, this ought to be good. Let me buy it and just let me see what they're. They're still writing about 20 years later. And then I go to Whole Foods on my way home and there's another one. I'm like, let me buy this and see what same thing different. I mean, it's the same story, the same information. Here we are 20, 30 years later. The information has not changed. In the traditional mainstream it's take your medication, you should feel good in a couple of weeks, and then you know, go lose weight and exercise, eat less, and that is still the solution.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't know why it is I guess I because I don't have a medical degree but to me, treating the symptoms of something is like putting more and more oil in your car without ever figuring out that you've got a gasket that's blown here and you're just going to keep pouring oil into that until you take the head off and put a new gasket on. And you know that that sort of thing just doesn't seem to you know. Or you're ingesting dirt through your carburetor right into the top of your cylinders, so, but if you keep putting oil in it it'll kind of mix in with it. Well enough that you know you'll still get some firing out of those pistons for a while.
Speaker 2:You know, can't really tell you how long, but you know, I mean that's kind of been our approach to the human body for so long, instead of just figuring out what is the cause of this thing, what is the root cause. And let's deal with the cause. You know, like jerkiness. I mean, if we could figure out what the cause of jerkiness is, think of what the world would look like. People, so you know. So how did you figure out the cause and what is the difference between the way that you're dealing with it and how your traditional medicine has dealt with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think it is important to know that the traditional medicine model is set up to do diagnosis, drug therapy or surgery, right. So it's like, how can we find the diagnosis? And the diagnosis is essentially just the name of the disease, and then we're going to put together the medication that goes with the name of the disease or we cut it out right. So you cut it out, drug it out or burn it out is essentially how the medical model is set up and, like I said, in some instances that's good, especially when you have an emergency. But when we're dealing with chronic disease, that doesn't really work.
Speaker 3:And, to be quite honest with you, if you find the root cause of all disease and you start reversing this disease process, it doesn't make the pharmaceutical companies any money. So they want you to be on drugs for the rest of your life. The best thing they could find is a forever drug, right? Kind of like a statin or high cholesterol or thyroid medication, or you know, now they're talking about ozympic is a new drug to help people lose weight. It's a diabetic drug but is a forever drug because as soon as you get off of it you're going to gain all the weight back, and you know it essentially causes stomach paralysis. So that's how the drug works. And then you're going to be taking lots of more drugs on top of that. And it's crazy because when you get off the drug it doesn't fix the stomach paralysis, it just stays there.
Speaker 2:So your stomach goes. Yeah, I can see that being a real problem. Yeah, it's a problem.
Speaker 3:So for me, I don't know why I decided to go down this road. I don't know what it was. I think it was truly just my calling to say okay, I tried all the things. I tried weight loss drugs, I tried every diet known to man. I tried all of those things and that didn't work. So I was like, okay, what makes the most common sense to me is to figure out what is causing this. If somebody would just tell me what was causing it, then I could find a solution and I will do it. It wasn't about doing it, it was about finding the right solution. So the more that I was searching, the more that we.
Speaker 3:You know, I'm trained as a chiropractor and in chiropractic school. The philosophy of chiropractic is to always find the root cause. Now, a lot of chiropractors stop at the spine Instead. For me, for some reason, I'm like okay, well, why do we have subluxation or misalignments in the spine? Like what's causing that? It shouldn't just like happen.
Speaker 3:So it's emotional, chemical and physical. So that's what is the cause of all underlying imbalances and all diseases? You have to look at those. You know three aspects to everything. And so I was just digging and digging until I'm like oh, this is how the body works and if we continue to understand the physiology, the biochemistry, we understand how the body works. We can work with the body to help it overcome some of these imbalances, because the body was born to heal. Like you're, a self-healing organism. Sometimes we have too many toxins or we have burdens that we put on the body that it's not meant to be able to overcome. So sometimes we have to remove that interference and then the body can start to heal. But that requires us doing testing and having an inquisition as to well, why Like, almost like that three-year-old you know, in the backseat.
Speaker 3:That's always asking why. A good doctor will always ask why. Until we get down to the root cause, and then once you start to work with the body, the body can start to heal.
Speaker 2:So you talk about that? You have a concept of the seven pillars of thyroid transformation and there's a blueprint there. Can you talk about those seven pillars, because it sounds like that's kind of at the root, or the foundation, if you will, of all of this thinking and practice, is it not?
Speaker 3:Exactly, yeah, exactly. And you can really apply this blueprint to any health condition, right? I call it my thyroid transformation blueprint because I work with thyroid patients, but just think of it in your overall general health as well. So the first pillar is that you have to have a constant pursuit of your goals. So you have to know, like, what it is that you're trying to achieve and what it is that you're working on right. And then the second thing is that you have to have comprehensive testing. So this is really really important.
Speaker 3:What most people don't understand is, when you go to your doctor, they mostly are running like a CBC. They'll run a small chem panel. They may run your cholesterol that's probably about it, right. And if they are worried about you having a blood sugar problem, they may run your A1C so they can see if you have diabetes. But it's very limited testing that most people get when they go to the doctor. Now, comprehensive testing.
Speaker 3:Let me back up a little bit. When you do testing from your traditional doctor, like you're yearly physical or whatever, they're just screening for diseases, right. Like, is there anything that they're gonna die from tomorrow or anything that I could give them a quick medication for at this stage in their life, right? Like, is it high blood pressure, high blood sugar, statin drug, like those are kind of the main things. Are gonna rule out any major infection and off you go, unless you're having some major symptom. That's pretty much all they're gonna check.
Speaker 3:But if we step back and say, okay, I'm not really just looking for a disease, but I'm looking to understand where the dysfunction is, I'm looking to understand where is this symptom coming from, and so like, instead of just running a TSH, that's typically what gets run. If you think you have a thyroid problem, well, there's actually 12 different thyroid markers in a full thyroid panel and usually only one of those gets run, right? So also, if you're looking for dysglycemia, which is an imbalance in your blood sugar, which is the number one cause for why people can't lose weight, there's more than 12 markers in a full panel where we're looking for dysglycemia and usually only two get run. But the reason that they only run so little is because they're just looking for a disease diagnosis.
Speaker 3:But you've got to really dig much deeper. And then the third pillar is comprehensive analysis, right? So I'm not just looking for the name of the disease, but I'm looking for why do you have the disease? If there is one, or if there's no disease, why do you have the symptom? So you have to really be able to analyze, not just from a disease state but from a functional model, because there are actually optimal ranges versus disease, ranges that we're looking at when you go to the lab.
Speaker 2:That makes sense.
Speaker 3:Those lab ranges are really wide. And they're there, because if you're way outside of those lab ranges, then that indicates that you have, like, a major disease that needs to be handled. But there's actually optimal ranges where we are supposed to be functioning optimally. So remember, the traditional health care model is not for optimal function, it's for to manage diseases, and so if we want to do the optimally functioning which I think most of us do want to do that, but we don't realize that we're not really in there, not looking to evaluate, are you optimally functioning or are you about to die?
Speaker 3:So you have to really analyze it from an optimal state, of course, if that's the goal that you want, right. And then, with that being said, the fourth pillar is customized care. So just because you have a label of a disease, you're going to have unique imbalances for why you have that disease or why you have those symptoms, and so each person has to be treated as an individual and care has to be customized based on that individual person. And then the fifth pillar is that you need a coach who's been there, done that, helped thousands of patients, so that you can get it from A to B in the shortest amount of time. You don't have to spend 20 years like I've been in this field but you could spend 20 years trying to figure it out but you don't have to. And then the other part of that coach is you also need to be coachable, so you have to actually implement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a man. We don't listen. I'm sorry, it's just the way we are Right.
Speaker 3:That is why I have that fifth pillar in there, and that's the other caveat to that being coachable. And the other thing is true is because we have so much information that we did not have 20 years ago right there was no Dr Google. When I was learning, we literally read textbooks which we don't have to read textbooks.
Speaker 2:anymore, we don't have to page things.
Speaker 3:When my kids would bring home their homework. I'd be, like all right, where's your textbook, mom? We don't have textbooks.
Speaker 2:What do you mean? Chromebook, come on.
Speaker 3:I'm like could you just give me your math book so I can see how they did the problem and I can teach you how to do it. They're like no, you just Google it, okay. Here's the textbook Right Exactly.
Speaker 3:So anyway, with Dr Google these days, there's a lot that we can have, like a lot of information that we have and what we've tried. So you do have to be in a place where you're coachable to actually work through the process, to helping your body get better. And then pillar number six is that you have to retest. So it's not good enough just to test once, Sure, but yeah, to make sure that you're moving in the right direction and then, of course, repastimize care as you work through the process.
Speaker 2:This pillar seven Sure, okay, you know, and it's interesting because it sounds to me, even as you're describing something which is eminently practical and eminently sensible in terms of a holistic and a really a even a scientific manner, right, I mean, we're talking about trying to understand a very intricate system. I mean, human beings are not just, you know, let's throw some chemicals together and see what happens. You know, we are infinitely wondrous and incredible by design, I believe. So when you talk about that, I'm like okay, that makes sense. What strikes me, though, is that our entire system is set up to make that not possible. You know, we are completely. Our healthcare system is not designed at all.
Speaker 2:When you talk about running a test that would identify, what is it all 12 types of, you know, sugar issues that could be going on in our system, I mean, some lab tech somewhere is going to go. I never run that test. What are you talking about? Not to mention, some administrator somewhere is going to go. Are you kidding me? That costs $6,000 to run that test. We're going to just run the $200 test? Okay, because we get those on sale at Walmart, and there, you know the one you're talking about. You can't even get that, except from you know some lab in Germany? For God's sakes, yeah. So how do you Well?
Speaker 3:I think it's. Yeah, I think it's really important to to note here is you're right, they don't run all of those tests because, first of all, it's way too expensive, but second of all, the imbalances that we are uncovering, that's happening. It doesn't really change treatment. So in traditional medicine, like, let's just say, thyroid, you know when they look in their toolbox they have thyroid hormones. It doesn't really matter if it's an underconversion issue or an autoimmune condition, or you know they can't clear these hormones through the liver, or maybe they have a gallbladder. None of none of that matters because it doesn't change the treatment. So, like, when they look in their bag, it's like thyroid medication or thyroid hormones and and so it's just a waste of money to figure out all the underlying intricacies because they don't address that.
Speaker 3:Same with dysglycemia or blood sugar issues, right? So until you have diabetes, they're going to tell you to go lose weight and exercise, right it. Once you get pre-diabetes and diabetes, then you go to their toolbox and you've got metformin and statin and a high blood pressure medication. That's the diabetic cocktail. All those other markers that I'm looking at for, like, let's say, variability, where your blood sugar swings all over the place or where you have insulin resistance but not yet diagnosed with pre-diabetes or diabetes, they don't really care about that. They just say you know, go lose weight and exercise and maybe that's causing a sleeping issue, but they just would give you a sleeping pill. You don't need to run off all of those labs because it they're. That's not the way that the model is set up and they would lose money because it's cost too much, but then they would actually get people better. So then it's like they're not going there.
Speaker 2:Well, it strikes me that I would think a lot of medical professionals aren't even quite honestly, competent to evaluate the results of a thyroid panel that would show you all the markers that you know in the indications from each of those markers, that they would be looking at that and going. I only took second year Spanish and that looks to me like Don Coyote in the original language. I don't think so.
Speaker 3:So I mean yeah they just yeah, they are not trained that way because that's not how the system is set up and it's not like you know your individual practitioner is like trying to do something harmful.
Speaker 3:It's just the way that the system is set up and how they've been trained. I have doctors of my patients because I co-treat obviously with like a traditional doctor and then us, and they'll look at the labs and they'll say I do not know how to analyze these. Just, you know, you keep working with Dr Stone and keep doing what you need to be doing because you're look amazing and you're doing great and we'll just keep prescribing the drugs that you need. So you know, most doctors don't. They're not trained in a functional model and it is really frustrating for patients who are trying to get that service from their doctors who aren't trained in that model and that's where the frustration comes. But you need a team of doctors on working with you and your health, because you wouldn't expect one doctor to do everything right. So it's important to have a team of doctors to really work to give you the best care.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think of in my theater background. You know you don't have. We were just visiting a theater actually near, near Madison here called Spring Green, the American Players Theater, and it was interesting to see. People had no experience whatsoever with that because they find out that, you know, there's a production manager. Now he's a production manager, there's a scene design manager and there's a technical manager and there's a manager for sound design and sound engineering and for, you know, video engineering, wherever that's needed, and things, and there's acting coaches and there, you know, so there's all of these staff members that are there to put on a play, and you know there's.
Speaker 2:It strikes me that there are a lot of analogies from that to you know, each of us are our own play. You know each of us are our own central character and you, you need not only a director, which I think ultimately has to be us right, but there's a, there's a central coach there that is going to help, you know, get you to the place you need to do in order to be ready for, you know, the performance of your life which comes down to right. So is there?
Speaker 2:a what do you think you've been able to? Well, you, well, let me step back. You talk about there being three false beliefs that women are led to believe that keep them from really returning, and believing that they can return to the image that they have of themselves, that they, they could be, they have been, they want to be. What? What are the things that get in the way of doing that?
Speaker 3:Okay, so this is. I love talking about this topic. There is a rule called the 80 20 rule, and the 80% is what moves the needle the most, but is what we are all focused on the least. And the 20% is the diet, the supplement, the exercise, the pills, like all the things that we do that we think really moves the needle. But the 80% is what's really going on with us, in our subconscious mind, our mindset. Like you know how we carry around false beliefs and what we think is possible.
Speaker 3:The three main false beliefs that most women have one is I am not enough. The second one is I am different. And the third one is it's not available to me. All right, so I am not enough, is really most people deal with this false belief. Okay, so it it. It comes in form of you know, I will be enough when, when I have enough education, you know I, when I have this degree that's kind of the first thing, especially doctors. Or you know education people, we are enough when we have these letters behind our name. The other thing that really plays in is that it's not available to me is when you think that your genetics are essentially like your. It is essentially what is going to happen to you, right? So we know that with genetics like if you have diabetes in your family and you think the reason I have diabetes is because it's genetic like you have no influence over that it's kind of like a death sentence, right, or everybody died of cancer, I'm going to die of cancer.
Speaker 3:But what we know is that, with the study of epigenetics, that our genes turn on and turn off based on the environment that they're exposed to, and so we have so much control over gene expression. And so if you can make the body healthy, you can also make the body sick, and so it's very, very important that we realize that, just because it's in our gene line or you know, a lot of patients will say, well, my mom gained weight when she went through menopause, so I gained weight when I went through menopause, or I'm going to gain weight when I go. They automatically think that because it's in their gene line or it happened to their mom or their grandmother, it's automatically going to happen to them. So they kind of set up their life to believe that that's what's going to happen. And of course, that's what's going to happen, right. The other thing is like I'm different. So, like someone listening to this, they might say, well, dr Heather lost weight and she was able to have kids because maybe she started younger. So that means like I'm different than her, like I can't get those results because I'm different.
Speaker 3:But in reality, yes, each of us has our own unique gifts that we bring to this world. But we really are the same meaning like, we have the same basic needs and you know we essentially, our physiology pretty much works equally, and so you can have whatever it is that you want. If you know whatever goal it is that you're trying to achieve, you can achieve that, but you have to really get rid of some of these false beliefs.
Speaker 3:And I will say that if you're struggling in any place in your life, whether it's financial, health, relationship, spiritual, there is always a false belief that is keeping you stuck where you are or not allowing you to achieve those goals.
Speaker 2:Yeah you know, I keep thinking too, though, that because the system is so diametrically opposed to wellness which seems it sounds weird to say, but the system really is opposed to wellness because wellness is just sort of a, you know, it's like don't look at that man behind the curtain so that it seems to me the part of the issue I struggle with. Not only is it sort of fighting that whole you know wave of thought, or the thought structure that says, oh, this is all wacky, it was wacky. You know chiropractic, you know that's just wackiness. But even if you get passed out, you know, because I'm a theater person, I go hey, come on, you know there's, there's always another side to the story. Right, it's not 16 different sides to the story. So don't tell me that's wacky. It just means you don't understand it or you'd rather stay ignorant. So I get it, go right ahead, do that, but that's not for me. But the thing that I can't get past is it's always strikes me that it's also economically difficult.
Speaker 2:You know that the, because it goes against the system, that the, the, the ways and the means of fighting it in a way that that is effective is difficult to do, because to have someone, that's an alternative care or a, you know, foundational, fundamental, you know sort of functional practitioner. Usually that's not in the healthcare plan, right, you know it's not in the HMO. So what do you suggest to people that are? They really want to do that but they just don't have the financial, you know the, the well-being or whatever you want to call it the resources to be able to really get at this? They can't afford a coach, but they'd like to at least change their lifestyle and figure out the stuff that they need to figure out to make some steps forward.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I also think that is a false belief that most people can't afford it. Okay, because most people can afford it. I've worked with several patients that are on food stamps. But your health has to be your number one priority and that's really where that starts to shake. I mean, tell me the lines at Starbucks. Starbucks is the lines are out the door through onto the street and truly, if we would stop thinking that the medical system or our insurance is taking care of our health, because really it's just keeping you from dying as long as they possibly can, it's not to optimize your health.
Speaker 3:So if you thought for a moment that you're increasing your food, your food bill, like at the grocery store, if you buy organic food, it's going to cost more money. But what if we looked at that as an investment? Because I can assure you that if you invested in your health early on, that it is going to be. It is going to pay you exponentially in the future because you're not going to be managing those disease processes. Do you realize that it costs people out of pocket, outside of insurance, over $7,000 a year when they get diagnosed with diabetes for the rest of their life? So if you would just invest in your health and prevent diabetes. You are going to be dealing with diabetes. You're not going to be dealing with amputations, and let's not. That is just the financial aspect. That's not. We're not even talking about quality of life. So, there.
Speaker 3:There is a way that if you shifted your mindset and your health was your number one priority, you probably would shift your budget a little bit. But I get stuck in this too. I literally pay $1,500 a month for health insurance that I don't use. I've never even used it, and even when I had to use it, I deny everything that I'm like okay, I don't even know why I'm paying $1,500 a month. This is the biggest joke I've ever seen. They don't cover anything if I ever use it and I don't even use it. And so I get it because it's frustrating and we think well, I'm paying $1,500 a month, this should cover my when I need to go to a functional doctor, it should cover to keep me healthy. But that's not the game they're playing. It's a different game that they're playing that we don't realize. But I just challenge you to shift your mindset, because if your health became your number one priority and you were, you were, you know your budget was tight maybe you would get rid of Netflix. Oh my gosh, maybe you would stop going.
Speaker 2:Are you a communist? I mean, come on, that's, that's crazy talk.
Speaker 3:I know, maybe you would grow your own food. I will. I'll tell you, I was so proud of myself. I used to live in Colorado and if you know Colorado, there's the growing season is pretty short, especially Texas, it's literally year round, but in Colorado you have a couple of great months for a growing season. But the first year that I planted a garden there, my goal was to not spend a dime on vegetables for the whole growing season, and I did it. So for a family of four, the only thing I bought at the grocery store was, you know, a good organic animal protein, and then I pretty much used everything from my garden and it my grocery bill was so small, so you could do that to see what I mean. Your health has to be your number one priority.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that sounds hard so it does sound hard but I can tell you is worth it, nothing worth it was ever easy.
Speaker 2:No, that is very, very true. Well, and it really ends up being kind of a you're right, life is all about choices. Right, I can choose that I want to divert myself from reality and choose Netflix, or I can immerse myself in reality and embrace wellness and look at ways to just do, even if it's moving the needle slightly. It strikes me that you know you don't lose, you know weight, 100 pounds at a time. You, you know you lose it pound by pound, by pound, right, by making better choices throughout the day, by taking those better choices and carrying them into the next day and the next day.
Speaker 3:So I always talk about, instead of just trying to do 100% or nothing like what if you just started with 2%?
Speaker 2:right.
Speaker 3:You know what, if you just started with 2% every day or every month and then at the end of the year you're like 50% there, way better than 100% or nothing right Makes complete sense.
Speaker 2:Folks, my guest today has been Dr Heather Stone. I cannot believe it's already an hour. It's been 56 minutes or something like that, and I'm like we're. Are we in a time space anomaly here? What the heck happened, Dr Stone? Please, please, please.
Speaker 2:At some point I hope we can talk again because we we got through, like, I think, one and a half questions or something out of your 11 that you have, and even that was I kind of, you know, jumped around a little bit.
Speaker 2:But anyways, if you would join me some other time, because Dr Stone is one of the top functional medicine doctors in the world and, as we've been talking about she's over 20 years of clinical experience and private practice, she is there. I believe one of the things I've seen from from talking with you is you are there to help people. Your whole life's journey is about helping people and you have a specialty in, you know, helping women that have been told a bunch of lies, not only personally, but have been living them and trying to help them into a world where they actually do take control of things. And I think I'm not sure, but I think that men could use this information too, if they were willing to listen. So it doesn't seem gender specific to me as much as it is just, you know, thinking persistent. So exactly.
Speaker 2:So thank you so much for joining me today. I appreciate our conversation. I hope you've enjoyed yourself. Did you have any place you want to send people to to find out more about this topic and the things that you're talking about?
Speaker 3:Yeah, people can go to women. I do. I do like men, so I don't have an issue with men. Well, I'm just saying, I mean, you know, it's about time we got our just come up and so I mean I do like this group is women specific and it is on Facebook and there's over 24,000 women here and it's called happy, healthy and lean women overcoming low thyroid. So if they will go search that in Facebook, that's kind of how they can get hooked into the information.
Speaker 2:Okay, and I'm sorry you kind of broke up a little bit there. What is the name of the Facebook group? Group again.
Speaker 3:It's happy, healthy and lean.
Speaker 2:Okay, happy, healthy and lean. So happy, healthy and lean. Happy, healthy and lean. Okay, got that. Happy, healthy and lean, all right. So, dr Stone, thank you so much for joining us, for being with us on frame of reference, and I hope you say happy, healthy and lean.
Speaker 3:Does that work, thank you. Thank you for being here, absolutely Take care.