By Casey Linke, FNP-C
"While Western medicine may not provide all the answers, it is sometimes necessary. But when you reach the end of the road with Western medicine and need answers for why you may be experiencing an ailment or dis-ease, let us help you at LIFE Medicine with a lifestyle, integrative and/or functional approach. You are never alone in your healing journey, and we pledge to partner with you to create a tailored treatment plan, allowing your body to enter its natural state of healing."
Rich Roll recently featured Zach Bush, MD on his podcast and an idea he expressed really made an impact on me. Dr. Bush is an incredible human being and one of my heroes. He is a triple-board certified MD, with expertise in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology/Metabolism, and Hospice/Palliative care. Dr. Bush has delivered breakthrough science with profound new insights into our modern disease epidemics, as well as human health and longevity. His ultimate goal is to inspire a grassroots movement that will change our business and legislative structures, and ultimately up-shift consumer behavior to bring about radical change in the industries of big farming, big pharma, and Western medicine. I encourage everyone to read as much of his material as you can, as well as watch his new docuseries Farmer’s Footprint.
What made a huge impact on me during this particular podcast was Dr. Bush’s definition of “grace” as applied to healing: he defined “grace” as the body’s ability to heal faster than it is injured. He goes on to say, “I see people who have abused their bodies for decades. Just give a pause. Do a couple of short term fasts, give yourself a break, give the immune system a break, get away from chemicals, grow your own food, just make these simple little decisions. And suddenly decades of damage is reversed in hours, weeks, and months. That’s grace at the cellular level.”
This is a phenomenon I have witnessed with my patients’ healing journeys as well as my own. I have seen the human body perform miraculous healing when the right environment is present. The right environment includes the person’s outer environment and inner environment (and remember, the person’s inner environment is the cell’s outer environment!) That would include: the food you eat; the amount of water you drink; the chemistry inside your body and whether its charged with stress chemicals/hormones or peaceful, tonic signals; the thoughts you think; the movement your body performs and how often; the emotions you experience; the type of community present in a your life; your job, etc. Your and your cells’ environment is the entire context of your life.
I used to be a nurse in a burn ICU and part of my job was to perform daily wound debridements and dressing changes. I would watch burns evolve over time, and watching the new skin start to “bud” with little red dots—new nerve endings—was always so miraculous to witness. Now, some of my patients who have chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes are reversing their disease processes altogether, and far more quickly than the disease developed, which was often insidiously for years or decades. This is all because they are giving their bodies the right environment for healing, through feeling the emotions and thinking the thoughts that their bodies can heal.
My own healing journey is a story of grace. It is also the reason why I am so steadfast in my natural approach to medicine. When I was 14, I got a full body case of impetigo. No medical professional I saw could explain what could have caused it (one suspected a spider bite—explains my fear of spiders), but my entire body became infected with crusted sores. It took multiple rounds of antibiotics to heal. After that infection and those multiple rounds of antibiotics, I felt a shift happen inside my body. I started being unable to tolerate foods that I had tolerated fine before, like cruciferous vegetables. Next, I started to develop symptoms of IBS, like debilitating abdominal cramping, that would plague me for the next 15 years. I also felt like I was never able to get rid of chronic skin issues, from severe cystic acne at times, to eczema, to hives-type eruptions. I believe my lymphatic system had been affected by that impetigo infection and resistant bacteria took hold in that system, causing gut and skin eruptions that would come and go as my immune system weakened. Plus, my microbiome had been severely compromised from the antibiotics, and so the “wrong” bacteria was taking hold of my gut.
Anytime I sought treatment for these gut and skin ailments, which no medical professional ever associated as being related, I would be offered medications like antibiotics or Accutane, or steroids, all which had the potential to mask my symptoms but none of which addressed the root cause. I became my own guinea pig for experimenting with different herbal supplements, diet changes, and lifestyle modifications. It was through these fundamental changes—shifting to a plant-based diet, drinking celery juice every morning, making meditation a regular part of my life, taking select herbal remedies, ensuring my lymphatic system is moving, along with regular fasting/cleansing rituals—that I finally started to see the needle move toward healing.
What is amazing is that sometimes it just takes a small adjustment in your environment—yours AND your cells’—to see remarkable change. For me, that shift has been meditation. Teaching my body to physically relax on a deep level and on a regular basis bathes my cells in tonic chemistry that has been able to provide expedited healing. Plus, regular meditation is proven to greatly increase circulating levels of IgA, an important element of the immune system, so my body’s innate defense mechanisms have been strengthened through a regular meditation practice.
Our bodies want to heal: they are programmed for constant self-healing. Tuning into that natural potential of the body to heal itself, and in the words of a wise woman, Dani Espinosa, a local iridologist, by constantly “softening, releasing, and allowing,” we can let go and let the healing occur. Don’t get me wrong—there is a time and a place for Western medicine and some pharmaceuticals. If I hadn’t taken those rounds of antibiotics as a young person with impetigo, I could have developed sepsis, or worse. But there is often an “end of the road” with Western medicine when it comes to determining why an ailment or dis-ease is occurring. If you need some help finding your “why,” and help in finding the right environment for your body’s healing to occur, I am here for you. I had to find help on my own, and it took me 15 years to find answers. My calling in life is to help people feel they have a partner in their healing journeys and to help them realize the healing potential of their own bodies.
Please give this podcast a listen, and it may seem dire at times, because the state of our Earth is dire, but I challenge you to listen to the very end. The monologue Dr. Bush gives at the end of the podcast is one of the most inspiring speeches I have ever heard. Let me know what you think! Link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3aOQ0N74PI&feature=youtu.be&t=5831