Why Functional Medicine Matters
The state of our healthcare system is concerning.
Whether it’s insurance, wait times, dismissive physicians, or a combination of them all, it’s hard to find quality care. Even if you find a physician you actually like, data suggests that your doctor is much more likely to prescribe a pill than actually find the underlying problem. Heartburn? Here’s a pill. High blood pressure? Here’s a pill. Depressed? Here’s a pill. You get the idea.
This is why functional medicine is so important. At its foundation, functional medicine is curious. It’s curious about your diet, lifestyle, stress levels, family history, toxin exposure, etc. It’s looking to find answers for WHY you are sick, instead of simply treating symptoms for a lifestyle.
Meet Dr. Pucci:
On this week’s episode we speak with a chiropractor who is on a mission to find answers. Dr. Doug Pucci is an award winning functional medicine practitioner in Oradell, NJ. He brings decades worth of knowledge with him to his private practice and spends his days asking relevant questions and discovering why systems are imbalanced in his patients. We chat about how functional medicine can be immensely different from conventional care, the different facets of functional medicine, and how individuals can find the quality care they’re looking for.
Some Topics We Discussed:
What is functional medicine? (4:14)
What role does gut health play in our bodies? (19:39)
What is a super system? (21:51)
How do people start embracing functional medicine in their own lives? (27:35)
How do we think of functional medicine as an investment in our health vs a cost? (34:50)
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
Traditional allopathic medicine doesn’t have the answers towards determining the cause of chronic degenerative diseases. They are trained for acute care. (9:44)
Medications do not address the underlying cause of diseases. (15:01)
Your gut determines so much of your overall health. (21:59)
If you live in the normal reference ranges of blood work, you're gonna be normally unhealthy. You have to be in the optimal ranges. (27:21)
Be proactive with your blood testing so that you can make adjustments to your lifestyle to continue to set yourself up for success. (31:30)
Products + Resources:
Thanks to today’s sponsor Mt. Angel Vitamins.
Get Social With Dr. Pucci:
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Brian Strickland 00:37 Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Holistic Navigator Podcast where we believe in the body's capacity for self healing, if it's given the proper nutrients and care it deserves. My name is Brian Strickland. I'm the producer of the show. And here with me in the studio, as always, is our host, Ed Jones. On today's episode, we've got another great guest for you. We are talking to Dr. Douglas Pucci, who is a functional medicine doctor in New Jersey. The root of his treatment philosophy is really about asking relevant questions and discovering why symptoms are unbalance. He is interested in getting into the root cause of a health issue instead of just treating the symptoms, which is what makes him so unique. So we're going to talk to him a little today about his practice and why functional medicine is such an important part of what we're doing today. So I won't waste any more of your time. Let's go ahead and get the show started. Here is your host, Mr. Ed Jones.
Ed Jones 01:32 Thank you, Brian, for that introduction for The Holistic Navigator. And we are excited again, I know I use that word quite often. But if there's one word that I've probably mentioned more often in the 90 plus episodes of The Holistic Navigator is probably the word functional medicine or functional nutrition. And today, I have an amazing gentleman that is going to be joining us that is going to be sharing his extreme experience and knowledge of how he interacts and treats patients using the functional medicine approach. And this is a gentleman, his name's Dr. Doug Pucci, and he's been practicing for over 30 years in the New York City area. And he was honored this year to receive both the best of 2020 awards for functional medicine in New Jersey and Trademark Publications, top doctors of America for his pioneering work, and welcome to The Holistic Navigator, Dr. Douglas Pucci.
Dr. Pucci 02:36 Thank you so much, Mr. Jones. I'm so pleased and happy to be here today on your podcast, looking forward to a really, really good discussion.
Ed Jones 02:43 Well, this, to me is life changing information and because we have to be empowered in in any area of life. But I think even more so in the subject of health, because if we just rely on total conventional knowledge and wisdom, we are missing a big piece of a toolbox that actually helps to create healing. And I know I want you to kind of give a little bullet point of you know, what did you define functional medicine as but before you do that, I want to say that, you know, I've been doing or studying and having a passion for exactly what you speak about, since 1979, when I first began this journey. But I remember being in the late 1990s. Someone had who knows how and when, certainly way before the real internet age, but I'd gotten a cassette tape from Jeffrey Bland. And I know, you know, him probably very well. I joined his Institute for functional medicine back in the late 90s. And we would get a cassette tape every month of all of his teachings. And I ended up going to some of his three day trainings in Florida with a physician friend of mine, and I just ate it up with every single minute, I could not wait to listen to those tapes and go on those trips. And I just think Jeffrey Bland was a game changer for this whole whole aspect of functional medicine. So tell the listeners what you define functional medicine as?
Dr. Pucci 04:22 You know, again, as you said, I'm in this I'm in this practicing for 30 years and I didn't get into functional medicine overnight. It took a long time before I got here. But like a lot of you know doctors searching for better answers. My career actually began as a chiropractor. And as a chiropractor, I entered the world because I really liked the philosophy of chiropractic right the philosophy chiropractic was that we understood that the body had an innate intelligence. The body was geared to be well and to be healthy. As a chiropractor, you looked at what the interferences were, that wasn't allowing the body to actually fully express itself and through the adjustments you would clear the neurological interference, and allow the brain to communicate with the body and the body communicate with the brain. And that was really what jazzed me about chiropractic. And I got into the chiropractic field. Unfortunately, when we're looking back at this, you know, when I get into the real world as a chiropractor all excited about it. And I had a slide dealing with insurance companies, the insurance companies told me that I was going to practice differently, they told me that I was going to be a back pain doctor. And I was like, well, that's not what I thought what I signed up for. I signed up for this holistic approach of wellness. And they're like when I get to be a back pain doctor. So I had to go into that world is treating people with back pain. And I quickly was learning that I was getting so frustrated, like, even though I was learning so many different techniques, and with a really good adjustment stuff. It always perplexed me as to like, what was the differences and why some people responded quite favorably to the chiropractic treatment and other people, you know, modestly or some people didn't respond well at all. What really differentiate these people? And as I started to, you know, delve deeper into it, I began to realize that so many of these people had so many other underlying inflammatory conditions. They had hormone imbalances, they had thyroid dysregulation, they had blood sugar problems, like pre diabetes, or diabetes, they were riddled with gut infections. And so these underlying issues, were really at the precipice of creating the complications that wasn't allowing the person to respond to these treatments. Now, I had a background in Clinical Nutrition coming out of out of college and at a chiropractic college, but in the state where I practice in New Jersey for so many years is that the scope of practice didn't allow us to do nutrition. But I decided to go back to school to go deeper into my studies into how I can help people and my first venue was in the field of functional neurology, the word functional. So what that meant was, I went back and started to look and study the brain and how it actually inspired how it functioned. I can put that more into layman's terminology is today's world if you go to a neurologist, and they do a MRI of the brain, you know, what they're really looking for is disease. They're looking for pathology, do we see the signs of a tumor, do we see signs of a stroke. But we don't see that for all kinds of purposes, the MRI is marked as negative, it's negative for that disease process. But we do have to be able to quote functional MRI. So the functional MRI is an MRI imaging whereby the person the patient is undergoing activities. And so the MRI is actually taking a live interpretation of how that brain is firing and functioning, communicating, and where we can see weaknesses or imbalances. So as a functional practitioner, we learned how to test the brain through eye movements and balance and sensory inputs, and begin to see where there were certain weaknesses in the brain. And then I started to approach all my chiropractic patients from a brain perspective, and it was eye opening. It was eye opening, because I began to realize that so many of these structural problems were really upstream problems with the brain. And if we didn't come in and start trying to rehab the brain and exercise the brain and get the weak area stronger, if you really couldn't get command over the structural problems in the spine. However, as they started to get more and more into Functional Neurology is quickly we began to realize, I began to realize that the brain is an incredibly energy demanding organ. More than any other organ in the body, your brain consumes more energy. And so many people have, again, these underlying issues, whether it's hormone imbalances, blood sugar problems, gut infections, so many things that was compromising energy at a cellular level, and therefore compromising the fuel that the brain needed to function. And so if you were coming in and doing all the correct therapeutics to try to make the brain stronger, more balanced in some ways, you will make the patient weaker or worse, because you were exceeding their metabolic capacity. You were exceeding their capacity energy wise to perform things. And so I was desperately in need to go deeper into how I could start to resolve these problems. And so I had to go back to school. And I had to start getting involved in this world of functional medicine and start looking at the body from a different perspective. So do go back to your original question, which is really what is functional medicine? It really is functional medicine I think it was birthed. I don't quote me, I would say maybe about 20 years ago. And it was really birthed out of a desperate need to really resolve these unresolvable issues that were really plaguing so many people, especially Americans. Meaning that what most but what's really plaguing Americans collectively is what we call chronic degenerative diseases. Right? Meaning that anything that any symptom that is persisting for a minimum of six months, or longer and most people's symptoms are plaguing them for years, if not decades, right, that is chronic in nature and is degenerating whether it's degenerating to the nervous system, whether it's degenerating to the musculoskeletal system. And medicine, that traditional allopathic model has literally no answer for it. They just don't. They know that. They admit to it. Right. And there's no training good medicine, allopathic medicine, in the teaching, the schooling, is geared towards acute intervention, right? And so very simply, it's like I always tell people, if you're having a heart attack, don't come to my office, you go to the emergency room, that's where you need to go to save your life. But they're not answering the question as to what led to the heart attack. And more importantly, what are you going to do post, you know, the post heart attack. And I can go back to a personal experiment that I share with my patients, when people are like is going back, I think it was in the early 2000s is my dad had to go in for bypass surgery. He started the prostate cancer and one thing led to another and then they couldn't proceed with this because they had to go into bypass surgery. And so we my mom, and my dad and myself, were meeting with the cardiovascular surgeon in this hospital, in this brand new, beautiful wing of the hospital that was built. And we're waiting to meet with the surgeon to go over the procedures and what the expectations were. And as we're sitting here with my mom and my dad, we're very nervous, I'm walking around this room, and I'm bringing all the brochures, and magazines and I couldn't help but be observed that, that these these brochures, were basically stating that the hospital was so proud. They were so proud that they had built this multimillion dollar wing to meet the demands of the community. And I stood there dumbfounded and saying to myself, this is how they do it. This is how this is medicine, the way that they meet the demands of the rising escalate of cardiovascular disease is by building a bigger wing. So they could do more bypass surgeries. They're not answering the question as to what is causing cardiovascular disease in the first place and how do we prevent that, and really is really at the root of functional medicin. I can use that word root, because actually functional medicine is looking for the root cause why should say causes plural, that contribute to disease. If we turn and we look at neurodegenerative diseases, especially Alzheimer's, which is such a great concern, and baby boomers are getting into this, you know, this period of their lives, where the expectation for Alzheimer's disease is going to double over the next 25 years. Right, we know that there really is no drug out there for it. And it really isn't going to be a drug out there for it because we know that Alzheimer's disease like old concept to changes, all forms of dementia is a mulit-factorial disease, Meaning what? There are many, many, many factors that are contributing to these cognitive changes. And therefore there has to be a multi factorial approach in order to prevent that. And if I just saying that campaign of dementia and Alzheimer's, okay, this is the research this is not me, this is not my opinion, this is research telling us that they know that these changes that leads to the final diagnosis of Alzheimer's begins approximately 20 to 30 years before an individual is given a diagnosis. There are basically seven stages to Alzheimer's, seven stages, right? The majority of people that I see in my practice, whether they are coming into me for dementia are not already in what we call stage four. Right? When you get to stage six and seven, okay, it's a little too far gone for intervention, from my perspective, right? But the problem in medicine is that medicine doesn't do any diagnosing of this condition until you're in stage six and seven. So the time by the time you're given a diagnosis, it's really it's too late in the game. So you want to start addressing the underlying conditions much earlier. Right? And that really, I don't know if I've kind of can't just over explain that. But in many functional medicine, in light of what you're saying about Dr. Jeffrey bland, would it be competitive consulting in the software industry? This really, is it really, we really found that there was a tremendous need to dig deeper to understand the fundamentals of health to dig into the the underlying root causes that leads to these degenerative changes. Right? I use a very simple example. We lost my patients also when I asked them about blood pressure, if you have high blood pressure, right, we don't want high blood pressure because high blood pressure is pressure banging against the arteries. It's going to cool damage to those waters. So we don't want high blood pressure. If you go to your medical doctor for what's the treatment, right? It's just very simply, we're going to put you on a drug or or several combinations of a blood pressure lowering drugs. And does the medication work? Yes, it does, it will lower your blood pressure. But if you ask your doctor, when can I get off the blood pressure medication? The answer is very simple. Is it not? Never. They say you're on it for life. Which begs the question, why? Why would I need to be on it for life? And the answer is simply because the medication is not addressing the underlying root cause of what is causing the blood pressure, your blood pressure does not come up for no reason. Right? Again, if you and I had to run across the road and catch the train, and we took our blood pressure, the blood pressure would be elevated. That would be appropriate. You need the pressure to go up in order to move oxygen through your body get nutrients to your body, so your muscles can perform and do their job. But if we were just sitting around in a very like relaxed state, and we take our pressure and it's quite elevated, we would say that that's inappropriate. But there's something where things plural that's causing that to happen. And medicine doesn't ask why or try to discover it.
Ed Jones 16:15 I so love that. You have so nailed it so perfectly, Dr. Pucci. I, again, I've said so many of these things in little bits and pieces over my last 90 episodes. But you know, I think Dr. Mark Hyman one time said that conventional medicine is about the what and functional medicine is about the why. And your example of the hospital wing is so appropriate. And, you know, I think you see this, there's a lot of the public who can't put this thought pattern together about what you're saying. But they had this intuition, that there's something broken in the system, like your blood pressure analogy, exactly. People know that there are ways to increase and improve the ability of the body to function on all levels. And again, I go back, and I want to give it my personal advice to everyone listening, you need your regular, conventionally trained healthcare professional. I have great respect for all the work they did, and they save lives. But if you think that you're going to age gracefully, and get to the root of almost any problem by going to them, you are sadly mistaken. You know, we have to be educated by people like yourself and all the other, hopefully growing amounts of people. You know, I spoke to a group about two years ago, it was a medical group. And I don't normally get invited to speak at these because I'm an outcast. And I'm certainly, you know, kind of a weirdo guy, but it was a group that was coming to get continuing education. And it had to do with a vascular conference is what it was, but they want it the one person they're the wife of the head physician is really into kind of the same thinking I am. So I was invited. And I remember so well. And you know how when you speak, you can sometimes instantly pick up the vibes of the public. Well, I started my speech, it was 15 minutes long. And I had spoke the year before on something else. And it went well, but this time, I started with the explanation of functional medicine. I have never spoke in front of a group that that I swear 70% of them looked at their desk after I said that word. They will not accept it many people in the field of conventional medicine. I think they're being told that it's quackery, and that that they don't need to address this. And it's very upsetting to me, because you revealed the common sense of it. This isn't rocket science, common sense. This is freakin basic grandmother common sense that you get to the root of the problem. You have a splinter in your foot, you don't just take painkillers and put a germ killer on it, you remove the freakin splinter. So tell me when a patient comes into you. And again, I looked at your website, I love everything you write, and the videos you do and I want to tell people, and at the end, please inform them how to get to your website, but you have these mini courses. And I am all about empowering with education. And I want to encourage people who are listening to at the end of this to write down your website, but these mini courses you sign up for and you get I think one a week or something and they're just so well done. Doctor, I was just super impressed. But I you know, I know you have patients who come to you and like a lot of the people who ask me questions, gut health is at the root of so many of our issues. Don't you agree with that?
Dr. Pucci 19:49 I do. I do agree with that wholeheartedly. If I can expand a little bit when you were talking and my head is going into many different directions and thinking about things I would like to contribute to your audience here. But yeah, let me stay on track with what you just said. But yeah, a lot of people in the function medicine will always go back to the gut, the gut is it kind of goes back to Hippocrates. Right? He said, ;ook to the gut for all disease all these hundreds of years later. But as we speak today, right there is what is known as the Human Microbiome Project that is going on. And scientists geneticists are looking at the gut in ways they never have looked at it before. Certainly technology allows them to do these things. And it's concurring, we know that the gut is the precipice for everything. But really, again, it's like all systems are interrelated. Right? So you know that the gut and the brain are interrelated through the vagal nerve. So there's what is called a gut brain access. What I explained to patients, and like, what you're saying is why I created these video series and tutorials is because I think there is a lot of power in information. When I work with my patients too, if you actually speak to my patients, they'll tell you that I talk a lot. But I but I do tell people that it to me, it's so important that you understand the whys and the what's up of what you're doing. If I go over a blood test with patients, it may take me 45 minutes to review their blood tests, because I need them to fully understand the blood test. So they understand the actual steps of what they're doing. If we're reviewing a gut microbiome test, right, we spend an hour and I go into deep detail, explaining things to them, because if I can explain it, they can understand it, they're empowered, and they're more likely, then to follow through and get the results that they're looking for. Right, you don't get that in medicine, right? You just get like okay, go do this. But information is really a very powerful tool. Again, going back to the gut. So, you know, that really, in functional medicine will talk to you explain that there is what is known as a super system. And as supersystem is known as the neuro endocrine, immune super system, when they call it NEI for short. And what that really means more English is neuro refers to the brain. And the endocrin refers to your hormones, that means all your hormones, so it includes your steroid hormones like estrogen and testosterone and progesterone. It includes thyroid hormone that includes stress hormones, like cortisol. So the entire hormone system, and you're 80%, roughly, the estimate of your immune system is in your gut. So it's really a gut organ. So you it's an immune organ, so you have a brain hormone, gut slash immune supersystem, it's one system. You can't have an imbalance in one part of that, and not have an imbalance someplace else. You cannot have the thyroid dysregulation or be diagnosed with hypothyroidism and not have poor functioning gut problems or underperforming immune system, and also a slower sluggish brain. You can have problems with the gut or dysbiosis in the gut, or infections in the gut, or food reactivities in the gut, and that not be a contributed to your hormone imbalance, and or to your brain issues. It is one integral system. And I also think that you know, being at this for a long time is that, you know, knowing a lot of doctors that are in the functional medicine world, you know, there are functional doctors that are functional doctors like anything else. And they find that so often that their people tend to some doctors will tend to try to focus on just one thing. And just going to work on one thing at a time. And oftentimes, it's leaving the patient disappointed with the results. Because you really can't work on one thing at a time. Because there's all feedback loops, the systems are communicating. So you have to work on all of it simultaneously.
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Ed Jones 24:15 You know quercetin is something that's kind of under the radar screen. And I have witnessed it's wonderful effects on lowering histamine response. What does that mean? It means people who have the springtime and other seasonal allergies tends to feel much better if they pre load with a good dose of quercetin. Of course quercetin with zinc has been used a lot in the news media recently. Because when quercetin affects the zinc and allows the body to absorb more of it, which helps to prevent the reproduction of viruses. So it's extremely important right now. We sold more quercetin and zinc in the past three months than I did in the past 13 years.
Brian Strickland 24:58 Yeah, and Mt. Angel actually has a really unique formulation that you should check out. In addition to zinc and quercetin, and it actually contains bromelain, stinging nettles, vitamin C, and vitamin d3. So not only are you getting the benefits that Ed mentioned before, but it's actually a really nice immune booster as well. And they all work synergistically to give you a great immune response. So be sure to check it out. That's Mt Angel Vitamins, they're quercetin and zinc product. And if you want to learn more, you can actually visit mountangelvitamins.com.
Ed Jones 25:33 That is something that, of course, conventional medicine, really, and I use this analogy a lot, they actually treat the patient often like a Ford F 150 truck. You come in, and you've got a complaint. And so all of a sudden, well, here's the mechanism was going on, and here's a drug to alleviate that symptom. But you and I certainly have my whole life believe that there's such a massive interconnection downstream and upstream of everything, which makes us different than that Ford F 150. Completely, you can change a carburetor and in a Ford F 150. And it won't affect any other parts downstream or upstream. It just fixes the one broken system. Now if your leg's broke, that's different. But if you have a chronic health condition, we have to have individuals like yourself, who can take the, first off, the correct test, you're not going to get those at the normal conventional system. In fact, many of those conventional practitioners don't even have accounts with the right labs to do the right labs, like Great Plains and all these other places.
Dr. Pucci 26:39 Right.
Ed Jones 26:40 And then secondly, interpreting those, because it is a big roadmap. And there's probably not a way for an individual patient client, unless they're really, really super educated to do it on their own. So I really, again, want to put people in front of those professionals like yourself, who can do online consultations, and can help people from any distance. And I know that you you do that. So we want to make sure we connect at the end here with the right information.
Dr. Pucci 27:09 Yeah.
Ed Jones 27:13 I did a podcast just a few months ago with Dr. Lavalle, on interpreting blood work that is so important to know that if you live in the normal reference ranges of blood work, you're gonna be normally unhealthy. You have to be in the optimal ranges, and you have to see all of the implications of how this one affects that one. And you a guy like you, I mean, you've got the experience to do it. So what, you know, where does a person go? Like, I know, there's a lot of what can they do on their own at this point? Or do you have any advice for people who understand this philosophy, they're not really unhealthy by any means they just want to optimize their future health? Is someone like us still a valuable asset for them to consult for just basic information?
Dr. Pucci 28:03 Yes, certainly there is. We see, you know, all walks with people with different interests. I mean, the majority of people that I do see, typically have been to numerous of the doctors, I'm not the first doctor that they come knocking on the door. They usually have seen 8, 9 , 10, 15 doctors. In all honesty, lots of times, too, they've also been to other integrative or functional doctors. And that's always fascinating to me. As far as kind of leading to before it's like so you know, they'll come into my office, they've been to other doctors, they even run all these functional lab tests, and they just drop them on my desk. And here's all these functional lab test. And it's like, well, okay, why are you not getting any changes or improvements or results? And a lot of it has to do with not just the lab test, it's like, you read that you've alluded to is that it's knowing what to do with the test. It's knowing how to interpret the test, right. And I also tell people that even with all these functional lab tests, as great as they are, has lots of great labs out there. There is no one test. There's no one test that's going to give you all the answers. Right, you have to be able to synthesize through these tests, right? And even even that you still have, you're still working with someone, so you have to be observant of their symptoms in their signs and what they're doing. So you're looking at the tests, you take actionable steps, but how is the person responding? Right, and that's kind of the key point, that's where the skill level comes. Right. So a doctor that but I guess they can say, more years under their belt gets a little bit more learning and be able to be able to kind of see through these things and read between the lines a little bit and helps to direct patients. In the medical model, as you know, right? If you like, let me take no, like depression as an example, depression, right. So from a functional perspective adopted in functional medicine, we don't look at depression as a diagnosis or disease. We really look at it as a symptom. I get that there was some genetics involved in all different things. That's too much for today's conversation. But you know, could we do genetic testing for things, but the point is, is that we really look at it, right? I mean, you said before about the gut, so we know that there's a huge connection between the gut and the brain. And so you know, gut imbalance and inflammation that gut can lead to certainly inflammation in the brain. So the gut imbalance can be a contributor to the exacerbation of their depressive states or their anxiety. This is even researched and not my opinion, several years ago, research says that we now know where Parkinson's disease starts, it starts in the gut. They tell you it starts in the gut. It goes up the vagal nerve, and then causes changes to the brain chemistry stuff. But yeah, so the majority of people that I see I've been to numerous doctors are getting frustrated, while they're being told is no more drug, one more drug, they're tired of the drugs that don't like the side effects. Most doctors because they really can't figure out what the root problem is, they kind of label them as being depressed and want to put them on antidepressants, right. And the patient didn't know the patient knows they're not depressed, they know, they're just not finding the right doctor getting the right answers. That's the typical patient that I see. But even for those people that are just looking to uplevel, their health and their well being, I have quite a few people like that, it's great, because using functional lab tests is a nice window into seeing where there are some imbalances and where you can make some improvements. I run these lab tests on myself every year. I do a stool analysis twice a year, I run my hormone testing twice a year, I run what's called a neutral valve test, at least once, if not twice a year. And I do these things even though I live what I would consider to be a pretty healthy lifestyle. My diet is an inflammatory diet, and I exercise regularly I do all these kinds of things I try to get my patients to do. I try to leave from the front. But even with all that, I still have my genetics, right. And then I do these tests, and they give me an opportunity to see where I'm kind of drifting off course a little bit. And then I can kind of come in and make some adjustments. And maybe I change my diet a little bit, or maybe I change my supplement routine for a little bit, maybe I got to go a little bit heavy on maybe specific probiotics and get away from certain other things. But it's just, I use the lab testing as a as a compass to help steer my ship and keep it moving on course. And that's really being more proactive. So everybody can benefit from a functional perspective,
Ed Jones 32:30 That was a wonderful explanation that explains the importance of exactly what you're saying. Because most people, they basically wait until they're halfway falling off the cliff before they actually take action. And I speak about there's a window of opportunity for healing that we sometimes can have for quite some time, but the door will eventually shut. And we need to access the window as best we can. And I love the analogy that it's like a compass. And we don't you know, you're not waiting until you have a very gross acute symptoms. And I'm like you I you know, tweak myself. I tend to be a self admitted hypochondriac. So I have to be cautious about not falling into oh, I've got to test this and test every single thing. So I've decided to not do many tests. But I do enough I do the right ones. I do also know that people like yourself, are very cautious about the supplement companies you recommend. And then I know that nutritionw.com is part of the sponsor of The Holistic Navigator and add nutritionw I mean, they carry, they vet everything they have brands like Thorne and Metagenics and make sure that that things are ice packed when they're sent. I mean, you have to also rely on the credibility of the practitioner for the remedies they will recommend because you can't just tell somebody, go take a certain herb or supplement and expect them to walk into Walgreens and get the right product. But the big last question and I know many people ask this of me constantly. And I wish I could use the yes word but I can't. Insurance is not friendly to functional medicine, is it? Yeah, mainly cash only right?
Dr. Pucci 34:17 Yeah, for the most part. Like typically if people have insurances. Yeah, I mean, the answer would be like, if we're running blood workup, typically, blood is covered through insurance. But you know, when you're looking at functional labs, using a boutique lab that's doing very specialized work. No, they're out of network with insurance companies, so basically comfortable that it's not covered. Because from my work insurance company, you know, they explain that they're not in denial of functional medicine, but they don't cover it. So it really is an investment by the person. And that's why it has to be important that for that person. It has to be you know, they're gonna prioritize that but if you really, really think about it, and then the key word here is investment. People often come in, they wonder what it costs and my cost, right? When you think about cost, there's a depreciation, your car costs money, drive it off the line that drops down 40%. Right? It costs you something, I put it in investment, we put money in investment, you expect a return, and you respond, you expect your returns to be greater than what you did. Right. And your health is your investment. And really, it's a small investment, when you think about the huge return, you're getting back the quality of life. Right? When your energy is returning, and your brain is functioning shopping, right? We know that people that have that are healthier, it's been proven in the science, people that are healthier or do economically better. They make better decisions, they tend to get promotions, right? They just do better because their brains are working better. Right? It's you're making it an investment and really look at it is that the the the it's far from cost prohibitive as far as we look at functional lab tests. Now you're talking about a couple $100 for a test. Now we when I work with patients, we have to meet people where they're at. Everybody comes at it from a different financial perspective, we understand that not everybody wants to take a lot of stuff on this, we understand that. So part of what you got to do, what I need to do is to is to recognize who the person is recognize what they can and cannot do, right, and try to structure something around them to give them benefit. Right? If they can't afford a lot of different supplements, we got to try to prioritize and find which ones are going to give them the biggest bang for the buck, right? If we if we can put money towards, you know, five different tests is there one or two tests that can give us a lot of value? Certainly there is. I have this is my experience, I learned this. I mean, I'm just, I'm not trying to compare myself with other doctors, and everybody has their way of doing things. But I often hear that people sometimes go to a functional doctor, and we walk in, and the doctor wants to run like six different lab tests. And when it costs him like 1000s and 1000s of dollars, and it'll come back into all the web server in which may take four to six weeks. And so nothing's been done. And then when they come back, the doctors got to sit down for 45 minutes and give them the answers to the lab test. And then kind of send them out with a boatload of supplements, I just don't think that kind of concept really works. Better to see where the person does that make a decision collectively with that patient as to which one or two tests, maybe two or three would give us the best answers to start moving them in the right direction. Right? I always like to try to tell people that way I like to work with patients is you macro manage before you micromanage. Meaning Yeah, macromanaging is you really got to sit down and decipher, you know, their lifestyle, their dietary habits, sleep habits, exercise habits, stress management, you have to look at these things, these things have to be addressed. And you have to work with a patient to help them to find some better solutions and improvements in all those areas. All right, before you get into the details of micromanaging them. You're not going to take a supplement that's going to, you know, block your world. If you if you can't make any changes with your diet, you cannot continue to eat an inflammatory diet and think you're going to supplement your way out of that. It's just not going to happen. Right. And so you have to really work with all the various ends with people too even on the emotional ends, too. And that's why collectively, sometimes people need to have other partners in their care process, right. I'm not the only person sometimes I like to be part of their team, sometimes on the only doctor but sometimes is part of the bigger team. And as you said earlier, I know it's not always about not including a medical doctor, right? If you need to be on blood pressure medication needs to be on the blood pressure medication. Right, we're not taking you off that by the same token, if you get healthier, and your blood pressure drops, eventually you may not need to get the blood pressure medication.
Ed Jones 38:54 Well, you know, your kind of conversation gives hope to these people who have been cornered by the normal prescription writing frenzy that goes on in most medical practices. And I love the fact that you classified the money being spent as an investment. You know, that can actually switch the mental path and thinking of people, instead of them feeling disheartened by the money you actually are, the more you spend, the more you're going to get back in certain ways. And I will say because we're gonna have to close it out here. But I've got enough experience 43 years dealing with many physicians, and you're exactly right. Sometimes in all categories of life and business and health, there are those who, who I don't know, they seem to be more profit driven than I would be comfortable with. And those are sometimes in the functional world where exactly what you said the patient comes in, they're gonna spend $2,000 on all these tests. Nothing happens for six to eight weeks, and then they get bombarded with this massive amount of information that just twirls their head and I've seen too many people who get frozen at that state, and I've loved the fact how you you you did the the macro managing before micromanaging. I just, you know, Jeffrey bland will be proud of you doctor, I can tell you that he know him well enough to know. Why don't you if you don't mind tell listeners, if they wanted to consult with you or learn more about your practice, including little mini courses how would they go? And what website would they go to please?
Dr. Pucci 40:29 Yeah, thank you. My website is it's getwell-now.com. And with a backslash or slash video series, that will instantly take you to this mini course. Yeah, it used to be set up where those videos would roll out like one a day. But we've actually changed that so that we're kind of Thursday, we got feedback, they were kind of thirsty, they wanted to kind of go through all of it in one sitting, he said, Great. And so we made it more available that you can kind of go through as many videos at one time as you as you can. So there's a lot of free information free resources that we're constantly putting up on this website and keep redoing the website to make it as much informative for the consumer as possible, right. We obviously have that now, our audience is informed and getting information, they're going to tend to make better decisions. And that's the first goal. We want to help you to make better decisions. And I'm always available too. We do offer people that are interested in a free what we call a strategy or discovery call with me, it's about 20 minutes, it's no obligation, there's no cost. You can just set up a time to sit down and speak with me, we can talk about your health issues, but your health concerns are see if we can give you some good guidance and see if what we do is really the right fit for you. And again, no obligation. So those are different ways that you can get in touch with me.
Ed Jones 41:57 Man, man, man, it's been a wonderful 40-45 minutes Dr. Pucci. And I think again, I feel very honored that you did take your time to do this. But I'm also feeling so good about the fact that we are further empowering the client patient to not feel frozen and to know there are all options and alternatives to the terrible things that happen in aging. I mean, I speak it constantly. The number one side effect in our life is getting old. And we don't have to accept it fully. Yes, Father Time will always have its way in the end. But you know, I know that you may agree with me with this. There's a lot of people that are 50 today that really are like the old 70 year olds, and yes, we are living a lot of years, there's no doubt or life expectancies hanging in there pretty well. But a lot of people, you know, they quit breathing at 80. But they actually stopped living about 50. Because the quality of life, the anxiety, the depression, the poor sleep, and it's become so the norm, that they actually think that they're kind of average, and it's okay. It's not okay to be this dysfunctional. I'm 63 years old. I don't have every good day, I am a little bit of a chronic insomniac. But 90% of my days are very functional, I can do what I want. I work out in the gym like a crazy man five days a week. I fly small airplanes I do all the things that life has given me to do. And I still can do them with clarity. And that comes because I've embraced this lifestyle. It didn't come because I had good genes because I only have average genes. So people like you have been continued motivation for me. And I want all the listeners to act to make sure that they access your services if they are in a town that they don't have the trusted team member like yourself. And I have a really good BS meter and it and I can tell you're the real deal. And I just hope that you and and I can continue to perhaps do this maybe every six months and continue to help each other on every avenue we can. So thank you Dr. Pucci, for your time and I again, like I always speak, I separate the world into two classes of people, learners and non learners. If you're listening to my The Holistic Navigator, you obviously are a learner or you wouldn't be doing this. So join us next week for another exciting and informative episode of The Holistic Navigator. Thank you to everyone.
Brian Strickland 44:31 The information on this podcast and the topics discussed have not been evaluated by the FDA or anyone of the medical profession, and is not aimed to replace any advice you may receive from your medical practitioner. The holistic navigator assumes no responsibility or liability whatsoever on behalf of any purchaser or listener of these materials. The listing navigator is not a doctor, nor does he claim to be please consult your physician before beginning any health regimen.