In this episode of TraumaTies, Bridgette and Lindsey are joined by Dr. Jaquel Patterson, a nationally recognized doctor of naturopathic medicine who has taught thousands of doctors in integrative medicine. They discuss the connection between trauma and physical health, why treating symptoms alone often isn't enough, how Dr. Patterson helps patients uncover the root causes of illness, and why she believes physicians should serve as educators and partners in the healing process.

Key Takeaways

• Naturopathic medicine works to address the root causes of illness or infection
• Many diagnoses are interconnected and can therefore be treated in conjunction
• It is important for medical providers to educate patients and work with them in their care
• Environmental, mental, and behavioral factors can also contribute to healing
• Finding joy and hope in the healing journey provides a grounding force in care spaces

Resources Mentioned

• No mentions this week, but consider reading one of Dr. Patterson’s books!

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Rooted in a belief that survivors of crime deserve respect for their dignity in the aftermath of victimization, Volare seeks to empower survivors by informing them of all of the options available and working to transform existing response systems to be more inclusive of the diverse needs that survivors often have after crime.

Volare also provides free, holistic, and comprehensive advocacy, therapeutic, and legal services to survivors of all crime types. Visit our website to learn more about how to access our trauma-informed education training and how to partner with us to expand survivor-defined justice.

Welcome back to TraumaTies, where we believe trauma is a common thread of the human connection. I'm Bridgette Stumpf and I'm here with my co-host, Lindsey Silverberg.

Today, we are honored to be joined by Dr. Jaquel Patterson, a nationally recognized naturopathic physician, functional medicine expert, bestselling author, and speaker whose work is transforming how we understand and treat chronic illness. Dr. Patterson specializes in complex, multi-system conditions from Lyme disease and autoimmune disorders to integrative psychiatry and hormone health using a root cause whole body approach to healing.

As the founder and CEO of Fairfield Family Health, Dr. Patterson leads a multidisciplinary integrative medicine practice. And that brings together these naturopathic medicine, nutrition, and other therapeutic modalities to address not just symptoms, but the underlying drivers of illness. Her work challenges the traditional medical model by asking deeper questions about inflammation, immune dysfunction, and really the interconnectedness of the physical and mental health and well-being of our bodies.

In addition to her clinical work, Dr. Patterson is a leader in the field of functional medicine, having served as the president of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians. She's trained thousands of practitioners worldwide and is deeply committed to expanding access to integrative care. Her work is also shaped by her own lived experience with chronic illness, which informs the compassion and depth that she brings to her patients.

In this episode, we'll explore what it means to move beyond system management and toward true healing, how chronic illness impacts the body, the mind, and what becomes possible when patients are seen through a more holistic root cause lens. Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm really looking forward to appreciating this discussion on TraumaTies with both you, Bridgette and Lindsey. So thank you for having me again.

Well, it's so great to get to see you and I'm excited. I feel like I am just going to personally love this one. And I realized that sitting through your bio is a bit because you've already done just like so many cool, incredible, really novel things. So we're excited to jump in and talk a little bit more about this root cause medicine idea.

You know, really treating the body as this interconnected system rather than focusing on isolated symptoms, which from my own personal experience tends to be how this goes. So for our listeners who might be new to this idea, how would you explain what it, you know, what it means to really look and practice from this root cause medicine approach?

Yeah, so I am a licensed naturopathic physician practicing, you know, out of Connecticut. But in terms of our training, the biggest thing I'd say philosophically, we go through a four year medical program, take two license exams, license to practice medicine. And I think it's like 27 states right now. And from the beginning of our education, like the philosophy is completely different in terms of we do take all of the conventional science classes, but we're looking at what is the interconnection between all of it.

So if you look at mental health, oftentimes you can see, if you look at chronic disease conditions, diabetes, high cholesterol, the rate of anxiety and depression is a lot higher, like 70 % increased chance if you have thyroid conditions. And so there is a connection definitely in chronic disease conditions, chronic disease management, and as it pertains to mental health and then trauma also and its role in your mental health.

And what happens is, I think in the conventional setting, we're looking at kind of like pieces, like, okay, you have this wrong with your arm, we're gonna send you an orthopedic. You have this hormone piece, we're gonna send you to the OBGYN, not looking at the full cause, like what caused hormone issues? If your adrenals were out of balance with a lot of stress, that could directly impact your hormones, for example. If you could have physical pain because of thyroid conditions, you can have physical pain.

When women go through perimenopause and menopause because a lot of those hormones that are actually anti-inflammatory and support joint tissues and bone health go down. So what happens is a lot of patients I see feel like they're running around with many different specialists. And I would say like the easiest way to describe what we do, it's like detectives. So it's like, why, why, why? We keep asking why, like when and why? Because a lot of people I find when there's this turning point in health, when it kind of goes down,

Hmm.

there was like a significant event, either, you know, lifestyle, life or something that maybe that wasn't addressed. And then they've been dealing with it, especially women, because women tend to get dismissed in care a lot more often. So it might be like seven to nine years before they actually get the right care that they need. And many times it could be things of this buildup of these other disease conditions that have not been really addressed or not have been put together in like–

.

–cohesive way. So I'd say the easiest way is like detectives on asking the why and what started it and including environmental factors, know, environmental medicine factors, including infections. You look at like after COVID, the rates of anxiety and mental health went up. was like one in three and especially for younger people. And so what is the connection? Why, you you before people didn't think that would have any relation to your mental state. So there is our body is very complex, but we treat it like it's not.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's how I would say we're different. That's the easiest way to summarize it.

I feel like you're hitting a lot of the things I love. I love systems thinking and thinking about the body as a complex system. Just personally, as someone who in my 20s had an early diagnosis of Sjogren's and was being more treated with Sjogren's and RA, turned out I had lupus with Sjogren's and that came seven years. I know there is sort of this like, yeah, seven to nine years. This was, I was...

...pretty young for that at the time in my life to kind of be navigating that. And I think it's so true for me, I don't want to speak for everyone, that often the sort of exhaustion of the logistics of navigating the unknown underlying medical issues, it I think is so much of a barrier for folks that they just give up.

Like, so I have to imagine there are so many people out there that are just like, this is just too tiring to keep trying to keep up with. And so it's just so refreshing to know there are people like you in the world that actually want to go upstream and like figure out the why, like what is the cause here? And I know, you know, for someone, you know, that comes years and years after not feeling heard or getting better, when they present to you as a patient,–

–What are you maybe looking for that others have missed or what are the patterns that really tend to stand out to you when someone's had that really dismissive experience?

Yeah, so it's really interesting, Bridgette, what you mentioned about the stamina almost, like to continue to keep pushing of asking the questions of why. And I feel like oftentimes also part of health is in terms of someone feeling better is this hope that, okay, I come to my doctor, I bring this up and I'm listened to. So it's really interesting how many times patients come, because it's been seven to nine years or even longer.

And they're like, oh, you listen to me. know, it's like, it's almost like they could breathe because that's also trauma in a sense of like medical trauma. Like they have the health issue. Now they're like being gaslit that like, oh, it's in your head. That happens to especially women. Like you're just anxious. You're just stressed out because you're busy with your kids you've had. And what happens is it just keeps getting dismissed. So having that like wherewithal to keep pushing through.

And then by the time they see me, it's kind of like, it's almost like, feel like sometimes into the second visit, they're already better because it's like, finally, I don't have to prove and explain. can pass that work over to somebody else to like look into it. I just have to tell my story and they're going to look into it. So like, that's the first thing. So when they're coming in, I feel like that's what is told. Like this is in your head or I got, they got the labs done. The labs look normal, but I don't feel good or there is an abnormal lab or there's so many times I see patients that there's tons of abnormal labs and then I go through it with them and they're like, nobody ever told me this or nobody ever explained it.

So I feel like a lot of what we do and that's in our principles is they call like teacher as teachers, like educator. So one of the biggest pieces to empower our patient and you empower somebody by educating them on their labs and understanding it.

So a lot of times when we see people, they come in with like 60 different labs and I'm going through it. And some misses I see oftentimes is like I had a patient the other day, young, healthy, and the glucose was like pretty much in the 40s. So it should be at least, for example, above 65 at the lowest and had symptoms of like dizziness, like basically hypoglycemic, but multiple times over a year and half or in the 40s. And I'm like, oh, did anyone ever say anything about this or that your insulin was low? It was like, oh no.

It's like, how does that happen? her iron, so the iron like ferritin should be at minimum above 16. It's 16 to 154, which is for iron, which would cause you to be tired. Her number was at three, but no one said anything. So it's like all of these labs were done and we'll see that lots of times, but then like there's never a conversation about it unless it's something sometimes that the patient brings up, unfortunately. And I know one of the challenges in healthcare system, know, have docs have 15 minutes to see a patient.

how much can you really get done on the whole of the system? And when you have 10 or 15 minutes, you're gonna really work on the fires, right? And so that's one of the challenges. So when we see a patient, we're sitting with them for 90 minutes. So I think that in itself is also why we're able to fast track it because if you're seeing someone for 10 minutes, unfortunately, as with anybody, if I was in that model too, it might take me like a year before I kind of figure out what's going on because I didn't get to see them long enough to ask all the questions needed.

So we're going through every single organ system. We're finding out, as I mentioned, even down to living environment. I've had patients with mold exposure, or they say, all my symptoms happened when I moved to New York. And so I'm like, OK, what's going on in the environment? Then nobody asked that question, something as simple as that. Or like I said, something as simple as iron is like, they don't have any iron. OK, that can cause fatigue, dizziness–

Mm-hmm.

–all of the symptoms you're having to be something like as simple as that. So I think the biggest thing is that we spend a lot more time asking, going through every single system to get questions. Our lab work is way more, the lab work is going be way more comprehensive. You might be getting like 20 vials of blood and we're going to do that. We still obviously will work with specialists, but we're going to be able to get like a lot more information. And I myself was in a system similar, my mother has lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, autoimmune conditions. My aunts have lupus too.

Mm.

So for me, and I know at some point we'll talk about like my experience, that was the route we were going, but I wasn't matching up by way of blood work. So it was just kind of, okay, well, wait and see. And so you're waiting and seeing for years and you feel crappy. And so I think the huge thing is like, we're getting, we're checking every single–

Hmm.

–organ system, every single question, a lot more comprehensive blood work, looking at old blood work to see if we're looking for like basically patterns so we can kind of narrow down what's actually happening.

This is fascinating. I always really appreciate my primary care. She spends like 45 minutes with every patient and you can tell her staff is always at the door being like, hey, your next patient's ready, like is there anything you need? But it makes such a difference in just building, yeah, that relationship.

that's awesome.

Hahaha

And that might be the doctor that you have to wait two hours for, but it's well worth the wait. But it's unfortunate because I think all doctors, that's like how we, regardless of what realm you're in, wanted to go into medicine for. But if the model's only allowing you 10 minutes, how are you going to be able to do that fully?

Exactly. 100%.

Right, yeah, you don't have that ability. Ugh, well, your work spans both physical and mental health, especially in this integrative psychiatry. Talk to us a little bit about how do you understand the relationship between chronic illness and mental health?

No.

Yes.

Yeah, so if you look at a lot of the studies, so I have a background, I an extra fellowship in functional medicine for integrative psychiatry and also ADHD and a lot of my patients, I'd say about 40 to 50 % of our patients come in for mental health conditions in conjunction with like infections. I also see a lot of kids with PANS and PANDAS, which is related to also mental health piece, that event basically.

And so if you look at something like that, what you'll see is with chronic disease condition, most chronic disease conditions will have what they call chronic inflammation, which is like chronic infections and inflammation. And so you have these increase in what we call inflammatory cytokines or inflammatory molecules that actually will cross the blood brain barrier. So many people have heard of like leaky gut. There's also like they call leaky gut and leaky brain.

Yeah.

So what happens is your blood brain barrier is like, you know, a solid barrier. And what happens if you have this chronic inflammation over time or a sudden event like COVID or, know, like a virus that's really, really significant that can break through that barrier. And what it does is it can activate something called microglia. And so what I say is microglia, they're macrophages. They're almost like a garbage, like, you know, people getting rid of garbage, you know, it's like coming in, it's like cleaning up the garbage.

So we should have that because I always tell people you need some level of infection, you need some inflammation to live because you need to be able to get rid of things. The challenge is if you need to constantly be cleaning that up, right? Like it's almost like you're plugging in the holes. There is an issue because that means there's a lot of inflammation. And so what happens is if that inflammation continues to these, these what they call microglia have to continue to work or it can't get rid of these things that seal like more of those inflammatory mediators will break through that blood brain barrier and they affect areas of the brain that are associated with like anxiety and depression.

So a couple areas of the brain that are affected is prefrontal cortex. A lot of people know that for like making decisions. That's the part of the brain that like young people, what they said doesn't develop until like 26 years of age. So you'll see someone that's really anxious. You'll see issues with decision-making same as somebody that's depressed over time, like basic cognitive issues. They can't decide between basic stuff–

–impulsive, anxious, like just decision making issues. The other area of the brain that gets affected is something called the amygdala. Amygdala is that fear response. They say it's like the reptilian brain. So that's like that immediate fear, like you're in danger. And so if that's constantly being affected, everything looks like a fear, like every –you're– there's this heightened alert. The other is the what's called anterior singular cortex, the hippocampus. Hippocampus is related to memory. And so that's why you'll see somebody that has–

Mm-hmm.

–pretty significant depression, you'll notice that they almost become catatonic, like they can't remember anything, same as anxiety, like a lot of forgetfulness, a lot of brain fog, and that could be from chronic inflammation over time. So chronic diseases, like I said, like type two diabetes, cholesterol, but also things like hypothyroid, and then also people that have these chronic infections like Lyme disease, like strep, or if they're just constantly getting sick all the time,

you'll often see that there's an impact on their brain health as well. And so there's specific regions of the brain that get infected from chronic inflammation.

Oh, I know. have a son who got Lyme when he was two and it was horrible. was just even my brain, speaking of the hippocampus, my brain going back to that is not a fun thing. And then he ended up eventually having to get his tonsils out because he was getting strapped so much. it's just like these little people, know, constantly, was so, I mean, it was so many times.

wow.

Hahaha

Also he constantly was constantly getting inflamed. Yeah

Mm-hmm.

It's one of those things where I think, and I want to ask you about your own experience, but even thinking about my own, it's almost this feedback loop that we think about in our work. We know that trauma has an impact on the health and inflammation of the body. so it's like, and then once that's there, like not addressing again, like what is sort of that feedback loop that I'm really curious how your work is sort of at the epicenter of that. And when we think about these complex chronic illnesses,–

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

–and I know you've had your own experience with them. I'm really curious how that lived experience that you had individually kind of shaped the way that you're now showing up for patients, often the ones who are feeling overwhelmed, dismissed, out of options. And how does that impact the feedback loop when they're kind of stuck in that cycle of not getting real help?

That's a really good question. And also after they get well, how do we break that feedback loop? Because that's also really interesting. have patients, they get well and then they get sick again and there's a panic of like, how long is it going to be before I get the sick illness again or is it coming back? I have to like, part of working through is like, unfortunately is time. It's like, okay, that's going to, you're going to see it becomes less and less over time. And then time is like, okay, I'm okay. It's safe now.

Yeah.

So there's some trauma in that piece of like the whole healing crisis. I always tell people, but for me, I, so I have past history, like just in general, like anxiety, OCD pretty significantly when I was a teenager. Sometimes I wish I had more of that now, but in terms of like the neatness, but when I was younger, my, mother was, she was diagnosed with lupus, got really sick. They didn't know what she had. She went down to like 80 pounds. My dad was like lifting her up the stairs and she was really on the verge cause that, that time still, like that was how many years ago? was like, cause I'm 45, that was yeah, like 30 years ago.

So at the time like diagnosis for autoimmune, and it still takes seven to nine years, but imagine back then that was even worse. They didn't really, they didn't know what she had. So they finally figured it out, but in that process, she was just ill, like it took her another year to kind of recover. And so I was like the nurse, know, there are five of us. I was the one that helped to be kind of the caretaker for my, for my siblings who were younger than me and then also my mom.

And so because of that, having things organized became my security thing. And that's what you see with OCD. It's like, what is this sphere of control? So I just became, mean, even down to my sister says sometimes she's like, I remember I couldn't even vacuum on the carpet because I wanted the tracks a certain way. And so if you walked on it, she would have to jump on the bed. Like I didn't want anybody touching the floor. So it became like, I was like really every single thing. So that was where I spent my time–

Yeah.

–kind of more homebound and it was like something that made me feel better because it was that sense of control. So I had that and anxiety going through college. But then when I went to naturopathic medical school, I started getting these like just really, really significant fatigue. My group story, joint pain where like one day my shoulder would hurt really bad and it was like swollen and the next day it was gone and like my knee would hurt.

And I'm like, this doesn't make sense because it was moving around, and headaches, and then I started having the anxiety again, but this time it felt a lot different in that I would be at the grocery store and I would just be drenched. It was like hot flashes. And so much so, I didn't even realize my last two years of school, I was wearing like black year round. Plus in our fourth year, we're required to wear a white jacket to differentiate from our third year students when we're doing clinical rotations. And I would literally just walking through the hallway, would be completely drenched in one minute that I would just put it on quick and then take it off because it was embarrassing.

And so it's like a hidden, it's like those are like hidden disability that nobody else knows that you're going through like I'm completely uncomfortable. And so what happened was I started, so I was the same as my patients. I went to rheumatologists, I went to primary care doctors, I went to like orthopedic other doctors, but then nothing was ever like I had a positive ANA, which is one of the markers for autoimmune conditions and a couple–

Mm-hmm.

–couple of the things, like about half the category for lupus. but there is some stuff that shows that if there's a genetic predisposition that it could be more likely to get turned on, especially actually if you have chronic infections. So interestingly enough, people have autoimmune conditions, they have two or three chronic and persistent infections that have never been tested. And so sometimes I have patients that have like rheumatoid arthritis, we treat them for Lyme and the rheumatoid factors, everything clears and they're like, we get them off their medication. So it was really infections.

Mm-hmm.

Wow.

Wow.

So anyway, that's a whole other, that could be a whole other podcast. So what happened was I was positive for those things, but it was like not enough to be like have an autoimmune condition. So they couldn't really figure out what it was. So then fast forward like a couple years later, I started working with patients and I'm like, these symptoms sound like as I learned about Lyme disease, cause it's still kind of not as known. And I'm like, these all sound like mine.

So then when come to learn that Babesia, Bartonella, some of these co-infections can have mental health effects they can cause excessive sweating, they can cause significant anxiety, they can cause neuropathy, numbness, tingling. And one of the other hallmarks of Lyme disease outside of fatigue is migratory joint pain because it's moving. So versus rheumatoid arthritis, it stays isolated to the areas. So when I tested mine was all my numbers were through the roof. so I did a lot of, luckily in those few years, I did a lot of self-care lifestyle changes before that and did some herbal pieces, but I was able to then–

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

–treat it. And then when I got sick again, with like COVID and other things, was interesting. All those numbers turned back on again. And the reason I knew was because I'm like, wait, I'm having some of the same symptoms I had like from 10 years ago. So, so yeah, so I had the history. So back to the piece of what you said, I think I can really relate to the patients because I had the same things, especially, I feel like one of my favorite groups are like younger adults and like teenagers because I was that, you know, I want to just hug them because I remember

that experience at that time of being extremely anxious, a lot of OCD, depression through college. And so like, I really can get that basically that history. So it happened when I practiced, it's like, those are the people that come to you, like autoimmune patients, they were all the patients, the stories that I knew either like my family or myself. So that was the piece. And then as people start getting well–

Mm-hmm.

–the trauma of that is really interesting because I've had people that get well that have been sick with Lyme disease, for example, for like 15 years, they've been struggling. We get them better and then they do a total 180, which is great. But then they push themselves like too much. They're like, I'll have a patient like, I feel better. I hiking nine miles. I'm like, but when's the last time you haven't hiked for like five years? I felt horrible the next day. like, but they're like, I feel great. Like they're so excited that they're feeling better that they can go to the other extreme.

And so like I had that where it's like, okay, now you're working 70 hours a week in this. And I'm like, okay, hey, listen, like you were sick and you weren't well and you were out working, not working for a period of time. Like you have to do that. You have to go back into life slower because part of it is it's almost, I'm always balancing out. Are you ignoring the trauma? the, and so it's more comfortable to go back in fully into work and like push yourself to the point of running and then what happens? They get unwell and they feel sick and they go back to that feedback loop that you said where they're like, now they just burnt themselves out because of that.

So it's like this always this balance too, even when people get well of like reflecting and kind of that slow build back into life to the way it used to be. And unfortunately, that's not the way we learn to do things. Like the American way, it's about like, know, fast action. But I'm like, it took this long to get there. You can't–

Mm.

–you shouldn't go back to being the way you were tomorrow. that's also not, that's not part of the healing process either, so.

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense where people get so excited. They're like, yeah, I'm great. Now I'm going to go run a marathon. You know, so thinking about this and like really what you're you specialize in, what are some everyday exposures or habits that people might not realize are impacting their health?

Hahaha.

Exactly.

Yeah. so environmental. one of the, those are easy things that I tell people, like look at your environment. If you notice, if you notice, so for example, with psych meds, they study, the studies has shown if inflammation goes up higher, you're actually less likely to respond to psych meds. So as well, and even medications in general. So one of the things that tell people is like, look at changes, like, this is weird. Why do I now need to be instead of on two psych meds?–

Mm.

–I keep creeping up. keeps the dosage keeps going up or now I need to be on three or four or five. Like to me, like what are those like in terms of tips, like what are those red flags that are changing or like why is my thyroid medication needing to go up more now? So, and that could be because for example, your adrenals and your hormones and thyroid always say it's like a trifecta. They all work together. So you'll see like when women after they have a baby or after when they go into perimenopause, their thyroid takes a hit. That's when they get thyroid disease or Hashimoto's. And so–

Hmm.

–So are we supporting the hormones or are we just giving thyroid medication? And so when you see this like kind of shift by way of like medication, I'm always like, that's a red flag. Other things are like environmental changes. Like we, changed this environment and now I'm not like feeling as well. So those are kind of like basic, those are some basic flags, but I like to see is like that when things like you, or you feel a little bit better, not fully better, I always tell people like, we want to be like optimal, not just functional.

Mm-hmm.

you know, cause it's like, yeah, I'm getting by and unfortunately in conventional medicine, it's like, okay, but you're, you're fine. You're you look okay. Like that. It's like, okay, I look okay, but I don't, I don't feel great. I feel like 50%. Like that's not okay. And I have young people saying that like in their twenties, like, well, I'm not that bad. And like, that's the worst thing someone says to me is like, I'm not that bad. like, but you don't want to not be that bad. You want to feel great, you know? So, so that's the pieces is like those, those red flags to look at,–

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

–and making sure you have like comprehensive blood work and pushing your doctor to like, hey, can we do a lot more in depth blood work to look at me like from a wellness perspective?

It's just so refreshing to hear a medical professional saying like, you might have to advocate with your own provider. And like, that's just something that Lindsey and I both know like, to acutely. And I think there are so many things that you've talked about that, for me, bring up the same education and information that we give to folks in more direct service trauma supporting spaces like acute crises. And that's–

Mm-hmm.

–How do we validate the feeling that's never been listened to before? How do we empower the person with information and choices? everything you're saying to me kind of lines up and overlaps with these trauma-informed principles. And I have to imagine like you, I didn't get any trauma education in law school. Where did that, the assumption I'm making is you have this trauma awareness. Where did it come from?

It's.

Yeah, I think some of it is like probably everyone I think when you go into the work, it's like some lived experience. That's one thing. And then also I did work in behavioral health care for some time as an executive. I forgot about that actually. And I actually helped to create, I kind of have a weird, it's like Renaissance of like all these different jobs and hats, but I used to help to create integrated care initiatives in this large behavioral health center that had 86 programs and like 13 sites and also worked in FQHC's, federally qualified health centers.

So in that place, it was actually ranked one of the top workplaces I think for like the last 10 years or something. was one of my, this is such a healthy place. Like I still miss the place and just the environment, but everything from the first actually training from staff is all in trauma-based care down to like the HR, everybody's trained in trauma-based care, so it's not just the therapist.

So like it informs literally their training of employees in the first day they come on board. So I think from that perspective, and then also we would have meetings, it was always like all of the different perspectives in mind. So I think that piece also definitely helped me to think of it, but also I'm always probably the same as you guys, like a continued avid learner.

Yeah.

So that's also, cause even it's funny, I just signed up for a DBT like training for adolescents and children because part of ours is like, how do I help in the visit? Even though I'm not like the therapist, I want better skill training to give to the parents. Like, you know, because they might not go and see a therapist. Like, and then that's what we have to realize that like for doctors or for mental health events, like you might be the only person that they see like the same in the work you guys do, right? So I'm like, we'll be like, okay, I better get continued training on it so that I can at least give some tools.

Obviously I redirect them, but they might not go there and they might trust me more than they're gonna trust the other person. So I think I'm constantly honing it and it's just like an area of interest for me to do that. And it's one of the reasons why I train, I was a medical director of education for psychiatry redefined and train mostly MDs actually and prescribe or conventionally train doctors on functional medicine for psychiatry.

It just seems like it makes so much sense. It's like, why haven't we always been doing it this way? And again, I have a very biased, like, personal experience. As you were describing, like, some of your own patients, and Lindsey has probably heard me describe this this way. At some point, I'll be like, you know, and I don't talk often about my lupus, but when it does come up, I'll be like, but I'm like the lucky one because, you know, it doesn't impact.

Yeah.

It's like privilege, yeah.

Yeah, I'm like, it's not impacting my day to day. I get to show up fully at work. And what's so interesting is I think when it's been such a part of the fabric of your life, you don't know any different. I don't know what it would be like to operate without brain fog or being tired. That is me feeling like optimal. And so, yeah, so it's just such a complicated inner dialogue and all of the complexity around that. And so one thing I–

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

That's your normal. Yes, yeah.

–I want to think about as we move to close out because unfortunately, I think we could have this conversation with you for hours because this is like right at our sweet spot of interest and we might even have to get you back. You know, I realize that for the patients moving through these long slogs, right, where it's like a lot of uncertainty takes time, it's tough and it's also got to be a weight on you and I'm just wanting to leave our listeners with some of your thoughts on like

Ha ha ha.

How do you keep patients grounded in that in-between uncertainty space and what keeps you hopeful in these long processes given the work that you do?

Yes, I love, I absolutely love that question. I think, so one of the pieces I do is I'm constantly learning and I'm the perpetual student because I'm always trying to figure out how do I serve the patient in front of me better so that they can, like everything is met. And I love the piece that you mentioned because I hear that story from patients all the time of that was their normal.

I have a patient, for example, 60 rheumatoid arthritis, hand movement, like actually had to retire early because of that. And now she has no pain or inflammation or hands. And she's like, then it turns to then getting upset, like, what the heck? Like, I don't, and this was actually a provider themselves. So was like, why didn't, why wasn't I given these other, it's interesting that it's treat other docs and see like, or other providers and see them actually shift of like, well, why didn't, why aren't we thinking of this? Like, why aren't we trained to think like, you know, this.

you

Hmm.

Yeah.

And then seeing like, my gosh, don't have, my energy's better or I'm sleeping or I didn't have to deal with this full pain fully. And, because, because you said it became normal and especially my autoimmune or patients that are dealing with inflammation, they're used to it. So unfortunately their threshold for pain is a lot higher. So that's like normal. So, what I do is I try to tell them, it's like, what is the thing I always say is like, what brings you joy? What is the one thing? Cause there's always something that makes people happy that they can get to.

And also to not put so much pressure, like the grace on, it could be five minutes, you know? So me, I might be like, you if I'm stressed, I was like, okay, go and walk around the block, you know, one time. I think it's like putting that pressure of, I got to do like, you know, obviously we want to do, for example, exercise more days a week, 150 minutes per week. But it's like, that might not work. So like, let me just get outside, have some, you know, fresh air, do that for 10 minutes because it's all about the...

compounding effect of like starting those processes to take care of themselves. themselves. I have like in my office, for example, like a walking pad. do, it's funny. I'm very, my friends always say like I'm a closet hippie kind of thing. I have this like woo woo piece of me like Sage this full moon, like Reiki. I love all the energy stuff I've done like Ayahuasca. And I'm very like have this other side that people see me as like such a like, you know, this, but I have this other like, you know, tree hugger kind of person.

So grounding. So I do grounding mats that I have in my house. So like when I, I recommend to patients. But the first thing is like, everybody's different. So it might be like, Oh, I love to bowl or I love to do this or you know, what is that? So how do you get back into doing that to something for yourself? And then if it's for a plan, like I can't commit to taking these supplements. I'm like, okay, what's the one, especially for my younger people. It's like, what, what, how many things can you do?

I love that.

you going to like asking the question of like, not can't, like, what are the things that you feel like are like, you can actually do like, okay, I can take two things. Okay. We're only going to do two things. So, that's one of the things that's important to me. So you also feel empowered to make that decision, like that they're actually part of the process as well.

Yeah, it just does something to shift, to be tethered to possibility and not limitation does something psychologically for sure. Yeah. Well, this conversation was amazing and we're so grateful. I know you're a super busy person and just to get this time and conversation with you, we feel so grateful. And of course, to our listeners who joined in, we'll include some show notes so you know where to find Dr. Patterson. And we're just so grateful for–

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. For sure. I enjoy that.

–you joining us on TraumaTies as you listen, please be sure you subscribe, rate and review the TraumaTies podcast wherever you listen.

Thanks everybody for joining us.

Thank you.