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Is Your Antidepressant Just a Band-Aid? Why Root Cause Healing Matters

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One of the pharmacy facts I am passionate about getting people to understand is this: EVERY medication out there only addresses symptoms… not root cause. And only addressing symptoms without addressing the cause would be like continuously patching cracks in a wall without addressing the shifting cracked foundation of a house.
We are so unique. Each one of us. In mind, body, spirit, soul, emotions, experiences. Mental health medications aren’t about “fixing” the problem….. they are the patch on the crack-y wall without addressing the foundational problem (which could be something as complex as a childhood trauma, lack of community, a toxicity, or something as seemingly simple as a nutrient deficiency).
To be clear, in my opinion, most mental health drugs should be listed as a type of drug very similar to drugs with addictive potential. No, your body will not ever “crave” Prozac, Lexapro or anything else in the SSRI or other psych med categories, but once you’ve been on them for a period of time, it can be incredibly hard to get off of them because your body and brain become rewired to depend on the medication. It then takes a fierce desire to correct that dependency, and that fierce desire includes working on oneself in all the areas ….mind, body, and spirit.
SSRI’s are by far the most common class of mental health meds. Roughly 1 in 6 people in the USA take them not knowing or understanding the ramifications of taking them long term. Informed Consent is so very important (and required by law, but rarely enforced 🙄 even if something goes really wrong… part of our broken medical system). How often does a doctor tell their patients what I just said above? 👆 How often does a doctor explain that what they’d like to do, with the patient’s cooperation, is to give them an opportunity to get to the root cause of mental health issues (with help from avenues of mind, body, and spirit professionals), perhaps agreeing to use medication on the short term to get over a hump but with the understanding that the medication would be used as a short term tool to be used while discovering the root cause and then healing from the traumas, toxicities, and/or deficiencies the body is experiencing. (I have much much more to say about this, but I would be writing a novel).
I have so much compassion for people walking through mental health crises, coupled with a desire to see people truly healed and walking in freedom….. and that won’t happen with long term use of these meds. In fact, over time, studies have repeatedly shown that one med will translate to multiple medications because of the side effect profiles.
You are worth doing the behind the scenes work. We all are 💖.
xoxo~ liz
(Please read this article written by a medical doctor for a better understanding. I don’t encourage anyone to cold turkey stop their medications, or to do so without the help of their preferred medical professional)
 
What I Have Learned in Working With 300+ People in Their Journey of Tapering

Thyroid Problem Clues – part 2

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Analysis Paralysis has finally released its hold on me as I dip into the complexities of thyroid dysfunction and their absolute connection with autoimmune disorders. It’s important to understand that over 90% of diagnosed hypothyroid patients actually have an autoimmune disorder.
History always helps me understand science and biology because history leaves valuable clues. A journal article I read yesterday had this interesting tidbit:
“During the first half of the century [1900’s], autoimmune disease was viewed as biologically implausible.”
My, how things have changed!🥴 Resistance to the idea that autoimmunity could not happen began waning in the 1960’s. By then, life had changed drastically in many ways. Processed foods were introduced into mainstream eating habits, medication / vaccination use steadily inched upwards into the norm rather than the exception, plastics became part of our everyday world, fluoride was added to water, personal care products had a growing ingredient list of words that were barely pronounceable, herbicides were used ubiquitously and parents let their kids run behind the trucks that were spraying DDT for mosquitoes🦟! Thankfully the DDT spraying has stopped, but other pesticides quickly took its place. The toxin list has grown by leaps and bounds over the decades. Today, our bodies have to wade through the toxic soup☠️ known as the standard American life. Genetically, we haven’t changed appreciably, yet we are now part of the sickest generation in recorded history.
Did you know that at least 90% of genetic expression is the result of our environment, while the other 10% can be attributed to the role of the proverbial parental genetic dice? Epigenetics (the expression of our genes based on environmental influences) will look differently for each person based upon genes + exposure to infection (often viral), the Standard American Diet (simultaneously nutritionally deficient and toxic), pollutants (both in and outside the home), medications/vaccines, emotions, and stress. Epigenetics is so specifically unique to an individual that even identical twins👭 may express genes differently when exposed to chronic stressors. If you are going to put together a perfect crime scene,🔎 this is the way to do it!
 
Roughly 20% of the adult population in the USA now has an autoimmune disorder
And this percentage continues to rise. Prior to the 1970’s, autoimmune disorders were relatively obscure. Hashimoto’s, the autoimmune version of hypothyroidism, is considered by The Autoimmune Registry to be the second most common of all autoimmune disorders (second only to rheumatoid arthritis).
There is both bad and good news about autoimmune disorders. While they never disappear, they can certainly go into remission with the right lifestyle changes and choices. It’s a good thing we are in control of our personal choices!😉
 
According to leading Hashimoto’s and autoimmune disorder expert, Dr. Datis Kharrazian, there are 3 stages of autoimmune disease:
🔎Stage One is the silent stage. The body has begun losing its tolerance to its own tissue, but to the western health practitioner, there will be very few “hard core” symptoms. You though, as the CEO and chief sleuth🕵️, will feel “off”. What does “off” feel like? Well, that depends! It may be something as subtle as spending more (or less!) time in the bathroom. Perhaps it might be a rash that comes and goes. Maybe it means you are having difficulty finding the zest for life you once had, or you just have a little harder time waking up in the morning or falling asleep at night. Stage One is very important, as catching “things” early can be a game changer in the outcome. Lab work identifying elevated TPOAb and TGAb antibodies (for Hashimoto’s) can be very revealing. Neither test is very expensive when you pay out of pocket. Sadly, insurance companies often refuse to pay for these as “maintenance” labs. If your request is refused, I highly encourage you to pay out of pocket elsewhere and have the tests run annually with other labs.
 
🔎Stage Two is considered the reactivity stage and actual destruction to target tissue has begun. Symptoms are much “louder” and harder to ignore inside your own body. In fact, it may be this stage that finally sends you to a healthcare practitioner, though you’ve felt “off” for perhaps even years.
 
🔎In Stage Three, westernized medicine officially acknowledges the autoimmune disease. Significant destruction of the targeted tissue has occurred and there may even be collateral damage occurring elsewhere throughout the body. At this stage, damage can be seen by an MRI or ultrasound in addition to the elevated antibodies and actual symptoms.
 
Interestingly, the level of antibodies detected doesn’t necessarily indicate the severity of the Hashimoto’s. The antibodies themselves do not cause the thyroid gland destruction. Without getting too technical, the antibodies bind to and mark the spot (ie: the thyroid), and then the T Cells ( think of them as a special forces unit of the immune system) come in and attack what the antibodies have marked as “foreign”. If your own personal set of T cells are especially aggressive, your antibody count can be low but destruction of the thyroid can still be severe. Likewise, if your T cells act more like lazy posers, your TPOAb’s can be high but destruction probably won’t be as severe as you might think. Again…. epigenetics at play.
Here’s where we take a bunny trail🐰 detour to talk a bit about gluten. Unless you live in an untouched area of the wilderness with no internet, you’ll likely know that many people have issues with gluten. Generally, you hear about gluten and digestive disturbances such as celiac disease (another autoimmune disorder affecting the small intestine), but did you know that gluten is commonly a trigger for worsening both Hashimoto’s (hypothyroid) and Grave’s (hyperthroid) disease?
 
Gluten is a sneaky little son of a biscuit eater, for multiple reasons:
🍞It takes very little to cause great distress in gluten hypersensitive individuals…… like less than 1/20th of a teaspoonful according to some experts, and even less than that according to others.
🍞The after effects of a single gluten consumption/use can be felt for weeks to months after the occurrence in the gluten hypersensitive individual.
🍞Gluten flies under the radar and hides in the most seemingly innocuous of places: soy sauce, corn flakes, salad dressings, marinades, seasonings, processed deli meats, body and beauty care products, and candy (glucose syrup or dextrose can come from wheat) are just a few on the list.
🍞Some thyroid medications (and other medications and supplements too!) contain gluten as an inert filler ingredient. Currently the FDA does not have strict labeling requirements regarding the labeling of gluten positive medications. At the time of this writing, all brands of levothyroxine (except Mylan which is certified gluten free) contain gluten, as does the thyroid medication Cytomel. (And yes, I agree. Why in the world would the pharmaceutical industry use inflammatory gluten as a common filler, especially in a medication for a population prone to be gluten sensitive? As I’ve said before, we’re worth more as a commodity if we are sick than we are if we are healthy friends.🙄)
🍞Other aliases of gluten include starch, pregelatinized starch, sodium starch glycolate, dextrin, dextrate, dextro-maltose, maltodextrin, sodium starch glycolate and more. Sneaky Pete, indeed!
 
Is all gluten bad? 🤔Resoundingly no. Although if someone is found to be gluten hypersensitive, it’s a good idea to avoid it as much as possible. Modern wheat and the ancient grain Einkorn are two very different grains containing different types and ratios of gluten. Not only is Einkorn considered to be vastly more nutritious than modern wheat, the troublesome type of gluten (the “D” genome) doesn’t appear to be present in Einkorn according to Dr. Davis, author of “Wheat Belly”. If you aren’t sure if Einkorn is a safe form of grain for you, try incorporating it into a food challenge. Einkorn is also much more highly digestible and because of its starchstructure, is less apt to cause blood sugar spikes.
 
For the non gluten hypersensitive individual there are a few more reasons to nosh on some tasty Young Living Einkorn spaghetti, pancakes, granola, or cereal…..Regular intake of gluten has been found to help mediate exposure to heavy metals. Conversely, those on a gluten free diet tend to have higher blood and urine levels of arsenic, lead, mercury, and cadmium ,commonly found in many well known lipstick brands,. If you already use YL Savvy Minerals lipstick💋, here’s a high five…. It’s toxin free!
 
For being a simple little butterfly🦋 looking structure in our neck we often don’t think about, the thyroid is certainly complex and so easily affected by outside influence!
 
xoxo~ liz
 

Assessing Stress – part 1

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Alrighty friends, we are going to tackle a booger bear over the next few weeks. Stress is a stealth burglar of health. It can creep up on you, knock you to your knees and follow up with a sucker punch in the gut before you even knew what hit ya. Nobody is immune to the negative influences of unmitigated chronic stress. Oftentimes, we can get so caught up living with stress, it begins to “feel” normal.
God did not design us to live in eternal “fight or flight”. If we do live this way, eventually a health crisis will occur. The Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory Survey📊 is a widely recognized health coaching tool used to help assess the probability of future “health breakdowns” if stress remains unaddressed.

Holmes-rahe stress inventory survey

Take some time to honestly assess yourself. 
👍150 points or less: a relatively low susceptibility to stress induced health problems
150-300 points: (if nothing changes) a 50% chance of a stress induced health concern in the next 2 years.
300: an 80% risk of a stress induced health concern within the next 2 years.
Frankly, assessing your stress load (and how well you mediate it) just might be the most important clue🔎 of this series.
I’ll be unpacking additional clues and ways to mediate chronic stress next week. Thankfully, stress management is not an expensive undertaking… there is so much you can do affordably or for free. The hardest part is honestly acknowledging the damage stress may be causing behind the scenes. What you can’t see is still causing harm.  Some studies  suggest chronic stress is as hard on the heart as a five🚬🚬🚬🚬🚬 cigarette a day habit. Yikes!😳
See ya’ll next week. I’m headed off to bulk order Stress Away!😉
xoxo~ liz
www.goodmedicine.info
#sharingiscaring 
#relaxingisgoodmedicine 
#learningtoletgo 
#ThanksYL

Anatomy Of Industry: Commerce and Betrayal

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How can there be unbiased information from our medical industry when money exchanges hands between provider and drug company.
You scratch my back….. I’ll scratch yours. 
Even if you do not read the attached article(in the black box below), I’d like to point one name out…. Dr. Sanjay Gupta…… a well known medical correspondent for CNN and social media medical advisor…. if you follow CNN or know someone who does, it’s likely his advice would have been heeded at some point. (He’s made over 1.6 million $$ from back scratching with Big Pharma ).
Lesser known, Dr. Stephen Stahl’s pockets are at the top of the heap…. at 8.6 million $$. He’s considered a foremost expert on psychopharmacology, and has written over 500 papers, 35 text books, and edited 12 more. You can imagine how much influence he has in academic circles. He talks…. people listen.
There’s been some serious back scratching going on there.
Y’all…. there will always be a time and place for Western Medicine pharmacology, but not like this. Vested or veiled interests usually ends in tweaking information leaning towards the hand that feeds. It’s illegal in the government (supposedly ) , it’s illegal in the stocks and bonds industry, it’s prohibited in jury selections….. the list goes on.
Psych drugs are enormously profitable.
It’s a rare day when someone who starts down the path of being on a psych med is able to get off of them. Most of them are not classified as being addictive, yet try getting off of even one (much less a handful of them, as is usually the end case), and the body very much responds negatively. It can certainly be done, with medical supervision and a great deal of time…..each one of the medications so severely alters neurotransmitter production in the body.
We humans are not “medication deficient”. It’s far more complicated than that. The number of psych drugs prescribed (1 in 6 people are on one or more in the USA) is a pure reflection of two things….. the brokenness of our world, and the lack of delving adequately into the root of the problem. How many people who embarked on their medication journey had extensive (and I mean EXTENSIVE) lab work to rule out hormone or nutrient imbalances and committed to God centered compassionate counseling? Only when these fail to bring results should medication be brought in to the picture. 
I leave you with this sobering stat: According to the American Addiction Centers website, more people die from psychiatric medication overdose than those who die from heroin overdose in our country. (The biggest killers are the most common ones…. Xanax , Ambien, anti-depressants, psycho-stimulants (ex Ritalin), and anti-psychotics…. in order of prevalence).  I can’t imagine what the mayhem of 2020-2021 has done to those numbers in the last two years.  (article below in gray box)
Please. Watch whom you get your health information from….. whether it’s on a topic like this, or another. If money is exchanging hands, you can be assured that the information has been tweaked to benefit the financial benefactor. This is only one aspect of the industry. You may be shocked about who else’s backs are being scratched. Well known names. 2020-2021 names that everyone now knows. 
xoxo~ liz
#sharingiscaring
#theloveofmoneyistherootofevil
#Jesusdietexercisecommunitytoxinfreelifestyle
#goodmedicineisnotBigPharma
#thanksYL 

Anatomy of industry:mad in america
psychiatric medications kill

Sleep in Heavenly Peace

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🎶🎶 Sleeeeep in heavenly peace……🎶 🎶


Roughly 1/3 of the US population has at least occasional problems either falling asleep or staying asleep, and over time, sleeplessness will become a tremendous health problem if not addressed properly. (emphasis on the properly!)


There are more than 2 handfuls of common reasons why people have trouble sleeping (way more than I can cover here today). 


What’s concerning are the number of people who ultimately turn to prescription medication to help get a “good night’s ” sleep. We have been conditioned to believe that if a doctor writes a prescription, the benefits surely outweigh the risks. While this is sometimes true, it’s not always the case. “Sleeping pills” are what we call ‘fast movers’ in pharmacy…. ie: they are a popular item. 


Not so fast….  let’s take a look at a few lesser known truths about some common (Ambien, Klonopin, Lunesta, Restoril, Xanax, Sonata) prescription sleep aids:
😴None of these are approved by the FDA for long term use, yet people are on them for years.
The sleep achieved using any of these is not natural, refreshing, or restorative. The sleep you get  is an artificial sleep and your body recognizes the difference. Our body does its repairing and recovering during “natural sleep”, and that doesn’t happen to any appreciable degree when using the above medications. (In addition, by their very definition, they are an additional toxin the body must now work extra hard to clean out.)
😴All of the above prescription meds also block the body from being able to produce melatonin (the very hormone that helps us sleep). This is one of the reasons this group of prescription medications become addictive…. because your body produces less and less melatonin the longer you are on them.
😴Melatonin “deficiency” is a bigger problem than just not being able to sleep without a pill…. normal melatonin levels are necessary for immune function, having energy throughout the day, having healthy breast tissue, effective brain function, supports healthy cardiovascular function, improved GUT (yes!) health, eye health, and pancreas function (Just to name a few! 😍) 
😴Additionally, several of these prescription sleep aids also deplete a body’s stores of Calcium and Vitamin D over time (which will ultimately affect your bones and about 400 other necessary functions in the body) 😬


I am thankful that we have natural choices instead of that which is advertised as  ‘simple’ solutions in nearly every form of mainstream media you see. 
My favorite Young Living products that help me have a restful restorative night’s sleep are RutaVala (on the base of the big toe and in the belly button! and Immupro …. it’s back 🙌). I also love Frankincense and Peace & Calming!)
What’s your “go to” for a good night’s sleep? 
xoxo~ liz

#goodmedicine
#goodmedicineisagoodnightssleep
#ThanksYL
#Godgaveuswhatweneedinthegarden

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