Pain Management with Functional Medicine

The transcription is about an interview with Sherry McIntosh, a nurse practitioner who specializes in helping people manage pain and fibromyalgia using functional medicine. Sherry discusses how she uses alternative therapies, including nutraceuticals and organic chemistry, to address the underlying causes of pain and promote natural healing. She also emphasizes the importance of education about environmental toxins and their impact on our health. The interviewer shares her own experience with managing pain and highlights the benefits of meditation and acceptance in improving overall well-being. Welcome to Change, community helpers affecting growth and education. Join us as experts and community helpers come together to share with you wisdom, tools, strategies, and ways that you can evolve into the best version of you. I am your host, Rebecca O'Rourke, behavioral expert and master hypnotist. I look forward to guiding you through all of these tools and strategies that will assist you to becoming the best version of you. Welcome to the next episode of Change. We have a very, very important guest with us today, Sherry McIntosh. Sherry McIntosh has been a nurse practitioner for over eight years, and she's been working in pain management clinics. Today, she is going to share with us ways that she is helping people deal with pain, fibromyalgia, using functional medicine. So thank you so much for joining us today, Sherry. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, so tell our listeners a little bit about your background and what brought you into helping people manage pain and fibromyalgia. So I graduated in 2016 as a nurse practitioner, and before that, I had been an RN for 35 years. And I wanted to do something in my later years that was going to help the patients deal with their pain because that's one of the number one things that I would see patients for would be back pain, neck pain, joint pain, and fibromyalgia. And so I began looking for alternative therapies, not only conventional therapies. If we could blend them, that would be the best way because insurance pays for conventional. Insurance does not pay for unconventional ways, natural healing, and I don't understand why we're working towards that, but we want to do the thing that would help the patients the most. So I looked into functional medicine, and I found out that organic chemistry is used quite a bit. We use lab tests that tell us what's going on with the patient, the underlying problem, not only just the outside problem, the pain, but the underlying problem because we know that immunity starts in the gut. And so we need to find out what is causing that, that will be the end result will be pain. What we found was many times it's the things that we're exposed to in our environment or the things that we've been exposed to throughout the years, heavy metals, environmental toxins like Roundup that's being sprayed on the food, toxins that are in your environment, in your home like mold. And so we found by looking at those things that most of the time it's what you've been exposed to all along. We need to cleanse your body of that and then get you to the point where we can help with the pain. So we use what we call nutraceuticals, which are at the health food store, your local health food store, that help restore your body to its natural balance because being restored to the natural balance allows your body to heal itself. It's an amazing thing to have your body heal itself and then all of a sudden you start feeling better and your pain begins to dissipate and you don't have to take those opioids anymore. You can have a happy life. So that's basically what we do. Amazing. And you know, I have to say that there's so much education that needs to happen around this. Not just for the environmental sake of it, but whatever we're putting into our body is what we're getting in our life. And so often we're not aware that what we're putting into our body is hurting us. We're not really aware that what we're breathing in the air could potentially hurt us. And this is a bit of a touchy subject a little bit because we don't want to be conspiracy theorists about this. However, there's a lot of education that needs to happen around, like you said, what is our food being sprayed with? What is in our water? What's in our wheat? Corn. Is corn even a food anymore? So you know, I personally, I have dogs and I love dogs. And I know that when I go shopping for dog food, every good brand of dog food will say no corn, no wheat, no soy. So how does that apply to some of the education that you're teaching people with their environment or some of the things? What are you showing people and how are you teaching them? So in 1982, Monsanto started bioengineering seeds. Now the only seeds that farmers can buy are from Monsanto. In Europe, those seeds have been outlawed. So they're not even able to use them there. But we can use them in the United States. And so since then, a lot of gluten-free products have been on the market. And they have found that those hybrid seeds are not what we need. In addition to that, when we grow our grain and corn and wheat and rice, we put them in big storage bins. When a company buys them, they buy them from the storage bin and they're delivered in a truck with many on the highway. But if you happen to get the grain that's at the bottom of the storage bin, it contains mold. The FDA allows 3% mold in the things that are sold. So if you have a bad aversion to mold, then you're going to get sick from what you eat. I have a bad aversion to mold. I did the testing on myself. I found that I was being exposed to it a lot more than I thought. And so when I started getting that out of my body, out of my food, then I started getting better. I had a runny nose all the time. I had a headache all the time. I had joint aches. Also, these toxins. How did you get tested? I went to a functional medicine practitioner and the practitioner tested my urine and my hair and that showed what I had, the heavy metals that I had in my body and the mold that was there. And then they recommended a treatment and it totally changed my life. The other thing that those toxins cause, they're called obesogens. I'm 5'2", and at that time I weighed 185 pounds. And I didn't understand I was doing everything right. I thought I was eating right. I thought I was exercising enough and I wasn't losing weight. And so I found out that those molds were causing to go into my fat and stay in my fat and I needed to get rid of them so that I could lose the weight. And girl, when I did that, it just started falling off. I was doing the same things. I was eating different, but I was doing the same exercise and the weight just started coming off. Now I'm 5'2". I weigh 145 pounds and I feel great. I don't have any more pain like I used to have. Headaches are gone. Runny nose is gone. It's amazing. Awesome. Well, good for you. I have to say, you know, I have also had a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. I've got a whole list of diagnoses and, you know, there could be all kinds of things that led up through my entire life that led up to these diagnoses. However, you know, one of my life changing experiences was when I went to, before I became a hypnotist, I was on this sort of healing journey and I went into a doctor's office who dealt with pain. And at the time, I did not know that this doctor actually had his license taken away for prescribing pain medication. So I guess he had over prescribed at some point in his career. He had his license to prescribe taken away. And so he was forced into being very creative about how he was helping people with pain. And, you know, in hindsight, I'm so grateful because, you know, I'm not taking, I won't take the doctor's medication, opioids and the things that they tried to give me. You know, my kids were young. There was no way that I was going to raise them with that state of mind. So, you know, I became really curious and trying to discover any way that I could to help manage my pain. And this doctor, it was really interesting because he started helping me with, and this might be similar to what you do and it might not. And I can't wait to hear more about what you do. But he was helping me with nutrition. So, you know, the prescriptions were basically vitamins and minerals and certain kinds of waters that he wanted me to drink. He was educating me on what was being put in the food and, you know, Roundup and, you know, the different things that, you know, the metal fillings that were in my mouth. And so he actually, he told me to learn how to meditate actually releases more endorphins and endorphins are really good for helping to manage that pain. So that was like a real beginning for me. He put me on these meditation machines in his office that, you know, really help trigger the brain because the brain likes to follow those theta waves. And, you know, it was so interesting because here I am, you know, many, many years later, I have a thriving hypnosis practice and I'm still using the same meditation machine combined in with the work that I'm doing. So, you know, each little step that I've taken in my career and in my health journey has been unlocking more information, more learning, and not all of it is what you would think. Not all of it is what you would want to accept. So there's also this sort of portion of forgiveness, this portion of, you know, acceptance that this is the world that we live in and not being angry about it, not, you know, because again, that's still hurting us. Yeah. So it really, to me, I believe it really is this learned place of learning that, you know, the world that we live in, just accepting it for what it is, changing our daily habits and routines so that we can thrive within that and, you know, live in the best life that we can with what we actually have. Yeah. That's exactly right. Yeah. So I didn't go into hypnosis, but I always had a time in my life every day when I would meditate and I would do that for about 10 minutes, just sitting still, not drinking anything, not eating anything, just sitting comfortably and quieting my mind and quieting my spirit so that I didn't get so upset at things all the time. And it really helped me to be a calm outlet for my friends, my family, my children, my husband, and it made them feel like I really cared about them because I listened to what they were saying. I didn't constantly try to make them do or say things that they didn't want to. So that really helps to quiet your spirit and when your spirit is quiet, you can learn. The things that you didn't think you knew are all of a sudden revealed to you. That's when you open up your mind to things that you needed to know. And so I just, I cannot stress how important that is. Mindset is everything to getting well, to healing. Mindset is one of the large things you need to do. Absolutely, yes. It's a mind-body connection. It's not separate. It's not one or the other. We are not a mind. We are not a body. We are a mind-body. Yes, and one is just as important as the other because they feed off of each other. So fibromyalgia, a lot of these things, they stem from the nervous system. So part of my journey, I was in a car accident. So back when I had my car accident, they didn't know that you could get a concussion from whiplash. So my vagus nerve was actually stuck in fight and flight. It just wouldn't slip for me. So learning meditation, learning self-hypnosis, learning these things was imperative for my nervous system to even get into rest and relax and to be able to get into that healing space in time. Otherwise, I was just ready to run away from anything that could possibly go wrong. Thank goodness that I found all the help that I found along the way because I have an amazing life. I couldn't even imagine taking the road of medication and being laid out in my life. It is a sad way to live where you take a pill and you can't move or get up for four hours so that you won't hurt and then in four hours you take another pill. It's just a sad way to live. It's not living in what I estimate. Living is being able to get up and cook for yourself and take care of yourself and take care of your family and be happy with the children that are around you and be happy with your life. Go outside in the sun and walk down the street. That's happiness to me. So we want to change what's happening with those that don't have that kind of a life. It works because as old as I am, most of the people that are my age, they can't do those things because they're hurting all the time. We can make that better. Yes. Absolutely. I've had loved ones, people that I've really cared deeply for end up in pain and then on pain medication. It breaks my heart. It breaks my heart to see what they're experiencing right now. If there's any healing that we could offer to the world that helps before, you could say try X, Y, and Z before you go to H, Y, and J. Of course. I do know my alphabet. That's right. That's right. I really love what you're doing. I think it is so important not just helping people but you getting out there on podcasts like mine. I'm so grateful that you would join me today because this information, it needs to be commonly talked about. It's just common knowledge where I believe that people that need to have the freedom to choose based on real information. Right. Absolutely. That is our right as a human being is having that freedom to choose. It's almost taking away our freedom by saying that you have to choose without the information. That's right. Thank you for bringing this very helpful information because I work with a lot of people that are trying to lose weight. Through their trying to lose weight, they're also trying to manage chronic severe pain. They're also going through their ups and downs and challenges of life or maybe their partner is going through a surgery or something along those lines. This touches almost everybody's life to some way, shape, or form. Pain has become a real pandemic if you ask me. It's in a lot of homes. It's not always one reason. It's not always one way. But we need to look at all the natural ways of helping, all of the things that have very little to no side effects. We need to take those avenues first. Right. Exactly. I know opioids cause a host of side effects. I don't want to have any of those side effects in my life. They actually continue to make the person want to keep taking the opioids. Your brain is where your pain begins. If you can get your brain in the right milieu and area, then your brain can help heal your pain. You don't need a pill to do that. Yeah. Medicine for a long time has known that placebo exists. They can't actually put a new drug on the market without testing to see how much the mind is healing the body as opposed to the medicine itself. A big part of maybe what you're doing and what I'm doing is helping people really kind of learn similar to what that placebo effect is. How do we use the mind to heal the body? There's an element that can be almost like a miracle. But there's certain elements of that that need to be there in order for people to experience that. We teach people how to do that. I'd really love to know more about how you're teaching people and the kind of structure. Let's just say, I called you up, Sherry. I'm in a lot of pain. I've got fibromyalgia. Help me out. What would you say to me? I have a 17-page questionnaire where I question you about your diet, your exercise, your stress level, and your mental clarity. Usually in that time frame, I will see what you've been exposed to. Then I can take your lab work that you have done at the physician's office. In functional medicine, we have a different set of values. I can take your lab work and say, uh-oh, we've got to pinpoint this area. We've got to pinpoint your stomach. We've got to pinpoint your liver. We have to pinpoint your bone health. Then when I get to the bottom of that, then I will give you the supplements that you need to do, put you on a 21-day elimination diet. Then I will start red light therapy or laser therapy to help with your pain. These reset your body, reset your brain to actually get some relief from the things that you're doing, the diet, the exercise, the mindfulness. Then usually within a month, I see a real decrease in the pain without any pharmaceuticals. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Oh, yeah. You mentioned something about you got some tests done with your hair and your urine. Is that something that you help people with? Yes. I can order the tests and they'll be sent to your home. Then you'll do what's the instructions that you receive from the lab that I use. Then it goes back to the lab. Then I will get the results. I will either call you or we'll talk on a Zoom call like this. Then I'll tell you what the nutraceuticals that you need, the vitamins and the minerals, basically. Then send you the diet. Then we'll get started on the red light therapy because I can send that to your home. You don't have to come to my office actually and get it. I'll send that to your home and then you'll start getting relief. Whoa. Now tell us a little bit more. What is the red light therapy? What is that like? Studies have shown that infrared light will go several centimeters under your skin to the muscles and to the nerves to help heal them. Muscles and nerves actually have to have blood supply to get better. The more you sit, the less blood supply you have to that area. The red light therapy actually increases the blood supply to the nerves and to the muscles. When you get up and start walking, it feels a little bit better than it did the day before. The more you use it, the better you feel and the more blood supply gets to the nerves and the muscles. It heals them from the mitochondria out. That's how it's been explained to me. I've seen it work. I know it works. Amazing. Amazing. Do you have any real success stories or is there anyone that sticks out in your mind that has a great story you want to share with us? Yes. It was a patient that was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis. If you know anything about that disease, you know that myasthenia gravis is an anti-inflammatory syndrome that gradually from the feet up, you start losing muscles. You start losing the ability to walk. It eventually gets up to your lungs and it can put you in a wheelchair. We started her on the elimination diet, like I said, and she began eating a lot of greens, green vegetables, greens, spinach, those kind of greens. She had nine cups of greens a day. Then gradually, gradually, she was in a wheelchair at the time. Gradually, she got up and started walking. Then it didn't take but about, I would say, three months and she was back to teaching. She was a teacher before and she was back to teaching. She says, I don't have any symptoms anymore. We don't really think she had myasthenia gravis. We think that she had just had a hit to her system and her body healed itself. Wow, I have goosebumps. That is so amazing. I know. Good for you. Congratulations to you and your client. Thank you. No, thank you. Really, it's this idea. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but it's this idea of food as medicine. It is. It could be poison or it could be medicine. Yes, it could. That's right. Right. This idea of whatever we're putting into our body is what we're getting out of it. That's mind and body and spirit as well. It's really and I love that we're looking at this as a real whole approach. Even if the pain is up here, we're looking at what's happening in the gut down here. Naturopaths, they really believe that almost everything is derived from the gut. That's where they start all of their discovery. That's right. There's so much that's still yet to be discovered about this idea and this way of treating people. There's so much that's out there right now that people just don't know about yet. Some do and some maybe don't yet. Anything else that you feel like would be really useful for you to share to my community or just the community at large? I say my community because the community that I'm specifically working with are people who are trying to stop smoking and change daily habits like that. People who are trying to exercise more and change the way that they're eating and lose weight. People who are coming to get more confidence in general or public speaking or neutralize fears and phobias. Those are generally the clients that are coming in. What real key advice could you offer to those people that are already motivated to change their life and they just need more tools and resources? You might go to my website, which is www.mcintosh-health.com. You can look on there and see the things that we do. That's how you can get in touch with me if you want to learn some more about your diet or about a red light therapy or what you think might help you. Then you really need to get your nutrition under control. The way I say to my patients is eat clean. Your meat needs to be from animals that are grass-fed and don't have any antibiotics or steroids put in them. Then your vegetables need to be from farmers. Yes, local farmers, local honey, local eggs. That's the way I buy mine. Then you'll start to see a big difference. Your water needs to be filtered. You can't have lead in your water, so you need to make sure that that's clean. Clean water, clean food, clean air. God has given us the ability to heal our own bodies. That's the best advice I can give you. Amazing, amazing. Thank you so much, Sherri. I'm so grateful for all the changes and ways that you're helping people manage their pain. I'm hoping that maybe in the future you can just kind of help people with the mental aspect of it and the physical aspect of it and see that we're all doing the best we can with what we know and what we have. Sometimes learning a little bit more really makes a really big difference. Yes, it does. Thank you so much, Sherri. Say your website one more time for everybody, nice and clear. www.macintosh-health.com Amazing. Great. Have a great day, everybody. Thanks so much for joining. We'll see you next week on Change. We are so grateful that you joined us today. Tune in again next week where we have another amazing professional giving you tools and strategies for change. I am your host, Rebecca O'Rourke, and you can find me at Coorsahypnosis.com.