In this episode, Cass is joined by her integrative doctor—Dr. Anahita Seyedan. Dr. Seyedan walks us through how Chinese medicine works and explains how Western medicine and Chinese medicine should work together to address where our healthcare system fails.
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C: What is up everybody and welcome to the it goes without saying podcast. Yes, I am back. It has been a very long time but school is almost over for me I graduate soon things I've been going a little bit crazy with my health but also crazy good. So I'm going to be posting an actual blog soon about that. So check it out. But today, I am here with the woman who has changed my life for the past three years. The woman who I have probably spent the most time with besides my family for the last three years. My doctor doctor Seyedan. She is my integrative doctor here in Maryland. And we do acupuncture, we do herbs, we do guasha we do Moxa we do everything and she is a woman that has gotten me to where I am today, which is pretty dang awesome. So I'm really excited to hear what she has to say about integrative medicine, Chinese medicine and all of that and how it works. And hopefully give everybody some insights into a treatment option. So without further ado, we have Dr. Seyedan. Alright, so I am here with Dr. Anahita Seyedan. She is an integrative medicine doctor here in Maryland with three master's degrees in science a doctorate, as well. And she mainly focuses on us Lyme patients, but she can do it all. Hello, doctor Seyedan. Hello. How are you? Good.
S: Good. How are you?
C: I'm great, because you made me feel better.
S: Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me tonight.1
C: Thank you, you were one of the first people that I told that I was going to do this podcast when I originally like just came up with the idea because I was so excited to have people learn from you. Because I see you every other week. And I asked you questions and you teach me every other week while you treat me. So I'm glad everyone else can learn now too.
S: Thank you. I'm very honored. 1
C: So to kick it off, I was wondering if you could explain to everybody what Chinese medicine is all the different aspects, the meridians, the channels, those kinds of things, so everyone can know what the heck we're talking about.2
S: So Chinese medicine has a history of 5000 years. It it medicine started with Chinese medicine, it mainly looks at the mind body and soul, it looks at you as a whole person. There are 1000s of formulas and different I don't want to call them remedies good truly medicine that helps with different with all everything with you know, Lyme, Rocky Mountain fever, simple cold, they can be treated with Chinese medicine. Chinese medicine includes the herbal formulas, acupuncture, which works with meridians meridians are, let's say, if we have 12 systems in the body in western medicine, Meridian would be the 13th system that we don't study in western medicine. So this is these are the in a simple way if I wanted to say if these are the spaces between these 12 systems, it has access to those 12 systems. There are again 1000s of points in our bodies that we can reach, put a needle there and different you know, it depends on the condition they're either being dispersed or a ton of fight. And we can reach to those 12 systems or organs that are in that are not happy I would say in our body and then help them tonify if there are inflammation involved we can help with inflammation to go down. That you know anxiety headaches, migraines. Chinese medicine is very strong in women's health, fertility, gynecology. All of that I've seen wonders coming sunday I'm someone who never before before I didn't believe in things that didn't have data and they were not science based. This is incredible to me. And yeah, I love it.1
C: I have seen the wonders as well because you have done them to me my my exorcism as we call it with my friends that also do the integrative medicine when I you just you can feel it working and it's just incredible and that's also like the same way for me. I was always like no that doesn't work how to sticking a needle in your body work it's gonna hurt number one it doesn't hurt and they're I love how you always can tell like you know spots that do hurt people until you like kind of warn us a little bit beforehand but still it's not bad. And then to like you can feel it you can literally as you sit there and feel it working as I think That's just like the craziest thing. You can't say that it doesn't work. If you like, go to the you can feel like I can feel my ears opening up and draining and things like that, like it's actually insane. But can you explain the the differences between like the yin and the yang and those like deficiencies as well, maybe?2
S: Sure. So there's a huge discussion about that, I can summarize it in saying that we are made out of yin and yang, all of us, we all have Yin, which is the feminine side of us. And we have Jung, which is the masculine side of us. So male patients, they it shows up as they show up more as yun, and we are female women, we show up more as yin. For example, if we look at five element acupuncture, earth represents in it's more Yin more, it's more that it's the if I want to, again, if I want to bring a very simple example, for someone who is not familiar with Chinese medicine at all, I would say, look at a building, the foundation of the building is yen, what goes up is young. Okay, so if there is a Yin deficiency, what happened to the building, it'll be like, he's not going to be strong building. Yeah. So we have to preserve our Yin, nourish our Yin. And because Ian is our foundation. And, you know, many, many people come with blood pressure problems. And when we listen to their pulses, which are, by the way, 29 patterns of pulse that we look into, we look at their tongue, and the pattern of the tongue and just their lifestyle, everything, we have to know everything about them, we find out that this blood pressure is nothing but Yin deficiency. And when we start nourishing them with acupuncture and herbal medicine, the blood pressure becomes balanced, they find their balance in their body, they feel it little by little. And the change is very subtle. So basically, Yin is our foundation, and they both if they're whether we're young deficient or even deficient, we have to, we're going to find out from the pulse. And we support the patient with a formula that is very, very patient centered. Many of formulas are already made. But there are certain formulas that we make them from raw herbs, and patients cook them at home. And so we know exactly like specifically for that particular patient, we know how many grams of each herbs we put in, that is suitable for that patient that may not be suitable for someone else. Yeah. And we avoid refills and as much as we can, because we want to make sure we follow a symptomology is very important. We've followed a pattern in patients, especially with Lyme, you know that patterns are changing constantly. So we're kind of like a police, we're gonna follow those patterns.1
C: Yes, and I think that's one of the things that I absolutely love the most about, like your guys work that you do it the integrative medicine. And that's when I tell people, when they ask what I do for treatment, I say, you look at the entire body, you don't just because like before, I was going to like seven different doctors, and they're not talking to one another. So they don't actually understand all the symptoms that I'm having all the medications that I'm having. But with you guys, with like the Chinese medicine, everything all together, you look at the entire body, you can follow symptoms and things that you wouldn't even like connect, like I remember a few months ago, I was having shoulder pain issues. And like I was even like going to physical therapy for it. And when I told you about it, you're like, why haven't you told me this before? That was a liver deficiency thing. And when I did the liver detox, I don't have shoulder pain anymore. So one other aspect that I absolutely love about coming in and seeing you besides the fact that you look at the whole body is I always know that I'm going to be there for an hour at least like sometimes I have been there for two hours or not because you sit there and spend the time with us and I really appreciate that. So why do you sit there and spend the time for that because most other kinds of doctors that I've been to, it's you're in and if you're lucky if you're there for 30 minutes at most, like they kick you out of there as fast as you can.
S: And unfortunately the medical system in this country is that in a way that they give a protocol. The protocol is 15 minutes or 18 minutes if I'm not mistaking five minutes for this five minutes for that so practitioner, some of them are not happy with it. Some of they completely agree they see that there is this is not enough to put medicine in people's body in eight minutes. I know you have gone through medical school. I know the hard work you have done we and we appreciate it but 18 minutes Get to know a patient and just write down a prescription. How often we see that the patient take the medicine and they come up with the severe side effects. Because human error is always there, we need to get to know the patient know, their lifestyle, know, their background, their genetics, their, their environment, when the I mean, all of these require more time. For us, when a patient comes in, if this is the first time they're coming in there is as you know, there is a comprehensive questionnaire that they need to fill out, we need to know about their background, their diet, their cuisine, everything. And after that, when they come into the room, we get to we have to read the pulse, we look at their tongue, we analyze the time, everybody's tongue is different. And, and then the treatments we do acupuncture, if they want to an herbal consultation to come up with a very personalized formula for that patient. All of these require time, it cannot be done in 18 minutes. And then people say, Oh, why is it work? That's why, because we spend time with the patient. And we don't get paid by insurance,
C: boom, mic drop right there. You look at the entire thing, because our bodies are all they're connected in ways that you would not even imagine unless you go to doctor stayed on and teach these things. Thank you. That is just like, it's so incredible to me. And then it does also work with the Western medicine aspect of it, which is how you integrate it together. So can you explain a little bit about like the integrative medicine aspect of it all?2
S: Absolutely. Yes. So Western medicine, as we all know, it's saved lives, especially with Lyme. Since this is our focus tonight at the beginning. We need to help her with restaurant medicine. We need antibiotics at the beginning. So that's taken care of with our colleagues in conventional medicine. But once the the rounds of antibiotics are over, at the same time, hand in hand, while they're taking antibiotics, because we all know antibiotics, they go after a bacteria, but at the same time they they destroy your GI Yes, they do. And so at the same time hand in hand with them. We know the dosage, we know everything. So we're going to nourish that gi there, your intestinal area, your stomach, esophagus, all of these are involved when you take antibiotics, if people who take antibiotics, I want them to take a look at take a look in the mirror and look at their tongues. Either coding changing completely to a white, powdery, of sometimes thick. And it's like heavy, because it brings a lot of cold damp to your body. We understand in medicine that in that period of time antibiotics are needed. This is just example. We have the the patient has to take it. But we also know that we can nourish them and build up the GI. So those GI issues wouldn't happen that often. Also, I mean, besides antibiotics, many of our patients are they have to take Western medications such as there are red flags for us in school, when we learn such as blood pressure, diabetes, these patients they need to take their western medicine again, at the same time. Those Western medicine we know they have their own side effects. So kind of help with the side effects to minimize them. Yeah. And to the patient up. And if there are, you know, other problems I? I also I always tell my patients, yes, we we know our limits. We know we need Western medicine. But if you start earlier to take care of your body as a whole. We're going to help you not to get there. Yes. Which one have to take those medicines. This is not only a treatment, you know, it's also preventative. So yeah, definitely we when a patient comes in, we look at their all of their medical history, all of the medications are taken we make sure that our medicine is not overlapping what they're taking is not causing any kind of side effects with with the Western medications that they need to take. So it's it's a whole all of our practitioners have access to our patients we we sit down we discuss the case, patient case by case and we make sure that they are safe and well taken care of.
C: And I think what you were saying earlier it's not just like a treatment for me I believe that it's more like it's a lifestyle change kind of like you like because you're treating your entire body you are working from like the you said like the foundation the end like you're working from the ground up nourishing everything as you also are then fighting off the other things too, which is like, I wish that I would have started earlier, because maybe now it wouldn't be nine years later. And I'm still having all the issues from the overuse of the enjoy optics without fixing everything along the way. But one thing that I wanted to definitely bring up here is the insurance aspect because everyone knows with lime are Western medicine treatments are not covered. But also the integrative treatments are not covered by most insurances as well. So some other Western medicines, like cardiologists are covered by insurances and things like that. You also help with the heart, you help nourish my heart, you help all of these things with my gut, and I was going to gi doctors, gi doctors are covered by insurance. Why do you think it is that integrative doctors are not covered by insurance companies and have all these issues with them?2
S: I truly believe it's a lack of public awareness or just in general awareness in the United States. This is very well understood and accepted in other countries. Look at Germany, they're much ahead of us in and I see that loudly. Much of us in naturopathic medicine, in natural medicine, Chinese medicine, Canada, for example, all other countries everywhere I have traveled this is well understood people. You know, it's the demand is high for it. Here, we're barely are getting there. Oh, yeah. has started. It's a good start. People are working really hard. But public awareness, we need to know also insurance companies, and we need the support of our colleagues in conventional medicine as well. It has to be a collaborative work, that we support each other's treatments, we're not to oppositional groups. That's not how we did at least it's not in my head. I was a science major I, I worked as a researcher, I, I worked for vaccine producing companies. I know science, I know numbers, I once only looked at numbers. We know now that a person is not a number.1
C: I love that. That's what that means that should be written in the skies. Because no, a person is not a number. There's so much more than that.2
S; No, and there's so much more into it. And not everybody fits in one box, it truly doesn't. We need to look at the source of the problem. And we Yes, we do look at the branches as well. But as long as that source is not being nourish, those branches are all going to be there. We just suppress them. We put a bandaid on it. So this is something that public needs to know the demand needs to go higher. And I think people need to ask their insurance companies. Unfortunately, I know a few insurances that first of all, I don't see a lot of integrative sittings that accept insurance because they don't pay. And Lyme, especially Lyme is expensive.
C: Yes, very much.2
S: They have been patients have been through so many years of treatments, haven't seen results, the result they want. They don't have their life back, they have to spend 1000s and 1000s of dollars, and you're not getting anywhere. So insurance companies needs to know that that to come out and help people, people who really need it. I've heard that many, many times crying patients crying on the phone saying I really, really want to come in, but I don't have the money to I don't have the resources.1
C: I know that we spent well over $100,000 Before I ever started coming to you and I never felt as well as I feel now with the treatment that we have been doing together when we were spending all of that money on things. And it's just insane. I actually looked it up. And according to the CDC, they found that $30.2 billion is spent annually out of Americans pockets each year on this kind of medic medicine work. And I think that's just insane that that much money of people's hard earned money just to be healthy.
S; Yes. That's crazy. Yeah.1
C: It's it's disgusting. And I think it's also interesting that on that report, it just made me angry when I read it. They call like integrated work in Chinese medicine work. They call it complimentary health services, which goes along with what you're saying how the western medicine side needs to work with the integrative medicine side together. And I feel like calling it complementary health services takes away from the fact that it's actual medicine. 1
S: Correct. 1
C: Then like those kinds of little things, changing those things and in the media, they're always like making fun of it and calling it like the hooky remedies like you said those kinds of things all need to change and people need to actually see that it works like Hello, someone wants to do a documentary on me and doctor Seydan, here we are it works come on in and see what happens.
S: Yes, yes. Well, as I told one of my patients, she said, I don't believe in it. But she keeps coming. So she kept coming. And she she was feeling better. Um, she said, I don't know why I feel better. But I, I just can't find a scientific reasoning for it. And I said, does it matter? Yeah. Call it whatever you want. It makes you feel better. Is you? Yep. Carla, whatever you'd like to call it. Complimentary medicine. And yeah. So my point is, they can call it whatever they want. Our colleagues also in who only have studied Chinese medicine and don't have a Western background, there is a problem there, too, we have to address that, yes, need to accept that we can work together for the sake of the patient and the future generation to come up with a hand in hand collaborative treatment for the sake of the patient. I love that for both groups. I have colleagues in Sansome, because of my background, I'm in contact with both groups. And I have heard common comments from both groups. So the point is, for both of them to become educated about it, learn more about it know that you know, functional medicine, integrative medicine really does the best because it gets the best out of both world minds it with something that helps the patient Yes. If I mention if our the oath that we all take, if our intention is to, for the patient to be better to come up with something that is best for the patient. This should be the path, we should put all the agendas away. And focus on that for Chinese practitioners to learn more about the scientific approach, and for our colleagues in western medicine to learn more about this, to go into the root cause of the problem,1
C: yes, instead of masking it sometimes. Yeah, I absolutely love that. And I wish that every doctor would be like this, every doctor would say, look at the whole patient, you need to do whatever is best for the patient. And like you said earlier, patients are not numbers, and just look at us as a whole, please. So thank you so much for looking at me as a whole. You literally have saved my life a handful of times, like literally saved my life a handful of times. And I'm so grateful that you joined me tonight, and that you are just who you are.2
S: Thank you very much. Thank you for being courageous and taking care of yourself. I've never given up, I can do only the lecture and do my treatments in a treatment room. But you followed up, and you never gave up on yourself. And that's something that lyme patients need to know they sometimes lack of hope I hear a lot of that you're a good example for them. You didn't give up your fighter. And you got the results.1
C: I did. Thank you very much. 1
S: You're welcome. Thank you. Wow. Well, I'm so excited that we just got to have that talk. That was just Yeah, I just I really hope that you guys love her as much as I do now. And seriously, check out Chinese medicine, integrative medicine, if you've been one of those people, like I used to be that said, Oh, that's not going to work. How does a needle make it better? Just give it a try. You never know until you try. And also I think we should all try to be a bit better about what Dr. Satan was saying. And we need to look at it from both sides and realize that yes, Chinese medicine works. Yes, Western medicine can work but they together. Wow, that would just be amazing. Let's use them all together. Because we are truly all in this together to get the patient better. That is the goal. That's also going to be our song of the episode. If you're new to the podcast, every episode I give you guys a song recommendation because I'm also a DJ come from musical family. It's just what I do. So this episode song is going to be we're all in this together from High School Musical because together Together we can hopefully make everybody happier and healthier and let this world just be so much better off. I hope that you guys enjoyed this episode, make sure that you subscribe to the podcast. You can find more information at IG ws podcast comm that's also where I have all of my blogs up as well. And now that school is ending, I'm going to be on here more often. So any topics that you guys want to be discussed. Feel free to shoot an email, follow us on Instagram, whatever you want, let us know and I hope you guys have a wonderful and healthy day. ByeRate transcript quality
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