POTS Treatment, Fibromyalgia, & Chronic Illness: Science-Backed Remedies That Work | Dr. Brehan Crawford

Dr. Crawford: [00:00:00] We like to get obsessed about everything's got to be super clean, and yes, parasites are not necessarily good for our health, but there are also certain situations in which people who carry parasites are less prone to certain kinds of diseases. 

Dr. Brighten: There's something that you said that made me literally want to shout it from the rooftops.

When they took away your diagnosis of hysteria, they replaced it with fibromyalgia. 

Dr. Crawford: Make it normal just like Hey, show me your tongue. So thick white coating means overgrowth of usually pathogenic yeast and bacteria, creating excess biofilm. The yellow color indicates inflammation. Brian 

Narrator: Crawford is a board certified expert in oriental medicine with over a decade of experience helping patients conquer chronic infections and post infectious syndromes, combining the wisdom of traditional Chinese medicine with cutting edge biomedical evidence.

He's become a trusted voice online since 2020, bringing ancient healing practices into the modern age. As Co founder of Chorus, Brian is dedicated to [00:01:00] providing powerful, evidence based wellness solutions to the public. 

Dr. Crawford: All while enjoying life in Oregon with his wife and daughters. If you stick out your tongue and you notice that it's like coming out the sides of your mouth or it's got giant tooth mark scallops on it, that's excess.

Most of the time when the period pain, when there are symptoms that are worse prior to the menses starting, that's considered excess. And then if the symptoms are worse like day two or on, that's usually more of a deficiency condition. 

Dr. Brighten: When people say to me, if a patient says, I never get sick, it's a huge red flag for me.

From a Chinese medicine perspective, what do you think? 

Dr. Crawford: First of all 

Dr. Brighten: Welcome back to the Dr. Brighten Show. I'm your host, Dr. Jolene Brighten. I'm board certified in naturopathic endocrinology, a nutrition scientist, a certified sex counselor, and a certified menopause specialist. As always, I'm bringing you the latest, most up to date information to help you take charge of your health and take back your hormones.[00:02:00] 

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Don't forget to subscribe, leave a comment, or share this with a friend because it helps this podcast get out to everyone who needs it. All right, let's dive in. Brehan Crawford, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for 

Dr. Crawford: having me. 

Dr. Brighten: I'm super excited that you are here with us. We've got a lot, I've got a lot of questions and then we've got [00:03:00] a lot of my audience who submitted questions for you as well.

Oh, cool. Yeah. So at the end it's going to be like, we're going to have some random questions, but we're going to be talking about all kinds of things from fibromyalgia, women's health, COVID, chronic virus, all from a Chinese medicine perspective. That's my jam. That is your jam. So I want to read something cause so I've heard you say some people think we're basically just an animated meat envelope serving.

Serving is a germ dating app. Yeah. And those germs direct a lot more of our thoughts, feelings, and actions than we like to admit. Yes. Can you explain what you mean like that by that? Like dating app? So, 

Dr. Crawford: so if you think of primordial life, like the soup that before we were even a single celled organism, you had, um, you know, little proteins kind of.

hooking up and forming longer chains and eventually they turned into single celled organisms and then those single celled organisms started pooling together and that's probably about the time that we developed biofilm, which I'm sure we're going to talk about later. I 

Dr. Brighten: think we have to. And [00:04:00] 

Dr. Crawford: they noticed that life is easier when you work as a team.

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm. 

Dr. Crawford: As you know, humans are figuring this out, too. And so, uh, many of those single cell organisms started knitting themselves together into multicellular organisms. And then they just keep kind of recruiting more people, uh, other single cell organisms that hang out. They're all secreting a lot of chemicals at each other all the time.

And so every. Every living organism takes in nutrients, gases, expresses, uh, waste and gases and that's all forms of chemical communication. And so as these multicellular organisms get larger and larger and larger, eventually turning into, you know, big walking things like us. Yeah. Um, we're still carrying around a lot of those microbes and we have more non human cells.

on our skin and in our guts than we have human cells that actually make up our tissue, our flesh. And so, uh, those microbes that we're carrying [00:05:00] around are constantly communicating via gases and other chemical signals with our central nervous system, with our guts, uh, with each other. And there's not really a controversial opinion now that one of the ways that evolution has Allowed large complex life forms to create and exist has been by the direction of the little, the little guys that we're carrying around all the time.

So um, yeah, we're non, we're not just making all of our decisions logically. We like to think that we are, but it's been extensively studied and shown that most human decisions are made emotionally. And most of those emotions are influenced. Significantly by our microbiome. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, I have to say when you said that, like what came to mind is like Oogie Boogie from Nightmare Before Christmas, who's just a big sack [00:06:00] of bugs.

Oh yeah! And I'm like, that's essentially what we are. And if you peel it all back, there's just a bunch of bugs. Now, why does this matter in the context of health for people to understand this? 

Dr. Crawford: It matters in the context of health because, for two main reasons. One is that. Um, the microbiome itself is something that is emerging as a, an organ that can be studied, that can be diagnosable.

We, you, you can't really just take a fecal sample or a saliva sample or a skin swab and culture that and get, Really meaningful information about a person's health, but there's so much correlation between what we see in those kinds of pictures and what people's health outcomes and potential health futures look like and the other thing is It's showing us how community health Is just another facet there is no such thing as an individual health like you can take an individual human and like cut the lines between like [00:07:00] You and me and say like you're an individual and i'm an individual.

You have a health history. I have a health history but um Just the fact that we're in the same room. We're sharing microbes with each other. It's a little gross to think about but uh, You know, I mean the very simple way of thinking about that is in the terms of communicable illnesses. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah 

Dr. Crawford: Um You, we, you know, if I have a virus and I'm exhaling, some of those respiratory droplets are carrying a virus that other people in the room can, can contract.

Um, so the looking at the microbiome in terms of that is one way of connecting humans together and noticing things like, oh, people who have type two diabetes tend to share social gatherings with each other. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: There's, uh, it's, yes, they are eating the same kinds of food, but they are also sharing microbes.

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm. And we're sharing microbes, you know, everywhere that we are, interacting with other [00:08:00] people, which is information. I, as you say, this is gross. I'm like, I remember this study that came out talking about basically like where people sit and how they're What is their butt microbiome? You're, they're sharing it and it's information and that has always made me be like, I need to be super diligent about taking care of my microbiome.

Well, 

Dr. Crawford: yeah, and unfortunately it drives people I think to engage in What's the best way to describe this? An overemphasis on sanitization. And I'm not saying you shouldn't wash your hands after you go to the bathroom. Like absolutely, wash your hands, you know, brush your teeth twice a day, wash your face, take a shower after you exercise, like do all the normal things.

But um, we like to get obsessed about everything's got to be super clean. And again, this is a spectrum. There is no one perfect way to live your life. Yeah. But most of human history, we've been. [00:09:00] Living in the dirt, living in jungles, living in swamps, living in deserts, each of those climate zones, climate regions, has its own distinct effects on our microbiome as well.

And yes, parasites are not necessarily good for our health, but there are also certain situations in which people who carry parasites are less prone to certain kinds of diseases. 

Dr. Brighten: Let's talk about that. People are gonna be like, Say what? 

Dr. Crawford: Well, so this is, I don't want this to get taken out of context, but 

Dr. Brighten: let's, let's make the context happen so that people are very clear.

We're not talking about, you know, like what was it, the 1950s where they were like selling parasite pills for like weight loss and like, Oh yeah, tapeworms. We're not talking about that. Not endorsing tapeworms. Don't do that. 

Dr. Crawford: Um, but there are, there are studies of people who like will implant a certain number of hookworms, which can give you anemia.

If you have too many of them. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: And if you, but they also are influencing your [00:10:00] immune system in such a way that there have been several case studies of people who have cured autoimmune diseases, cured allergies. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Just by giving themselves a parasite. 

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm. 

Dr. Crawford: Please don't do that without speaking with your doctor.

Yes. We're 

Dr. Brighten: not endorsing that but it's an interesting thing to consider because It's also something where people I mean, I don't like the idea of a parasite. It is probably one of my top fears I don't like the idea of having a parasite like in my brain. Yeah, you watch house. I'm like, no immediately Yeah, but it is something that It's an interesting observation that when the immune system has something to work on, which it evolved to work on those parasites, it doesn't attack, it doesn't attack ourselves, our own body.

Dr. Crawford: And that's one of the many contributing theories towards auto, the development of autoimmune diseases and why we see so much more of them now than we ever have before. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Our environments are quite sanitary compared to what we've evolved with. 

Dr. Brighten: Mhm. 

Dr. Crawford: And. [00:11:00] Part of that is that our immune system is constantly on high alert looking for something to fight against.

Yeah, and when it, one of the things that may contribute to that is that when it doesn't have a very rich and diverse microbiome that it's constantly filtering and Mediating is probably a better term. It starts to look for somebody to beat up on. Yeah, and it's more easily triggered towards attacking our own cells.

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm this morning. I was explaining to my toddler who was sick this weekend He had a stomach virus and I was explaining to him about his immune system and how his body's full of fighters He's a big fan of venom And I'm like you literally have a venom inside you it's a macrophage it will go around and eat things and it's important I think for people to understand that the immune system has to be given something to do like people You It's 

Dr. Crawford: [00:12:00] like a little kid in that respect.

Yeah, right? It's 

Dr. Brighten: gonna Yeah, exactly, right? It doesn't have a game to play. It's gotta light 

Dr. Crawford: the furniture on fire. Idle hands 

Dr. Brighten: is the devil's playground or something? Yes, exactly. But, you know, from a Chinese medicine perspective, I'm, I'm just curious, like, your take on this because, you know, from, from my perspective is that if the immune system isn't given a job then it can become problematic.

Like, when people say to me, if a patient says I never get sick. That's a huge red flag for me when they're like, oh, I never get sick I'm like, this is not a good thing. Like let's talk about it from a chinese medicine perspective What do you think 

Dr. Crawford: one of the questions that I ask many of my patients on their first visit?

Uh when they're struggling with a complex chronic illness is when was the last time you had a high fever? 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah 

Dr. Crawford: For most of them They can't remember and I'll say, was it in childhood? And they'll say, maybe, yeah, I probably got, I probably had a fever when I was a little kid, but they can't remember. These are people in their forties, fifties, [00:13:00] eighties, sometimes who can't remember the last time they had a high fever.

There's a problem with that. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: The immune system, uh, Again, this is something that's easy to take out of context. The way that Chinese medicine looks at people who have a high fever, and this is like when you get the flu, and it's, I had the flu this past spring, it was 104 degrees, 

Dr. Brighten: really 

Dr. Crawford: unpleasant. But doing that once a decade or so.

There is one of those things that if you're doing it in a safe way, if you're allowing yourself, and I'm not saying go have a flu party. No, 

Dr. Brighten: no, no, no. 

Dr. Crawford: But it's sort of like a forest fire. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: And so, um, when, when we don't do good caretaking of our patients. Forests, meaning we put out every little fire, we suppress every little fire.[00:14:00] 

Having an occasional burn is part of the health of the ecosystem. And having an occasional high fever can activate your immune system in such a way that it can It takes a lot of energy out of you, you need to recover after this, but it does put all that energy towards a specific goal, and then if you recover from that, you are less likely to deal with a chronic illness later, or have that acute situation of a viral attack turn into a post viral lingering lung illness.

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. I want to talk about post viral illness. Definitely, especially with like in the wake of what so many people have experienced with COVID, uh, for people to understand, because I think if you do, if you grew by the beach, you don't understand controlled burns and how necessary it is for the forest. I grew up near Yosemite.

Okay. So I'm like in the mountains. And so you. It's not only that like you need to [00:15:00] have those controlled burns or there has to be burning of the forest for the health of the forest, but it's also how the forest regenerates and rejuvenates and so Some seeds will not ever sprout until there's been a fire and I think that analogy you just used is so perfect Some 

Dr. Crawford: species of beetles will grow out of control and destroy tree populations 

Dr. Brighten: Yes, there's 

Dr. Crawford: an occasional fire.

Dr. Brighten: I love that analogy because I think that there is this isolation from nature where humans, some humans like to think they're above it and not recognizing that we're not that different. We are an ecosystem as you explained earlier and we're not that different. From this analogy that you use of the forest like we need to have those things as you talked about high fever You know What came to mind is that there have been studies showing that if some non verbal autistic kids are able to speak following a high fever Like we see changes happen in the brain Yes And I think that's very important and we 80 year olds that can't remember the last time they have A fever as we get older [00:16:00] The inability to mount a fever is why, like, infectious disease is such a risk for us.

And as we get older, we lose that vitality. We lose that capacity. Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: And one of the ways that Chinese medicine looks at that, that, that phenomenon of not being able to manifest a nice high fever is that you're still catching the viruses that come around. You're still contracting the wind and the damp.

But you're not kicking it out. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: and so these things start to accumulate and That is one of the major factors behind the development of many chronic illness situations 

Dr. Brighten: I learned when I was in med school Like if you get sick how to raise your body temperature like taking a bath with like mustard seed Getting it as hot as possible Getting out doing something called warming socks and wrapping.

Oh, yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Yeah the warm sock treatment. Oh, yeah Yeah, 

Dr. Brighten: but like doing the bath with like the heating herbs like ginger mustard seeds It's not pleasant like and you're drinking like you're drinking those herbs as well in the bath to get hot. I had [00:17:00] Um, I was feeling sick Like, you know, it was moving from like and moving into a really damp climate moving into portland, oregon I was really sick Really like I caught something and I just couldn't kick it for weeks And that was something that I did and I got out and I wrapped my I put on all these warm clothes And wrapped myself in a blanket the next day.

I was like a different person 

Dr. Crawford: sweated it out Yeah, 

Dr. Brighten: absolutely. And I think that's one of your tips for helping remove the dampness the wind if i'm using that correctly Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: yeah wind and damp. Yeah, and those are the main two pathological factors that chinese medicine looks at in these situations almost universally around the world You Uh, people have developed technologies to do that, to, to.

Promote a sweat when someone's ill. And so you have saunas, you have sweat lodges, you have, um, the, the name for the sweat lodge in Mexico. I can't remember what it's called right now. Uh, we did one a couple of years ago, promoting that sweat, using those aromatic [00:18:00] warming herbs, those kinds of things. Have qualities that just really activate your immune system in that directed way Raise your body temperature in a controlled manner kick out the damp 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah so I I want to go back to the microbiome piece because you talk about this correlation between Antibiotic use and covid and developing long covid and i'd love For you to share with people a bit more about that.

Dr. Crawford: Okay, so first of all Antibiotics are not within my scope of practice as a Chinese medicine professional 

Dr. Brighten: And 

Dr. Crawford: I don't advise my patients to take them or not take them. I want them to follow their doctor's advice 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: but there was a study that came out I think in 2022 was a few years ago 

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm, 

Dr. Crawford: and they looked at a large population of people who were hospitalized with kovat and given antibiotics prophylactically these patients were not struggling with bacterial co infections.

Dr. Brighten: So this may have been an unnecessary prescription. 

Dr. Crawford: [00:19:00] May have been. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: And I don't know the rationale behind why they were being prescribed antibiotics in that situation. We know that some people who are hospitalized with COVID will get bacterial or fungal co infections and those kind of medications would be probably indicated there.

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: But they noticed that people who are given antibiotic therapies while hospitalized had a much higher Proclivity towards developing long COVID afterwards and lingering symptoms afterwards. And so we know that many of these things that are happening are one your microbiome is one of the things that protects you from post viral illnesses.

Yeah. Because when you have a diverse and It's hard to say healthy because we don't exactly know what a healthy microbiome is. We know some aspects of it, but it's very, there's a very deep context to it. Where you live, what kinds of activities you engage in. It's all those kinds of things play a role, but when you have a diverse microbiome, that's one of the things we know is important.

You are stronger, you are more resilient. [00:20:00] And when you take antibiotics, those reduce the diversity of your species of bacteria really significantly. And so those bacteria are less able to protect you against other things that will occupy that space that they once took up, such as. Uh, overgrowth of Candida yeast species.

Uh, the SARS CoV 2 virus itself can hide in biofilm. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. Okay, now you gotta explain biofilm. Okay. Yeah, just keep going from there. So, when 

Dr. Crawford: people ask me, what is wind and damp? 

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm. 

Dr. Crawford: Uh, damp, one of the easiest ways to describe it in the human body is mucus. Yeah. And, like, we have mucus. We, we would die without it.

Like, your stomach would eat itself from the inside out. But, uh, It's Goldilocks and the Three Bears balance to not too hot, not too cold, not too damp, not too dry. And biofilm is mucus that's secreted in our sinuses and our intestines. It's created by some bacteria. It's, we think it's created by some viruses, by some [00:21:00] yeast.

They all, it's how they all, If you've ever put, uh, psyllium husk in a glass of warm water and you've probably recommended to your patients, eat more fiber at some 

Dr. Brighten: point, but don't do that, but don't do that. Or like chia seeds when it's just like, yeah. And it's just like, it turns to slime 

Dr. Crawford: and biofilms kind of like that.

And it's this place where you can, it's really easy to visualize a lot of critters being really happy, just lingering there because it's rich in sugars and polysaccharides like it's just a nutritious milieu, but unfortunately when your Diversity is wiped out by antibiotics. Other things are gonna take that place nature abhors a vacuum.

And so The proclivity then towards a long prolonged illness after an acute viral attack is much much higher in that situation There's a traditional Chinese medicine, I don't want to say superstition, but, um, there's a, [00:22:00] when we're using herbs that have antibacterial qualities, many of those herbs are categorized as what we would call very cold.

Dr. Brighten: And 

Dr. Crawford: so if you think of a fluid metabolism problem in the body, such as over, over production of mucus, fluids move better when they are warm, cold therapies in a damp predominant condition are. Almost always contraindicated. Sometimes we use a little bit if it's very, very hot, if there's a lot of inflammation.

But antibiotics are exceptionally cold medicines. So, 

Dr. Brighten: interesting. 

Dr. Crawford: So if you give them to somebody who's facing a damp illness, there, we know from Chinese medicine history, there's, there's problems that can develop as a result of that. 

Dr. Brighten: This study that you're talking about with COVID, do you know what antibiotic they were using?

Was it Cipro? I just am curious. Oh, 

Dr. Crawford: like one of the, that family that famously causes all the 

Dr. Brighten: Well, Cipro also hates on the mitochondria. And I very much believe mitochondrial [00:23:00] damage and dysfunction is a contributor to long 

Dr. Crawford: COVID. I agree with you. I don't know what antibiotic was in that study I think they were just looking at patients who were given antibiotics in a hospital setting That's i'm if I recall correctly, I would have to go back and look.

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, I would just be curious There's so much out of the pandemic that I feel like we we are just at the cusp of starting to understand Um, and we're gonna have to dig deeper on but it's so interesting because I think that health care providers In that situation, we're thinking secondary infections, secondary lung infections would be most problematic.

So preemptively give antibiotics, but it didn't, it didn't turn out to be that way. Unfortunately, it is the practice of medicine. Um, and it is interesting though, to hear about how it lend itself to that post COVID syndrome. It's interesting that too, that you bring up biofilms because when people started reporting that N Acetyl Cysteine was helping tremendously.

That's a biofilm 

Dr. Crawford: buster. 

Dr. Brighten: biofilm buster and that immediately I was like [00:24:00] biofilm. So we're going to be talking more about, you know, COVID overall, but to go back to the biofilms, they get a really bad rap, but there is some benefit to 

Dr. Crawford: them. You'd die without them. Your beneficial bacteria create them and need them also.

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: So it's not, it's sort of like the parasite. You don't necessarily want to give yourself a whole lot of biofilm, but you do need a little bit. 

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm. Okay, so we're gonna get into more COVID speak, but before we get into that, I think it's really important for people to understand, uh, firstly, so I had COVID in 2020, I got it early, I got to be one of the, like, trendy ones, I developed along COVID, I spent four months on oxygen.

Oh, wow. Yeah, it was bad. It was It was like literally, uh, on my deathbed. They were like, they literally told my husband, She's gotta be, like, make it in two weeks or she's not. And there's nothing we can give her because my lungs were completely clear. So, chest x ray, CT, like, all will [00:25:00] work out. Lungs are clear, but my oxygen, my oxygen saturation was like, Like high 60s, uh, so endothelial dysfunction.

Nobody really knew about that at that time. Um, I didn't spike a fever I never had a fever. I never had a cough I just suddenly couldn't breathe and then I had tons of neurological symptoms at the time like the there's you know, the the trendy tick tock doctors who were like You're malingering. You're making it up.

That's not COVID. And I'm like, but my blood test is showing I'm positive for COVID. Like everything's positive for COVID. Yeah. Um, yeah. The, so I recovered from that, obviously. Here I am. Um, and it took, it was like a lot of mitochondrial support was part of that. Yeah. But I had like POTS. We're going to talk.

About bots, everybody listening. Um, the next time I got COVID was like two years later, we flew to London, we did a conference, everybody got COVID. I had 103 degree fever and I was fine the next day. And I was like, if I had just known, I didn't know I [00:26:00] contracted it. Cause I was like literally in isolation in my house, the most bizarre thing.

I share all this because whenever we talk, I talk about COVID, I'm critical about how the pandemic was handled. I think we have to be. critical about the way we treated things the way things went because There was we were never given a playbook for this we can set up the playbook for future generations Yeah, we can learn 

Dr. Crawford: a lot from this experience 

Dr. Brighten: Absolutely but I just share all this because people will be like You have no idea what it is like to be so sick or you have no idea what it is like for like to have loved ones almost die or die and i'm like I was writing a will from my bed, hugging my child every day, because I was like, we're not quarantining.

Like, we had been all up in each other's space. Like, there's no point at this point. Um, so just, I always want people, this is like my short version of this, but I just want people to understand, I was absolutely there. I feel this pain. I have been there in the trenches. I don't think it was a hoax. I'm not, I don't consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but I [00:27:00] do consider myself a scientist, which means I want to question everything and have that discussion.

Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: that's very important to do that, and it's very important that those questions be taken seriously. And I think, I'm not an epidemiologist. And I think, like, I have, I always come from a place of compassion for the people who are, In a really hot seat when they're trying to make a decision like that.

Totally, with limited information. With 

Dr. Brighten: limited information and 

Dr. Crawford: when it comes to public health it's really hard to accept that there's nuance and individuality and you you have to especially when you're making You're trying to communicate to millions or billions of people About what we need to do as a planet to make it through this without.

Dr. Brighten: Yeah 

Dr. Crawford: 20 percent of the population dying, you're going to make some mistakes and some people are going to get hurt either way. Um, but there's, there was so much that was [00:28:00] mishandled that had we known, had we, had we looked at two to 5, 000 years of pandemics in, China, for example. With 

Dr. Brighten: respect that other medicine has handled this outside of the very infantile western medicine we have.

Dr. Crawford: We, we can see how these things move through populations. We can see what are long effects of acute disease. Illnesses. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: and we can see what do we need to do as a society? to Protect ourselves and move through this and accept that some people are going to die Some people are going to be hurt 

Dr. Brighten: and it sucks 

Dr. Crawford: and it sucks.

It sucks. It sucks It absolutely sucks the fragility 

Dr. Brighten: of being a human and I think that that's something about the pandemic That was really sobering is medicine and science can't save us from everything that's out there and it can't save all of [00:29:00] us and I think That, that was part of why people started to have distrust.

But I do think the trust the science, shut up, don't ask questions, has fractured people's trust in healthcare and that really breaks my heart. I mean, it's one of many dominoes that were in place where I feel like the pandemic kind of flicked, flicked them and they just cascaded. 

Dr. Crawford: And I think a lot of that would be Better if there wasn't so much corruption in Institutions in medicine.

Dr. Brighten: People 

Dr. Crawford: talk about the revolving door between the FDA and pharmaceutical companies 

Dr. Brighten: Like we've known that like I'm sure you were you taught you were taught that you were aware of that I knew that 20 years ago in nutrition. They taught us about how problematic it is Yeah, but now we're not supposed to talk about it.

Dr. Crawford: Well and Again, if you, it's, it's hard if you have somebody who's an epidemiologist who's been spending their entire life studying Pandemics like this 

Dr. Brighten: and 

Dr. Crawford: trying to make the best [00:30:00] plans and they're just really good, like a really good Well hearted nerd who has a lot of data and the ability to understand it and communicate the take home.

And then that person is placed in an institution that's fraught with corruption. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Nobody's gonna trust what they say. 

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm. 

Dr. Crawford: And the institution is probably going to, I don't want to say control, so that might happen, but influence What is the messaging that comes out of that data? And, unfortunately, uh, our systems are just so infiltrated with those kinds of influence from multiple directions.

Of, yeah, it's, it's just, I think it's a really messy situation. 

Dr. Brighten: It is a very messy situation. And, you know, as we know, most of the scientific papers that are being published are being influenced in some way. And we have seen I mean, [00:31:00] that's the thing about trusted science is we can't even trust peer reviewed papers sometimes.

Dr. Crawford: Sometimes. And, and, and who, it's really hard to know which ones you can and can't. 

Dr. Brighten: Absolutely. And there's this idea that if it's not peer reviewed and randomized control trial, then you just throw it out. Yeah. Like it's not enough to go off of. This is why I think so many women are not believed when they tell the stories about their truth of their body is because if there's not a scientific paper.

Spoiler, we don't invest a lot in women's health for research, but to validate what she's saying then she's not believed because it must not be true because science hasn't said so. 

Dr. Crawford: Yeah. Yeah, I mean ask any woman who's been given a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia. They're going to have a story about that.

Absolutely. And those things just mean you're tired or you're in pain and your doctor doesn't really know why. And for so long It's been The standard of care for a lot of women [00:32:00] is diagnose, give them an SSRI, you just have anxiety, go away. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: totally. That's not okay. 

Dr. Brighten: There was, uh, so there's something that you said that made me literally want to shout it from the rooftops and it said, You said this on social media.

When they took away your diagnosis of hysteria, they replaced it with fibromyalgia. I want you to say the quiet part out loud. What do you mean by 

Dr. Crawford: that?

The stories that I have heard from my patients who have been in and out of the medical system for decades, trying to receive care, trying to get help for a symptom, is that they feel like Like they are not being listened to these are I'm gonna say these are female patients. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah 

Dr. Crawford: male patients have problems, too How many [00:33:00] men get 

Dr. Brighten: diagnosed with fibromyalgia and then just send on their way though?

Dr. Crawford: Some but not nearly as many as yeah Yeah, 

Dr. Brighten: let's talk about women. 

Dr. Crawford: So yeah so so many women get Mansplained to by a physician, uh, or a nurse practitioner, or although I think anecdotally nurse practitioners tend to be much better listeners. Uh, they're clinicians first and scientists second, I think. And I, my experience has been that a lot of physicians, and again, this is a blanket statement.

There are wonderful doctors in every field of medicine, but there are some physicians who think that they are scientists first and clinicians second. And yet they're put in a clinical setting. And they don't listen and they, they tell patients, this is all in your head. 

Dr. Brighten: Uh, 

Dr. Crawford: this is anxiety that, uh, you are depressed, take this medicine.

And it's just a, it's just a shut up pill. It's a, it's a, I'm not listening to [00:34:00] you. I don't want to, I don't want to dig deeper into this. I think you're just complaining and you're annoying me. And I'm not getting paid very much for this office visit. So. 

Dr. Brighten: Gosh. 

Dr. Crawford: Go away. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. I mean that, and that's the hard part of the system is I think that insurance and administrators have done a really good job about always pinning it on the doctor, pinning it on the practitioner.

And the practitioner gets caught in this. I only have five to seven minutes to to solve your problems and get you out because I have to me the insurance quota I've got somebody else breathing down my back and I don't believe anyone goes into medicine really with the idea of like I just want to churn people like a factory line 

Dr. Crawford: I think a lot of doctors go into it.

A lot of people go into it wanting to become really great caretakers And that system just turns them inside out. And then they're just part of a very large machine that is having to meet quotas, having to spend [00:35:00] hours, evenings and weekends charting and doing documentation and peer review from an insurance company that's rejecting claims over and over again.

And it, that's going to drive the standard of care down. Doctors are people too. 

Dr. Brighten: Yes, they're humans and sometimes people forget that. 

Dr. Crawford: And, and over years stuck in a system like that, they're going to get pretty grouchy. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: And, and unfortunately, that affects quality of care. And then, then we have situations where millions of women are just turned around, sent out the door, referred to a different specialist who then says, yes, you have fibromyalgia.

Here's a controversial medication that might take away some of your symptoms, but probably just makes you feel a little rummy and will cause a lot of side effects. 

Dr. Brighten: So at the root of fibromyalgia, what are you looking at from a Chinese medicine perspective? 

Dr. Crawford: It often starts with an infection, often starts with an infection, but that's not the only thing that is there.

There's oftentimes the catalyzing [00:36:00] event. makes the patient realize they're in a lot of pain and drives them to seek care is a virus, is a bacterial infection, can be. Can be a traumatic event, can be postpartum, can be a prolonged period of heightened stress, or can just, it could be environmental. 

Dr. Brighten: You just listed all the triggers for autoimmune disease as well.

Dr. Crawford: Yes. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: And for many. patients, fibromyalgia is an autoimmune disease. Mm 

Dr. Brighten: hmm. 

Dr. Crawford: Not all. Some of the biomarkers are the same. And some of them it is truly autoimmune. Some of them they'll have elevated, uh, interleukin 6 and things like that. But they're, they're not technically fighting an autoimmune illness.

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm. 

Dr. Crawford: But their body is chronically inflamed. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: and yeah, they don't know why 

Dr. Brighten: Symptoms of fibromyalgia. So as someone listening, I just realized they might not know what this is. We should [00:37:00] list What are the symptoms of fibromyalgia and how did they get that diagnosis? 

Dr. Crawford: the diagnosis is made by excluding other causes of the other possible causes of pain.

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm 

Dr. Crawford: and And then there's this thing about tender points 

Dr. Brighten: the mapping 

Dr. Crawford: I hate this. 

Dr. Brighten: I know. I hate this. That's what I was like, as I was like Tomo's diagnosis. Like, 

Dr. Crawford: it's so subjective on the part of the clinician and the patient. A 

Dr. Brighten: clinician who already may have a bias to not believe in you because you have a uterus or ovaries.

You were, you were born, you know, presenting as a woman. Therefore, you must make up stuff. And they 

Dr. Crawford: may They may not be doing a physical exam or they may do the bare minimum of the physical exam to chart that they did one and like, may I touch you? 

Dr. Brighten: Oh, me? Yeah, okay, okay. 

Dr. Crawford: I've heard stories where a woman will be like, you know, I had the full exam.

They gave me, they told me I had fibromyalgia because the doctor did this. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: And it's like, you know, four ounces of pressure on a spot on your IT [00:38:00] band. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: And, and they said, and, and the patient went, Ow! 

Dr. Brighten: Well. Most people have trigger points in their IT band. That's like, this is a tender area of 

Dr. Crawford: the body in the best of cases.

Like, of course. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: So it, it's, it's, It's not a it's it's a it's a garbage bin diagnosis There there is so much Rationale and research effort put into trying to figure out what fibromyalgia is so that they can retroactively say. Oh That's what's been going on all along. And if you just take this one pill that will cure it for you and So far, the only things that have come out of that are palliative medicine with a lot of side effects like gabapentin and Lyrica.

Mm-hmm . Or SSRIs, which address the, uh, neurotransmitter component of some of this for some people. 

Dr. Brighten: Mm-hmm . 

Dr. Crawford: And some people do get reduced pain when they get put, when they start taking an [00:39:00] antidepressant. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: But those often come with side effects. 

Dr. Brighten: Mm-hmm . 

Dr. Crawford: Sometimes. The anxiety or depression is just a symptom of being chronically inflamed and those medicines are not addressing the inflammation at all.

And anti inflammatory medicines like non steroidal, like ibuprofen, they are not safe to take long term at high doses. 

Dr. Brighten: Why? Tell people why. 

Dr. Crawford: Uh, why? Okay, so one, they're really strong. They're crazy strong and there are a lot of primary care family doctors who think that if ibuprofen was up for FDA approval right now.

It would not be approved as an over the counter drug. It would be prescriptionally same with Tylenol So many people I don't know the number I I put it in a video at one point, but I can't recall it. So many people die every year or are hospitalized every year for severe liver poisoning from Tylenol.

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, people, if you binge drink and you have a headache, you do not take Tylenol. That is a recipe for acute hepatic failure. It [00:40:00] means your liver quits and you will go to the hospital. They will give you IV and acetylcysteine comes back around for that again. Um, but it's, it's the, one of the top causes of liver failure in the United States.

Dr. Crawford: There's a. massive undiagnosed epidemic of fatty liver disease in the United States and many industrialized nations. That's a whole other topic, but those people are at much higher risk of liver damage from acetaminophen. And 

Dr. Brighten: most people don't even know that they have fatty liver disease. They're walking around.

No idea. 

Dr. Crawford: No idea. So, yeah, ibuprofen also destroys the gut lining and it can cause kidney damage. Mm hmm People become very reactive to it, where they take it and yes, it takes pain away, it stops inflammation for short periods of time. And low doses for acute injuries, probably very safe. But long [00:41:00] term use, absolutely not appropriate.

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, and that's, I bring, I wanted you to say more about that because so many women with dysmenorrhea, Period pain will be told just to take these things and we've got women with adenomyosis and endometriosis who may need to be taking them two weeks out of the month because from ovulation until menstruation.

So sometimes it's two weeks or more. So you're talking six months out of the year and they're just told to go about life for the next two weeks. Decade, two decades until they finally get that diagnosis because that's how long it takes and nobody is going back Like we get like no funding for endometriosis.

Nobody's going back and being like what the hell did we do in just bypassing a diagnosis. Why is there no funding 

Dr. Crawford: for endometriosis? Why is that? That is one of the most painful conditions 

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm 

Dr. Crawford: Ever. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. So as I wrote in my book, Is This Normal?, I went through all of the research, um, and I pulled out some of the key findings, like women being more likely [00:42:00] to die of a heart attack, uh, to be sent home being told they just have a migraine when in fact they have a stroke, they sit longer in the ER in pain than a man because their pain's not believed.

So I think it all comes down to the myth of, one, um, You're born a woman. So this is how it is. Just suck it up and two You're always going to exaggerate your pain and you can't be trusted to believe to be believed because you you're just going to be wanting attention 

Dr. Crawford: That's the we took away hysteria Now we're going to give you a different word for it.

But ultimately it's you're not believed 

Dr. Brighten: How do we address fibromyalgia? Like what what have you found to be effective? Obviously, you've got to figure out what's going on What preceded it? 

Dr. Crawford: So we talked about the causes There are others as well But those are the main ones that we see and I don't think i've ever seen a fibromyalgia patient that had only one cause of pain There's there's often one catalyzing event where they and then it's easy to to create the narrative Oh, that's what causes my [00:43:00] pain.

All my pain started there 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: but the the truth is that it's usually been building for a very long time There are genetic predispositions Dispositions toward it, too. People who don't methylate well and that kind of thing also probably more likely to develop chronic pain at some point. But the way we treat it is by addressing the causes.

So, people who are dealing with a chronic lingering viral situation, we're going to do everything we can to make your immune system healthier so that it can regulate itself very well and get that viral response. Infection out if it's still there or put it back into remission in the case of a virus You can never be cured of like Epstein Barr.

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm, 

Dr. Crawford: which 90 percent of the population has Epstein Barr. It's very, very common. Because we 

Dr. Brighten: were all making out with the wrong people. Because we all got mono 

Dr. Crawford: in high school. And, and you can get it multiple times too. There's, there's more than one strain of Epstein Barr that's floating around out there.

And it often just feels like One [00:44:00] of those little colds that you get for three days with some post It's like a head cold for three days, a little post nasal drip, tiny little sore throat. Most people, even people with kind of a more, we'll say, normal immune system won't even get a fever from it or maybe A hundred degrees.

Yeah. You just feel lame for a few days and then you, most people unfortunately, will work through it. 

Dr. Brighten: Mm-hmm . 

Dr. Crawford: Which is a bad idea. You should still rest. Yeah. But, 

Dr. Brighten: but you live in the United States, but you live , , you don't have childcare. Yeah. You gotta like, you know, go to work. You don't have sick days. You don't have sick, 

Dr. Crawford: yeah.

No sick leave. No, no childcare. Yeah. Oh, so the, uh, you can put Epstein Barr back into remission though. Yeah. And when you're carrying a lot of. Chronic reactivating viruses like that. It's sort of like shingles. This is the one that everybody knows about. You get chickenpox as a kid, the virus is in your body your whole life.

You, you go through chemotherapy when you're in your 60s or, or you just become older [00:45:00] and your immune system isn't as strong as it used to be. Yeah. And the virus comes out to play because your immune system has to constantly work a little bit to keep it in remission. There are medicines we can use to help it do that.

When there's digestive issues in play, we use traditional forms of medicine to address those, whether it's herbal medicine, dietary therapy, abdominal massage, and going for a two to five minute walk after a meal. Like really simple stuff, ginger, incredibly helpful for a lot of people in this camp when there's a history of trauma or adverse childhood events.

And the, the correlation between. Childhood trauma and people getting diagnosed with fibromyalgia later in life is huge. And so, I consider that to be a cause. It's not the only cause, but, and there are people who get diagnosed with fibromyalgia, or people, I'll just say people who are in chronic pain, who have never [00:46:00] experienced what they would consider chronic pain.

Capital T trauma. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: but many of them have been in a long term stressful situation for such a time that their body was probably in chronic fight or flight

one of the Very first people in Western medicine to talk extensively about the health of the adrenal glands was a doctor named Hans Selye 

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm, 

Dr. Crawford: and he wrote this book called The stress of life and in it he lists out all of the symptoms and details case studies thoroughly of Steroid poisoning from people who are exposed to too much cortisol for too long of a period of time Well, 

Dr. Brighten: you know that I mean right now if the internet's like talking about cortisol face I'm like y'all don't have Cushing's like calm down but it is toxic at a cellular level and cortisol being elevated can destroy brain cells like Deleting cells, this is a big deal.

Dr. Crawford: Those symptoms of [00:47:00] cortisol poisoning, of steroid poisoning, like people who take prednisone for too long will be in the same situation. Yeah, yeah. They're the same as all of the symptoms that are constantly reported by people with fibromyalgia. 

Dr. Brighten: And what are those symptoms? 

Dr. Crawford: Fatigue, insomnia, anxiety, depression, pain, dizziness, uh, irritable bowels, brain fog.

Headaches, which is a kind of pain, um, visual distortions, uh, and it can be like, people will say that they have pain in their hair. You don't have nerves in your hair, like technically you shouldn't be able to have hair pain, and yet, That's what patients report and it's that degree of being in fight or flight puts you in sympathetic dominance.

So all your sensory organs, all your peripheral nerves are just lit up and you add a little [00:48:00] bit of inflammation to that mix and there you go. The place that I like to start from for my patients and also just for People who are consuming content about this online is with breath with journaling with nutrition and with Very very mild exercise And the evidence is very clear those four things are so effective Not to get you out of pain completely, although it can do that for some people But to bring down the severity of it and to improve your quality of life in every other respect that You the diagnosis becomes irrelevant.

Dr. Brighten: What are you doing by way of nutrition? 

Dr. Crawford: Uh, I like to take the stress away from the nutrition situation. 

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm. 

Dr. Crawford: So a lot of people are eating according to something they saw online or something that a friend told them worked for them. 

Dr. Brighten: Diet [00:49:00] dogma. And it 

Dr. Crawford: becomes a religion. Yeah. It becomes a very Very strict religion where they feel like if they eat gluten they have sinned 

Dr. Brighten: Or in that it's their fault or it's their if they that if they end up in pain if they have a bad day It's because they didn't do something right.

It's their fault. They caused this not realizing your complex Biological system interacting in a very complex environment and for some people absolutely gluten will trigger stuff If I want to have psoriatic pain, yeah, I will I will bomb myself with gluten in the US But it's not always that simple.

Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: it's yeah, it's not and I don't like restrictive diets There's a time and a place for removing something from somebody's diet medically speaking if gluten causes you pain don't eat pain. Don't eat it 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: but Then maybe look at why 

Dr. Brighten: and 

Dr. Crawford: what can you do to correct that situation so that you can reintroduce it in a context that it doesn't [00:50:00] hurt you anymore.

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: When you have, um, people going towards, and mostly when we're talking about restrictive diets is people will like latch onto an influencer who looks good on camera, who speaks very clearly, who has a great big production team behind him, and I know, and they're 

Dr. Brighten: always like, 22 and they've got all the answers.

Oh my god. If you're on perimenopause, there's no excuses why you can't lose weight Like look at me and I'm like when I was 22, I could have binge ate the world Yeah, and my body would still look a certain way because that's the genetics I got dealt. Because 

Dr. Crawford: you're 22 

Dr. Brighten: That's so different. But I totally know what you're saying about that.

And so we see things like, you know, low FODMAP diet, a time and a place can be helpful. AIP diet, there are people who have nightshade sensitivities. They figure it out through that time and a place where it can be helpful. The elimination diets, um, It's a bridge across the 

Dr. Crawford: water. 

Dr. Brighten: I don't know about carnivore diet.

There are people who will swear by it. And I'm like, look, I don't have any. I don't have any [00:51:00] evidence and it goes against my common sense to ever recommend that. Um, however, I will always believe people who are like, I feel better. I'm like, well if you eliminate everything you're probably gonna for a while Yeah, so, you know and I assume that's what you're talking about when you talk about these restrictive diets.

Dr. Crawford: Yeah, it's It's a bridge across the water. Like, if you use it as an intervention, you use it to get from point A to point B, and then you shouldn't need it anymore. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: And you should be able to eat a wide variety of foods and feel okay. 

Dr. Brighten: I want to talk about veganism from a Chinese medicine perspective.

No disrespect to vegans, don't come for us. But I do want to hear it from a Chinese medicine perspective because, for all intents and purposes, That is a restrictive diet. Oh, very much so. There are people who are like, it's a lifestyle. It's, if it is your belief system, belief system, belief system, your religion, like your faith, like whatever, you know, it is that goes beyond just dietary practices.

I respect that. Yeah. But it is a restrictive diet and I have seen it cause harm to people because I [00:52:00] don't think, I think there are people who can do it well, but I think there are people who despite their best efforts. 

Dr. Crawford: It's, it's a diet that works well for some people say they have, uh, the genes that are going to make them get cholesterol in the six hundreds and they're going to have major cardiac problems in their thirties from that.

Like, yeah, consider, consider a plant based diet there. Um, people, but from a Chinese perspective, Restrictive diets are not usually something that's encouraged. I'll say it that way. China is a very large country with a very diverse population of different dietary strategies. Yeah. And a long history of navigating different kinds of food availability.

Like sometimes you can't get meat. Yeah. So you're going to eat what you can eat. Absolutely. 

Dr. Brighten: Absolutely. Um, 

Dr. Crawford: I had Uh, uh, faculty member when I was in school who survived the cultural revolution as a child by eating Chinese herbs. And they're not a lot of calories in them, but that was [00:53:00] what they had. As a result of that, they were herbs that you wouldn't normally give kids.

And he has some, like, lifelong issues because of that, but he survived. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: If you have the choice If you have the ability to choose basically any food you want to eat and go to the grocery store and meat is within your means, it's probably going to be a good idea to eat some. You shouldn't eat only meat unless you are living in a, like, 

Dr. Brighten: If you're in a, if you're 

Dr. Crawford: living in a climate where plants don't grow because everything's frozen, you need meat.

Meat is incredibly warming. It's incredibly nutrient dense. You need a lot of fats to survive the kind of cold that, that you're surrounded by there. That's very protective in that situation. Think of the animals that evolved to live in that climate. They're surrounded by blubber. I've never seen a lean seal.

No, 

Dr. Brighten: no, no. Could you imagine? [00:54:00] 

Dr. Crawford: But, uh, if you live in a climate where it's very hot, where You're, you don't need to eat a ton of fats. And when you do, it's probably more beneficial to work them into your skin than it is to put them in your body. Vegetarian or more plant based diet probably helpful there.

But, thing I'll say is cook your plants. A little bit of raw plants fine for most people like eat a salad occasionally eat some raw fruit. It's fine But people who are eating exclusively raw vegetables tend to have a lot more problems 

Dr. Brighten: Very 

Dr. Crawford: very cold very hard to digest very hard to get that. Yes, they're more nutrient There are more nutrients in raw vegetables.

Yeah, but when you when you cook them you make those nutrients bioavailable 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, and that is something Chinese medicine is very big on The temperature of foods if foods are cooked if they're raw and that being seasonal. Can you say more about that? 

Dr. Crawford: Yeah Different climactic regions will have different effects on our body.

Like we [00:55:00] talked about with the microbiome The kinds of foods that we need to eat to be optimally healthy in those environments are going to change so When you live in a place that's very dry, you need to eat more fats. 

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm. 

Dr. Crawford: You need more moistening foods. 

Dr. Brighten: Interesting. Okay. 

Dr. Crawford: When you live in a place I would not 

Dr. Brighten: think fat where it's dry, because it's usually dry and hot.

Dr. Crawford: It's dry and hot and, and fatty foods tend to be a little bit warming. 

Dr. Brighten: Uh huh. 

Dr. Crawford: But then you can use cooling things like Nepal cactus. Yeah. Or prickly pear. Yeah. That grow in 

Dr. Brighten: We're in Mexico. We're 

Dr. Crawford: in Mexico. Yeah. They grow in warmer, drier environments. It's like Yeah. Those foods are traditionally eaten by the cultures that have evolved in these places for thousands of years because they have cooling, moistening effects.

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: When you have, um, when you live in a colder, damper climate, you need to eat more warming, drying foods. Mm hmm. So these are things like Root vegetables that survive in the soils where it's [00:56:00] really damp and have a lot of fluid movement capacity. Mushrooms that I hate people who say like, oh, I'm sorry.

I don't hate the people. I hate it when people say you shouldn't eat mushrooms if you have candida overgrowth. 

Dr. Brighten: Oh my god, that burns me, too. No, you should always eat mushrooms because the research, like, you want to live long? You want to be healthy? Mushrooms every week, baby. Get them in. Mushrooms 

Dr. Crawford: have a very mild and Uh, but powerful diuretic effect on what are called aquaporins.

So when I was in, uh, high school biology, we learned that water moves into and out of our cells by. exclusively to maintain electrolyte balance, sodium, potassium pumps. And turns out, that is a mechanism by which water moves into and out of our cells. But much more water moves through these things called aquaporin channels.

And so, uh, mushrooms promote, uh, healthy aquaporins, [00:57:00] um, in a way that very few other plants do, I think. It's why they're used traditionally to drain dampness in Chinese medicine. So 

Dr. Brighten: this is people that have like joint swelling, inflammation. Oftentimes 

Dr. Crawford: would benefit from eating mushrooms. Who else would 

Dr. Brighten: benefit?

I would say everyone. I mean most people. I'm obsessed with them. I love them too. 

Dr. Crawford: Uh, who else would benefit from eating mushrooms? People who get bloated with a lot of green vegetables. Oftentimes mushrooms can really help. Get their gut into a place where then they can eat some more of those. 

Dr. Brighten: Interesting.

Can we talk about specific mushrooms? You're from the pacific northwest. Yeah, they grow 

Dr. Crawford: everywhere. They grow on your body if you don't start if you don't sweat enough 

Dr. Brighten: Oh man, um, so tons of mushrooms grow there, but we also know that there's like all of these companies now that have like Mushroom powders, um, mushroom coffees, and they do sourcing from China as well.

So I just love your take like mushrooms. What's helpful from a Chinese [00:58:00] medicine like perspective like when we talk about reishi When is that actually indicated? 

Dr. Crawford: Reishi, reishi is a good example of one that we don't use as a culinary mushroom This is not something you're gonna find in a grocery store.

It's a beautiful plant. It's a sacred herb in China It's considered to be one of the like highest quality of medicines we have and we know from the Pharmacological evidence around Reishi. It's incredible for your immune system. It's incredible for your brain. It's Probably not something that everybody should be taking all the time every day.

Why it's a tonic. 

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm. 

Dr. Crawford: So Herbs are, herbs as plant medicines, botanical medicines, are largely broken up into two categories. We have herbs that tonify deficiency. They are very nutritious herbs. Ginseng is one, is one that most people know of. Dong quai is famous in women's health. Yeah, 

Dr. Brighten: big fan. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Crawford: Uh, uh, Foti root in Chinese. It's called Hushawu. Uh, it's 

Dr. Brighten: Hushawu. I always say Heishewu. So that's good to [00:59:00] know. Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: It's like famous for making your hair thick and darker. Because the 

Dr. Brighten: man went into the woods and he came back and all his gray hair was gone and he looked so young. Yeah. And I was like. Sign me up.

You can't have it with alcohol, though. Yeah, a 

Dr. Crawford: lot of these herbs have cultural stories around them. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, yeah, that one's name is Black Haired Mr. Huh. Like, it's, it's like the guy who came out of the woods and he was like, this is my secret. I have really black hair. Yeah, totally, totally. You should all eat it.

If you 

Dr. Brighten: want thick hair, if you want to stop the gray. That's 

Dr. Crawford: a go to. Yeah, when we attach stories to medicines, they become easier to share. So uh, we were talking about tonics, and then we have herbs that reduce excess, and so these are things that are going to like, break down biofilm, that are going to promote a sweat with a lot of volatile oils.

That are going to Regulate gases throughout the body. Those would be called Chi movers. So Chi is gases like nitric oxide and hydrogen sulfide. And when you have pockets of Chi in your body that are built [01:00:00] up too much, you oftentimes get dysfunction in that area because that's 

Dr. Brighten: Chi 

Dr. Crawford: stagnation. Cause again, Goldilocks zone, you need to have enough Chi to make everything function.

It also has to be in the right places. And so if you have a lot of, uh, for example. Let's say I, I'm, uh, Pitching a baseball and I throw out my shoulder and it hurts and it swells up or I roll my ankle and it's red hot Swollen painful all the signs of acute inflammation. There's a lot of chi stuck there It's supposed to be because it's directing blood flow and fluid to accumulate there So that the healing process can healthfully take place But if it lingers too long, you want to use some chi moving herbs to kind of get that out.

Same way you would massage the fluid around. So what's 

Dr. Brighten: like a chi moving herb? 

Dr. Crawford: Oh, citrus peel, uh, Aucklandia. Uh, one that everybody is going to know is going to be, um, Cardamom can move qi, um, 

Dr. Brighten: [01:01:00] Maybe that's why I love cardamom in my coffee. Cardamom 

Dr. Crawford: is more of an aromatic, I guess, but it's, there are a lot of herbs that will regulate qi production, but it takes a little qi.

to move to. So if you're, you have a patient who's really, really, really deficient, somebody who's, and you use, see tonics are generally used more in an older population. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. 

Dr. Crawford: People who are not producing as much nitric oxide themselves. People who um, oftentimes will be in a situation like um, Completely post menopausal.

Their body is not producing as many hormones as it used to, or as much of a quantity of hormones as it used to, and We can use tonics in that situation which have a hormonal like effect. Lingzhi, reishi mushroom, isn't quite in that category, but it's a nourishing herb. So it's one of those things that If you use it too much, it can cause problems.[01:02:00] 

Most of you who are drinking mushroom coffee at home are not really getting a therapeutic dose of it. 

Dr. Brighten: And 

Dr. Crawford: the quality is probably not that great, so you don't have to worry about it. 

Dr. Brighten: True story. But, 

Dr. Crawford: um, but no, eat culinary mushrooms. Like, go to the grocery store and buy a Shiitake. Shiitakes, buttons, cookware.

Criminies, portobellos, uh, if you can get them, um, the edible wild mushrooms, chanterelles, lobster mushrooms, hen of the woods, chicken of the woods, um, what is the thing that, the 

Dr. Brighten: Lion's mane. 

Dr. Crawford: Lion's mane, and then there's one that, um, it looks like this cascade of icicles. It's called like a, uh, bear's head tooth or something.

I can't remember what it's called. I can't 

Dr. Brighten: remember what that one is, but I know what you're talking about. That one's hard to come by. 

Dr. Crawford: It's delicious if you can ever find it. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. Uh, Lion's Mane is not something that people can eat daily. 

Dr. Crawford: Uh, Lion's Mane is, is, it's a 

Dr. Brighten: tonic. 

Dr. Crawford: It's probably not as nutritious as other things.[01:03:00] 

I think the, again, I think most people are taking Lion's Mane because of the marketing. I'll say it like that. I don't, I don't think it does everything that it's supposed, that it's Purported to do for most people. I'm a lion's mane 

Dr. Brighten: fan. 

Dr. Crawford: Are you? 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. Well, I love making lion's mane frittatas Really? Yeah, like tacos.

Oh, so you're like cutting it up 

Dr. Crawford: and cooking it Yeah, you're getting so much more in doing that than you would with a supplement. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. Yeah, so that I mean I use the tinctures It's something that I've used them for is, uh, in my patients with SIBO that have diminished bowel sounds. I will use Lion's Mane in them to try to help with the nervous system.

Interesting. Because we've seen it help with neuro, uh, gen, uh, nervous system tissue, so regenerating tissue in diabetics who have, like, neuropathies. And so it's something that I employed with people who have diminished bowel sounds. And it's, uh, 

Dr. Crawford: I'm going to go look into that. That's fascinating. That would make sense that if it promotes neurogenesis in the brain, it would do it in the gut as 

Dr. Brighten: well.

Dr. Crawford: Yeah, we use acaris for that. 

Dr. Brighten: Oh, interesting. 

Dr. Crawford: Yeah. Uh, yeah, [01:04:00] shichangpu, which is an aromatic herb, but it promotes regrowth of nerve tissue. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. Well, I love that. I love, I love like hearing this different perspective. Um, turkey tail. Thoughts on that? 

Dr. Crawford: Oh, turkey tail's a great one. Not so yummy. No, but it's 

Dr. Brighten: very bitter.

It's, 

Dr. Crawford: yeah, and um, and it's kind of woody, 

Dr. Brighten: but 

Dr. Crawford: uh, it's a little hard to chew, uh, but you can make it into a tea, I guess, if you find it wild. If you're, if you're watching at home and you're, If you're harvesting wild mushrooms, make sure you're getting the right species. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, don't go harvest wild mushrooms unless you go with a guide to really teach you.

I don't even think like field guides you should be taking a book out there and, and, and like take somebody who knows, who's really experienced in it. If you're in the Pacific Northwest where they grow, they're very easy to find guides because you get the wrong mushroom and it's game over. It'll make you 

Dr. Crawford: sick.

Yeah. Turkey tails, actually, I believe approved by the Japanese FDA for an adjunctive treatment Cancer therapy. 

Dr. Brighten: Interesting. So yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: [01:05:00] it's it's shown to improve outcomes so much that it's actually like I think even regulated by their pharmaceutical industry and and Probably paid for by their National Health Service.

Dr. Brighten: Wow. 

Dr. Crawford: Yeah, it's I could be wrong on that, but I know it it's Heavily heavily used in in Asia as a junctive treatment for patients going through cancer. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah If I don't ask you about menopausal tonics and specific ways to support menopause someone will come for me So i'm gonna ask that now. Yeah, okay 

Dr. Crawford: Uh, so for a lot of women in early perimenopause We're looking at formulas that are a little nourishing but mostly on the side of just kind of smoothing things out regulating Regulating hormones.

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: and the the cardinal formula for this is called xiaoyasan and it's a It's shown to be Um, actually superior to SSRIs for treating many, uh, mental emotional [01:06:00] issues. Yeah. 

Dr. Brighten: Which we know. In, in certain 

Dr. Crawford: contexts. 

Dr. Brighten: Perimenopause and menopause is peak depression, suicidal ideation, falling through on suicide.

Like, it is a very scary mental health time that we do not talk enough about. So that's good to know. 

Dr. Crawford: Yeah. Chagasan also has some chi movers. Mm hmm. It's like, uh, bupleurum is what I, I've, That's should have been the first thing that came to mind or before, but it's, it, it, it's, uh, something that is going to lift the mood.

Uh, it has a little bit of don't glide to, um, moisten the, the endocrine system and help produce, you know, regulate just gentle hormone production. Uh, it also has some, it has a mushroom in it called Poria. That's really great for draining dampness. And, uh, regulating digestion attract loads, and then a little bit of ginger and 

Dr. Brighten: licorice 

Dr. Crawford: and the combination of those herbs has been extensively studied for this.

So, uh, we, it's very commonly recommended in, in China, women often in early [01:07:00] perimenopause will not even go see a physician or an herbalist. They'll just start talking about it with their friends and family and someone will be just hand them the bottle of shy us on and say like, Hey, you know, You just go ahead.

You just take some of this every day for a while. Uh, it's safe to use long term. Later on, we'll get more into endocrinotonic kind of herbs. So Donggui will stay. We'll also bring in, um, things like, uh, Hushawu, things like, um, keep 

Dr. Brighten: your hair. Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Uh, we'll bring in things like Ramania, uh, which is a very, very moistening, very, very nutrient dense as an herb.

Can be harder to digest. So oftentimes people in China and Chinese medicine, people should know is when, when somebody writes a formula for you, it's creating a poem about your health, using the name of names of plants. 

Dr. Brighten: And 

Dr. Crawford: so. The herbs that are hard to digest will almost always be paired with herbs that make them easier to [01:08:00] digest or that improve digestive quality.

Herbs that are going to be very, very hot will oftentimes be paired with something that will either help you express a sweat to relieve that heat, or help you, or maybe a little bit cooling just to balance out the nature of the formula. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. So I. I want to go, I want to steer us back to the COVID conversation because you brought up fibromyalgia and I was like, Oh, but what I want to go back to because this is just linger.

I can't let this go. What can Chinese medicine teach us about handling a pandemic? Because you were like if we look back at the history. Yeah. Yeah. What, what could we have learned had we looked at, https: otter. ai

Dr. Crawford: Nuggets of wisdom that we can pull out of Chinese medicine history from doing this And I think

the first one that comes to [01:09:00] mind is that not all pandemics are the same. 

Dr. Brighten: No, 

Dr. Crawford: so we have different records of epidemics going through China at different points in history and having physicians gather and discuss these things and how they're seeing the Seeing these pandemics present and of course, they didn't have microscopes.

They didn't know like it was this virus, but they saw the effects and Based on those effects and Chinese medicine diagnostic criteria tongue pulse Symptoms all of these things they would determine. Oh, this is a hot disease. This is a cold disease This is a damp plague, which is what SARS CoV 2 was a damp plague.

I've heard you say 

Dr. Brighten: that. Yeah Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: and so they actually they did this for the first SARS back in 2000 and When was that, 2010, 2000? 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, it was, I thought it was 2012 for some reason. I think it is 2008, 2010, maybe earlier. 

Dr. Crawford: A decade or so ago. [01:10:00] They, they gathered physicians, they created treatment protocols and SARS at that point was on the verge of becoming a global pandemic, but they were able to control it and contain it very effectively.

And one of the things that contributed to that was the use of Chinese medicine. In Chinese hospitals. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: and retroactively they studied the patients who were given Chinese medicine versus Western medicine only in Chinese hospitals had a dramatically higher survival rate and better outcomes. 

Dr. Brighten: Why was that?

Dr. Crawford: Probably because they were, we know that When it comes to viruses, Western medicine doesn't really have that much. It has supportive therapies. It has IV hydration. It has steroids. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: It has antibiotics for secondary bacterial infections, which may or may not be appropriate, but it It doesn't really have, it has antivirals, but antiviral medicines are, I mean, anybody who studies these will, [01:11:00] will tell you they're not really that effective.

Dr. Brighten: They, 

Dr. Crawford: they, because viruses aren't really alive. They, they're a very primordial form of life that requires our own cells to reproduce. 

Dr. Brighten: Our DNA. Our DNA. They hijack our DNA, which is why we're like at least 1 percent virus. Walking around. All the time. Of a meat bag again. Yeah, and 

Dr. Crawford: there's a lot of people who think that viruses have contributed significantly towards animal and human life evolution.

Many of our traits that we have, many of the ways our immune system work, many of the ways that our cells have grown are because we survived viruses. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Forest fire analogy. But, uh, when you look at plant medicines, one of the ways that they work is that plants are evolving life forms, living in an environment that is hostile to them.

Dr. Brighten: Yes. 

Dr. Crawford: They develop, they, they don't really have the same kind of immune system that we have, but they have ways of surviving, ways of [01:12:00] surviving funguses. Ways of surviving viruses and when we eat those plants or drink teas made from those plants or tinctures made from those plants We get some of those Qualities and because many of those qualities are expressed not as a An activating immune system like we have, but as a phytochemical compound that they, that they develop to reduce a viral load.

When we eat those, we get that same compound and we get those same effects if we take them in the right dose at a good enough quality. So, plants have antiviral effects. That's the, that's the take home here. Or they can. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. And you were talking about what we could learn from Chinese medicine. So one is using the plant compounds to basically come in to help, you know, combat the virus in the best of our ability.

Are there other, like, in terms of keeping it from spreading, [01:13:00] rather than locking everyone down, like, are there other things that they have found to be effective? 

Dr. Crawford: So China has a history of doing something sort of like we do with vaccination now, where, and this is not universal, it's not been done everywhere, every time, but there are many, many examples of a plague affecting a certain population.

Town or region. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: And the doctors will formulate a, a plant medicine formula mm-hmm . That they find is effective for that, and they will brew a giant cauldron of it. 

Dr. Brighten: Yes. I love this . And everybody 

Dr. Crawford: comes and, and takes some, takes some ladles. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: And yes, it's not appropriate for everybody. Yes. There's gonna be some side effects.

Dr. Brighten: Mm-hmm . And 

Dr. Crawford: some adverse effects. But by and large. You're saving more people than you're, than are going to be hurt by the medicine. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: And you're protecting the population and keeping it from spreading because [01:14:00] people move around and are going to spread it to other people. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Um. 

Dr. Brighten: How could we really apply that to, in the U.

S. though? Because what happened, COVID was going on is that suddenly we weren't allowed to talk about anything. Right? Yeah. If you had a license. You are not allowed to talk about anything as a potential treatment, unless it was FDA approved, and that was for consumer protection. Part of me is like, that's lame, we all need to be sharing information, we need to be talking about it to, like, as practitioners to one another, helping each other out.

Then we saw people popping up being like, I have, take Astragalus, I have the cure for COVID, Oh, 

Dr. Crawford: that's, yeah. Yeah. So dangerous. Yeah. 

Dr. Brighten: I won't talk about why that's dangerous, but that, it was, it was so difficult because it was like, we weren't a lot, like the people who actually had medical license, who had experience, like we, we couldn't talk about things, like I couldn't even talk about what I was doing for myself without [01:15:00] Instagram completely shutting me down.

They're like, we're no shadowbanning people now. Here we are. They're like, we did shadowban. Yeah, actually. Yeah Um, just kidding that did happen because I was like, yeah I don't go from like talking about like I getting like 80 000 views on a story Then I say the c word and I end up with like less than a thousand views and then the next one's 80 000 I'm, like you totally shut that video out from people seeing it.

So and that's the thing. I just see Troubling about it is that, like, we couldn't do that in that way because there are people who are capitalists first and, uh, People 

Dr. Crawford: will say anything for a dollar. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: And, and unfortunately when you have, like, never in my life did I think I would be defending the actions of a, of a social media platform.

But when, I would like to think that they were trying to be responsible by saying nobody can talk about this because we know that some people are going to talk about this and hurt people. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: So just know, you know, it's like, this is why we can't have nice things. [01:16:00] But, but there is, there's a benefit to social media in terms of like, if somebody, if people start sharing stuff, that's actually really helpful in terms of like how to protect yourselves and your family.

Um, like we, things we know now that we could have learned from Chinese medicine early on was like, um, uh, damp conditions affect people more in certain climate regions. Sweat every day. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah 

Dr. Crawford: instead of everybody. Um, Learning to bake sourdough bread. We could have had some outdoor sauna building parties 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, but bro, have you seen the like science brigade out there?

Who's like hating on saunas and is like no Oh my god they're like Oh, you know because it's something like one influencer will blow it up and then they're like that means it has no Like legitimacy and it's overhyped and all this stuff and i'm like 

Dr. Crawford: so wrong You 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, it's so wrong. And how the hell are you going to [01:17:00] disrespect all of the cultures who've had sweat lodges and saunas all of this time?

Dr. Crawford: So science and tradition are different forms of evidence, but both are valid. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: both are valid and uh, Dalai Lama famously said about buddhism If science can disprove something that is a tenet of traditional buddhism science wins Like if we can prove with beyond a doubt that this is wrong Okay, we'll change our mind, but when you have a cultural practice that is globally universal that has been used for as long as, like, we die in the cold, we die if we catch on fire, but, but people have been building fires and congregating around fires because it feels good for a really long time.

And since we stole fire from the gods and started building it at night to cook food and, uh, Harvesting or harnessing that power for human health in a responsible way is something that we should be [01:18:00] sharing more and promoting more And and so it is hard like as I can't imagine the pressure that social media companies were under Why am I defending instagram?

But like they would 

Dr. Brighten: it was I mean it was hard. They had heavy government Influence and everybody was trying to walk the line at the time You 

Dr. Crawford: There are people saying that like potato juice will cure strep throat. 

Dr. Brighten: Oh my god, yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: No, it's not going to do that. And that'll kill, your kids will die from that.

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: yeah. Like, I can understand why, but at the same time, if there, if there was some way to accept, traditional medicines as legitimate and, I don't know, vet people with licenses or something to, I don't know what, how to do it. There's a lot of people that are not qualified to talk about this who have licenses in Western and Eastern medicines.

But they, if they just had, [01:19:00] community health is health. 

Dr. Brighten: And 

Dr. Crawford: so again, in China, you oftentimes don't go to the doctor first. You talk with a trusted relative first, you talk with your friends first, you go to the pharmacy and you ask the pharmacy tech who has maybe a high school education but has been working at the pharmacy for 30 years, seeing so many people come back and buy the same formula over and over again, they know what's going to work.

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: And if it, if, if it doesn't, then you go see the doctor, you get a prescription. 

Dr. Brighten: Interesting that you say this because I don't think this has ever clicked for me before until this moment. It's the same way in a lot of European countries. So France being one, you, I remember we, when we were living there, our son met with a pediatrician and the pediatrician was like telling us like, You don't bring your kid to the doctor like, like, like as much and he had done his residency in the U.

S. He's like, you don't, in France, people don't bring their kids here. You go to, you talk to a relative first or you talk to a pharmacist first. And in a lot of [01:20:00] ways, we have devalued traditional medicine. We have disempowered people, but we have set up a very capitalistic funnel. That is health care. 

Dr. Crawford: Very much so.

To 

Dr. Brighten: get people straight to the doctor. We've 

Dr. Crawford: put so many billions Barriers in the on the way to care so much 

Dr. Brighten: gatekeeping I mean, that's so much of why I'm doing this podcast because I'm like we're gonna end the gatekeeping We're gonna put medicine in people's hands doing it responsibly reminding them.

We're healthcare practitioners, but not theirs They still there's a time and a place to see a provider But also the stuff that keeps you out of the doctor's office is everything you do every single day. Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Yeah. Yeah, that's right It's everything you do every single day. And everything that you do is taking you towards health or away from it.

Same, same way that like if you wake up and scroll your phone for an hour, you're gonna feel like you're having a crappy day. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: If you wake up and go look outside and take some deep breaths and give your family a hug, it's gonna be a better day. 

Dr. Brighten: Totally. [01:21:00] Do some gratitude journaling in the morning.

Sure. What you're excited for. Get excited. Yeah. That's great. Think about your ritual, which is for most people coffee. How do you feel about coffee? I 

Dr. Crawford: love coffee. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay Okay, 

Dr. Crawford: we're talking about plant medicines. Yeah. Yeah coffee's a great one Like it the the flavor that is missing from most of our diets is bitter.

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. Yeah 

Dr. Crawford: Coffee's incredibly bitter. It's full of beneficial alkaloids, polyphenols, that the evidence on coffee, like four to six cups a day of weak black coffee, unfortunately, I'd rather drink less better coffee, but four to six cups a day of coffee is correlated with, not causative of, but correlated with many, many, many beneficial health outcomes.

Some of that's probably from drinking something hot in the morning, like warm water is great for your digestion. Uh, but coffee is. Not for everybody, but it's objectively good for most people, especially in the context of a very sweet, very rich diet, which is what most of us eat. 

Dr. Brighten: Four to six cups of coffee a day.

What health benefits do we [01:22:00] see with that? 

Dr. Crawford: Less diabetes, less stroke, less cardiovascular disease. Those are the ones I can remember. 

Dr. Brighten: Dr. Dale Bredesen uses it as part of his Alzheimer's protocol to help with reversal of Alzheimer's. Wow. Yeah, it's something that um, I had a major head injury back in 2016.

And after that, like, I just gravitated. I did a keto diet for six weeks to help, like, with ketone. Oh, it was the grossest thing. There came, became a point where I was like, I don't want to eat an avocado. I'm like, something's wrong with you. You don't want to eat an avocado. Like, I can't, I can't. And at that point, I was craving apples.

I'm like, respect your body. It knows what it's doing. Yeah. But I was waking up. I didn't want to eat food and I was drinking like four cups of black coffee and I was like that's not like me. But I'm a roll with whatever my body is wanting to do and then it was like eight months later I attended his talk and he was talking about healing brain disease and how important it is Start the day fasting four to six cups of black coffee.

And I was like, oh my god, like, okay Now I don't feel like a sinner [01:23:00] like right like the oh god I feel guilty because like I know that like maybe this isn't the best but like In fact, it probably was. 

Dr. Crawford: So the brain's an organ that needs to be washed and it cleans itself. All our organs have really well developed detoxification processes.

And part of the nature of being a multicellular organism is that we create waste and we have to get rid of it or it becomes toxic. And so in the brain, part of that is sleeping enough and, and then, um, uh, those adenosine receptors get cleared out. And then when you drink caffeine, it. Blocks them for a little while and so the Adenosine has to go somewhere else And I don't actually know where it goes, but I'm gonna assume out somewhere.

Yeah, it's probably not just floating around waiting to accumulate the especially if you're also moving which 400 to 600 milligrams of caffeine is probably going to not make you sit in a chair for a long time 

Dr. Brighten: What's adenosine for people to be on the same page [01:24:00] with you? 

Dr. Crawford: Oh, it's the chemical of fatigue for most of us fatigue as a symptom is Very broad sort of like anxiety as a symptom is very broad and can indicate many things But the the main reason that we wake up with energy and then go to sleep when we're tired Is because we accumulate adenosine throughout the day and coffee blocks the Ergo Any kind of caffeine will block adenosine receptors for a while until it wears off.

So the adenosine is there, but it's not Making you feel tired and then sleep actually washes adenosine off the receptors 

Dr. Brighten: I actually explained to my Son because he's he's 12. He wants to be in that like I just want to look at screens all day phase Oh, yeah, and i'm just like Your brain is literally pooping while you're looking at a screen because he'll, like, some of his schoolwork, it might be, but like, he'll, his schoolwork will be, like, typing on a computer and doing all that and then he'll think, oh, a break is I can watch TED Talk, like, which is like a great thing, arguably, to, like, learn on [01:25:00] TED Talk, but I'm like, You have to go outside, you have to get away from the screen, and I don't think most people are doing that enough in the day, as you talk about the, the waste that builds up.

Your break at work has to be something that's non screen related. So if you start your day, as you were saying, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and then you have to go to work and you sit there for eight hours on a screen, You're going to feel crappy because you got a bunch of waste in the brain. Can 

Dr. Crawford: I tie this to long COVID and fibromyalgia?

Yes. We're going 

Dr. Brighten: to go back to that too. Yes. 

Dr. Crawford: Can I tie this specifically to that? So, so, so those things are, uh, mostly damp based diseases and damp is a fluid metabolism issue. And when, uh, when we're talking about literal movement of fluid throughout the body, we've talked about, um, aquaporins and, um, Electrolytes, but what we haven't talked about are is the lymphatic system.

The brain has its own lymphatic system called the glymphatic system I don't know why they added the G on there, but it's there it is And it's like 

Dr. Brighten: [01:26:00] Glenda the Good Witch. It's always made me feel sparkly to say Glymphatic 

Dr. Crawford: system It does have a sparkle to it, that's true. Right? It's very glamorous. Yeah, it's the glammy lymph.

And so, uh, the best way that we can promote lymphatic movement, aside from sweating, which is good, like it's literal transit of water out of the body, and bowel movement, which everybody should be having one a day. Anybody who says that three bowel movements a day, or three bowel movements a week is enough, is not well informed.

But, um, 

Dr. Brighten: And ill. 

Dr. Crawford: Probably a little bit backed up. Yeah. The best way that we can promote fluid movement through the lymph is through, uh, mechanical movement, like just walking activates the pumps. And you get small muscles pumping throughout your body. You get water moving throughout your body. You don't even need to break a sweat.

You just need to get up out of the chair and walk 

Dr. Brighten: a little 

Dr. Crawford: bit. So if you wake up and you're in bed for an hour doing this. And then you meander over to an office [01:27:00] chair and you're, and you're sitting doing this for nine hours. And then you go sit on the couch and you're doing this for another two hours.

This is not enough movement. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. Do you recommend like balance boards, walking treadmill desks, standing desks, changing like 

Dr. Crawford: Anything. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Anything. Like the smallest, I recommend the smallest, simplest, most consistent things that people can do. Mm hmm. If that's putting a treadmill under your desk. Great.

If it's a balance board, great. If it's setting an alarm on your phone to get up and have a five minute dance party every 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: 53 minutes. Great. Just do what you can do. And for most people it it's it's just Making it a habit is the most important thing, rather than the what. 

Dr. Brighten: People who are disabled, because we talk a lot about like going for walks, treadmill desks, balance boards, people who are disabled, how can they move their lymph?

Dr. Crawford: Um, so, you mean [01:28:00] like in a wheelchair or people who can't walk? Yeah, quadriplegic, 

Dr. Brighten: paraplegic, yeah. Um, 

Dr. Crawford: uh, it's harder in that situation. Uh, sweating is probably a good idea. Um, uh, massage. Is really, really good. If you light massage, that's 

Dr. Brighten: how we move the limb. That's how we move 

Dr. Crawford: the limb. Uh, or just somebody articulating your joints for you, moving you around.

So if you can't move your own body, somebody moving your body for you 

Dr. Brighten: is 

Dr. Crawford: going to be helpful. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. I also like dry skin brushing. 

Dr. Crawford: Ooh, that is a good one. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, if you can do that yourself or if somebody can do that for you, especially like before you bathe. I think it just makes your skin feel great and then it reinforces doing it, but that's a great way to move the lymph too.

Astragalus. Okay. So people, I'm going back to it because they're probably like, whoa, we took off, no, we're coming back. You said that's a bad idea. COVID and Astragalus ain't going together. Okay. What's going on? 

Dr. Crawford: Context is important. Yes. Astragalus is a very powerful herb. It's one of my favorite herbs. It's not [01:29:00] for everybody to use all the time.

Dr. Brighten: Okay. Who should not use it? 

Dr. Crawford: People who already have excess dampness should not use astragalus. The easiest way to tell if you do is to go look at your tongue in the mirror. If it's really fat, if it has a lot of scallops on it, if it has a thick coating. Astragalus is not for you. 

Dr. Brighten: Thick white coating?

Dr. Crawford: Thick white or yellow coating. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. Oh god, yellow. Yeah. Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: especially thick white, thick yellow coating. Yeah, 

Dr. Brighten: yellow coating is definitely, that's a go to a doctor moment. Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: so thick, thick white coating means, um, overgrowth of usually pathogenic yeast and bacteria creating a excess biofilm that is in your digestive system, but it's reflected on the tongue.

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Yellow The yellow color indicates inflammation on top of that. So it's a more, we see more of what we would consider a hot bacterial and yeast species. Um, rumenococcus, things like that. Uh, the astragalus is a warm herb, so it's going to be slightly warming in that respect. It's a chi [01:30:00] tonic and it, and it, uh, in it boosts chi and fluid.

So it's going to increase nitric oxide. It also increases white blood cell production. And so it gets promoted a lot as something that you can use to prevent viruses from, uh, from affecting you because 

Dr. Brighten: Or boost your immune system. 

Dr. Crawford: Right. Which, as we know, that's like, that's not really a thing. No. That 

Dr. Brighten: would be a bad thing.

That would be a bad thing. If you have autoimmune disease especially. 

Dr. Crawford: Well, and with Astragalus, the traditional, uh, the traditional, uh, way to limit its use is that we say, If you take it while you have a virus, you can lock the thief in the 

Dr. Brighten: house. Okay, so what does that mean? 

Dr. Crawford: So, uh, viruses Like, imagine 

Dr. Brighten: me already doing this.

Dr. Crawford: So, the phenomenon of wind, as we've talked about, is oftentimes a viral attack. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Something that comes into your body from the outside. And the specific kind of qi that protects you from wind is called wei qi, which is like your, your City wall, your [01:31:00] outer protective layer against, against invaders and Astragalus really boosts Wei Qi a lot.

Dr. Brighten: Okay, so if it's already in you just boosted the fortress so that it can't get out. It 

Dr. Crawford: can't get out because the way that we get it out is sweating. So when you take a stragglers, your body is going to swell up a little bit. It's going to increase your water, your water retention. It's going to increase nitric oxide, which can be helpful, but nitric oxide can be, uh, while it is necessary.

If you have too much of it and it's not moving, you get problems, you get inflammation, and if you get that in the context of a virus that's still there, your immune system might. Not because it can't kick it out, but it's been activated and there's more white blood cells circulating. It's gonna look for somewhere else to go and that could turn into an autoimmune situation.

Dr. Brighten: Okay, interesting because you see [01:32:00] a lot of formulas out there will have astragalus in them for immune health. 

Dr. Crawford: Yep. And so the way we use astragalus is, one, if patients are qi deficient, like truly don't have enough qi, astragalus will help them survive. There are some situations in which case we will give them astragalus while they have a virus.

That needs to be done by a professional. That is not something that, uh, somebody who's not trained and has a lot of clinical experience should be, should be doing. Uh, because it can give them enough qi to survive. To push it out. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: but you got to be careful with that. You got to combine it with the right herbs.

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm

Dr. Crawford: I am NOT a chi deficient individual and I am prone to developing dampness and so I don't take a lot of astragalus, but I will take astragalus in certain situations like if I'm going to Go to a concert. 

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm, 

Dr. Crawford: and there's a lot of people around I'll take a little bit of astragalus In an astragalus [01:33:00] formula, I use what's called jade windscreen powder and, and it's bioactive for about four hours and it's giving you that protection for about four hours.

And then I'll make sure that I go sweat afterwards. Okay. I'll go do some cardio or I'll go hit the sauna. And it's a good thing to do anyway. What if you're 

Dr. Brighten: sweating at the conference, uh, concert, does that count? 

Dr. Crawford: Uh. Or 

Dr. Brighten: do it afterwards? 

Dr. Crawford: I would still do it afterwards. 

Dr. Brighten: I get pretty sweaty when I'm dancing.

Well, dancing is 

Dr. Crawford: cardio. Um, so if you boost your chi, 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Again, it's like the little kid. You gotta give it a job. You gotta give it a place to go. Yeah. Or it's gonna cause problems. So, if you, if you're, if you're being really physically active, that's good. Yeah. That's enough. Dancing's fine. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay, good to know.

Um, I want to talk about you, uh, if you could walk us through your stage one long haul protocol. Okay. Because you, uh, have, you've, you've worked with a lot of patients with long haulers. You were one of the first [01:34:00] people I came across who had just a really unique, Common sense kind of take like it made sense.

But then you also had all this research that you brought in behind it Yeah, I want to talk about that You know because I think there's a lot of people who are still struggling with long haulers and they have not gotten sufficient help 

Dr. Crawford: so so We break the treatment of chronic illnesses down into stages.

We're not trying to fix all things Right at once because long covid specifically can present in You Dozens of different ways and it could be endothelial dysfunction mitochondrial dysfunction. It could be uh, um an endocrine issue. It could be a brain problem like it could Chronic pain it pots all of it We start by making sure that one If you have lingering SARS CoV 2, it's, it's out of your system, and two, if you're, if you don't, but COVID created a reactivation of an [01:35:00] old virus like Epstein Barr, which is part of the long COVID picture for most people, that we're getting that back into remission.

And most of the time we use the same formula to do that. So the method is sweat. 

Dr. Brighten: Mm 

Dr. Crawford: hmm. And I will also teach people to do nasal humming. This is, boosts chi production, nitric oxide locally in the sinuses. This is one place where viruses love to linger. Anybody who's had a head cold that just hangs on for three weeks or feels brain foggy.

still producing a lot of phlegm. Uh, we'll teach them to hum and massage the lymph themselves 

Dr. Brighten: and 

Dr. Crawford: I'll have, and do a breath hold in between hums. So it's a deep breath into the upper chest and sinuses. So, so it's fill up your lungs with air, hold it usually for 30 to 60 seconds. If you can hold it that long, if you can't don't hold it that long and then breathe out in the hum and

you relax your [01:36:00] facial muscles and try and Relax enough that the hum spreads out and resonates through your whole head. You should feel it everywhere. It takes practice to do that. 

Dr. Brighten: You've brought up nitric oxide a few times before you keep going. Can you tell people what that is? You've defined it in the sense of chi, 

Dr. Crawford: but 

Dr. Brighten: in terms of how this is helping with viruses.

Dr. Crawford: Nitric oxide specifically is 

Dr. Brighten: antiviral, 

Dr. Crawford: so it is one of the things that can, uh, slay viruses. Uh, one of the few things that can slay viruses directly. And when it, when it's, it is a very hot substance. It's a very hot gas. Um, there are case studies of people using nasal humming, Exclusively to defeat bacterial and fungal sinus infections, as well as viral, 

Dr. Brighten: which are 

Dr. Crawford: some of, like, fungal sinus infections are some of the hardest infections to get rid of.

And people, there are case studies of people successfully [01:37:00] eradicating these exclusively from doing nasal humming. You have to do a lot of it. It's annoying. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, so you just did that practice for us. How many times would somebody do that? 

Dr. Crawford: I tell my patients to do it for 15 minutes, 4 times a day. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay.

That's like, that's not that much. It's actually doable. Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: it's an hour. You could 

Dr. Brighten: scroll social media while you do that if you really Oh, 

Dr. Crawford: please don't. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, but if you, I just imagine somebody with ADHD like, this is so boring after three minutes and my brain can't. 

Dr. Crawford: Yeah, I, I, I would suggest if they can't do it that long, I would suggest setting a timer for like one minute longer than they can do it.

And oftentimes that's Just enough external motivation to get somebody to focus on the goal. 

Dr. Brighten: And 

Dr. Crawford: so they're like, okay, I can only do it for three minutes. I'll set my timer for four. They can do it for four. They can, they're like, oh man, this is hard, but I can do it. The next time they set it for four minutes and 30 seconds and that, you know, you just gradually increase it.

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Or, put on a [01:38:00] show that's out here that you're watching, but it's hard to do that when you're humming because the, it rattles your ears a little bit, makes them itchy. 

Dr. Brighten: So, sweating. 

Dr. Crawford: Sweating. 

Dr. Brighten: Nasal. 

Dr. Crawford: Nasal humming. 

Dr. Brighten: Humming. For nitric oxide production. Lymph massage. 

Dr. Crawford: Lymphatic self massage. 

Dr. Brighten: Yes. And 

Dr. Crawford: then we use, uh, a combination of three formulas.

So, we're, the, the, the methodology here is, uh, we are addressing the most common ways. That COVID affects the body, long COVID presents in the body from three different angles. At the same time, we're working through the immune and lymphatic systems, uh, with a formula called Chao Chai Hu Tang. This is the safest, most commonly used formula for chronic lingering viral infections in China for the last 2000 years.

Um, There are others, there are other choices, but that's the most common one we use. In my clinic, we also combine it with a formula called sanrentang, three seed decoction, [01:39:00] which drains damp very effectively. Xiao Cai, who is really good at, uh, expressing lingering viral infections, we also want to get the damp out.

We use a digestive aid at the same time, because we know that excessive biofilm production here, and it's Many of these patients have a history of taking a lot of antibiotics, whether they were hospitalized or not. Many people have been, in my opinion, over prescribed antibiotics. Many people will tie their development of digestive fragility in whatever way that presents to taking antibiotics, and they just never got better.

Dr. Brighten: It's not just your opinion, by the way. There's plenty of research studies showing. I'm trying to speak gently. But even otitis media, like ear infections, I mean, it's been more than a decade that it has The take has been do not prescribe an antibiotic unless it reaches a certain point and yet we still see many clinicians reflexively are just like here's an antibiotic.

Why? Because it's a lot easier to get the mom from stopping bugging you. They're cherry 

Dr. Crawford: flavored. The kids will take it. [01:40:00] 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, cherry flavored. Ah, that's It's so bad. The bubble gum's like the worst. I was a kid that like had to have like antibiotics for like repeat strep throat and I look back at that and I'm like oh god.

I actually ended up Opting for just getting injections. And the doctor's like, are you sure you want injections? I'm like, I will do that over bubblegum, bubblegum stuff is so nasty. I did walk out regretting it, but I was still was like, we're done. 

Dr. Crawford: Um, and then the last thing we use is an herbal foot soak.

And a lot of people think, Oh, that's just nice and relaxing. I won't do it. And like, I've had so many patients where I tell them, I'm like, okay, this is what I want you to do. I want you to do the home. I want you to massage. I want you to, you know, do a massage. Take a freaking break from stop overworking.

Like that's a thing. Um, take these herbs and do this foot bath. And then I would 

Dr. Brighten: not want to do a foot bath. I mean, I guess it feels indulgent if you have a busy day, it takes 

Dr. Crawford: time, but you can watch TV while you do the foot bath. You can read a book. Um, uh, sometimes my wife and I will do a foot soak at home after the kids go to sleep.

That's the [01:41:00] only time we get to actually have, like, have a, Grown up conversation that doesn't get interrupted constantly. Um, so, you know, work it into your day, however you can, but there are herbs in the foot bath that you wouldn't necessarily want to take internally, but when you put them on through the skin, they have a really powerful effect.

Um, Do you remember COVID toes? 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: COVID toes were a thing. Um, micro clots after COVID. Yeah. Endothelial dysfunction after COVID. And 

Dr. Brighten: endothelial for people who are listening, we're talking about the blood vessels, the walls of the blood vessels. Yes. I realize we've said that several times and not told anybody what that is.

Yeah, it's the 

Dr. Crawford: inner lining of the blood vessels, uh, which is a place that a lot of chronic illnesses sort of develop there. And then, Neurological issues, brain fog in particular. And so the foot soak is putting these herbs into the skin from the feet up. So that they get in transdermally, they move through the skin, there's a lot of volatiles in there.

[01:42:00] And when they do that, they start to promote blood supply down into the legs and the feet. So they're breaking up clots, they're regulating heart rhythm and autonomic function. I will often give people a breathing exercise to do while they're doing the foot soak. Sometimes it's the nasal hum and the self massage.

And, uh, then they're doing that usually for two to four weeks. 

Dr. Brighten: What's, what are the herbs that you're using? 

Dr. Crawford: Uh, in the foot bath there, let's see. There's, there's nine herbs in the foot soak. I got to remember them. There's saffron root, acris, Tibetan saffron, uh, Tibetan rhodiola, um, notopterygium, which is one of those things that's like, It used to be reserved exclusively for the imperial family.

It's that precious of an herb. 

Dr. Brighten: Whoa, I thought Tibetan saffron would be the one. That's like 

Dr. Crawford: Also fairly rare. Uh, Lamia flammas, which is an herb that can only really be wild crafted. It's not something that [01:43:00] gets cultivated very easily. Uh, and the quality is very poor when it is. So you have to get it sustainably 

Dr. Brighten: wildcrafted 

Dr. Crawford: and how many is that?

Seven. Oh, ginger is in there and, um, mugwort. 

Dr. Brighten: Mm. Yeah, don't be taking mugwort. 

Dr. Crawford: Uh, not without, not without supervision. Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. Yeah. Um, so, uh, those things going through the skin, it's very safe to do through the skin as long as the water is, you know, under 115 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. Do you ever put Epsom salt in there?

Dr. Crawford: You can. Oh, that's the last ingredient is a Tibetan salt. It's called Karucha. It's this purple salt that they consider sacred. They use it in a lot of, uh, it just 

Dr. Brighten: sounds luxurious. It 

Dr. Crawford: smells a little sulfury, but it makes you feel like you're sitting in a, like a mountain hot spring. It's really nice. 

Dr. Brighten: Oh, that is really nice.

Do you like do you buy do you sell this? Can people buy like this foot soak online from you? 

Dr. Crawford: Yes. 

Dr. Brighten: Oh my god. Yeah, because i'm like sign me up. I this just sounds so indulgent. Um, but also i'll just wait until there's like [01:44:00] It doesn't sound like a thing you do all the time. Is it? 

Dr. Crawford: Uh, so the practice is prescribed.

Usually we prescribe it Have people do it daily for Uh three to six weeks and then if 

Dr. Brighten: they have long covid if they have something going on. Yeah You So I can't just be like, this just sounds nice. Um, 

Dr. Crawford: well, in Tibet, this practice is done as a preventative because it's a very, very cold region. Very, very damp.

So, 

Dr. Brighten: before you travel, maybe. 

Dr. Crawford: So, Like before 

Dr. Brighten: you get on a plane. Oh, 

Dr. Crawford: great idea. Yeah. Or after you get off the plane. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, yeah. If 

Dr. Crawford: you live in a cold, damp area, it's traditionally used to prevent and treat rheumatoid arthritis and many other kind of arthritic conditions. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: It's very useful for a lot of women's health.

conditions. It's very useful for very, uh, for dysmenorrhea. Uh, it's very, the blood moving action of the foot soak and the anti inflammatory action of the foot soak can help reduce a lot of that pain. Would 

Dr. Brighten: you do this on your period or before your period? 

Dr. Crawford: Usually we would do it before. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. And 

Dr. Crawford: then, um, It is [01:45:00] mostly a practice that is, uh, it can be done as a tonifying practice, mostly done reducing.

So most of the time when the period pain, when there are symptoms that are worse before prior to the menses starting, that's considered excess. And then, uh, if the symptoms are worse like day two or on, that's usually more of a deficiency condition. And so we would generally use the foot soak in the access presentation.

Dr. Brighten: Okay, interesting. I just wonder in the regard of endometriosis, if like, because women will typically get pain around ovulation and then, like, any time the estrogen goes up. Yeah. Because we, with estrogen, so for people, one theory is that estrogen rises, Histamine rises, histamine propagates more estrogen and now you've got, and, and histamine can be a neurotransmitter, but it also is coming from the immune system and it can make you just, it's why people get the period flu, where they're like, oh, right before my period.

What does Chinese medicine say about the period [01:46:00] flu? The 

Dr. Crawford: period flu? Um, usually that's a, that's an excess thing. And if you think of it in the context of like histamine or endo, like, endometriosis is literally like tissue growing, um, Abnormally where it shouldn't be. Very 

Dr. Brighten: excess. Yeah, a little extra. Yeah, and 

Dr. Crawford: um, I mean I saw a case study the other day of endometriosis and endometrioma in the eye.

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, yeah. Whoa. I know. People have found it in the shoulder. We had, uh, For people who are interested, we did a long session with Dr, uh, Ram Cabrera, and I will link to that. But yeah, he was talking about, you know, prognosis, if they find it in the lungs, like finding it, you know, just all over the body. And yet medicine, you know, conventional medicine, Western medicine is still so much about like, can you have a baby or not?

What's your reproductive capacity? It must only exist here in this little uterus and you're like, 

Dr. Crawford: yeah, 

Dr. Brighten: and you're like, and anyone with endometriosis will tell you, like. we're fatigued, we can get brain fog, like we have anxiety and [01:47:00] like pain happens, but also there's all these other symptoms. But you were saying it's an excess and so using this foot soak.

Dr. Crawford: Prior to the period. 

Dr. Brighten: Prior to the period. 

Dr. Crawford: Usually, yeah. Like into day one. 

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm. 

Dr. Crawford: And then you can also, you can do it ongoing. It's, it's pretty gentle. It's pretty safe to do. Yeah. During the menses as well. But if, uh, like if. Uh, if a woman patient is becoming anemic or something like that, we would, we would consider not moving a lot of blood right there.

Dr. Brighten: So with somebody with like adenomyosis, fibroids, uh, people who have really heavy clotty periods, this would be contraindicated because of the blood moving? 

Dr. Crawford: Not necessarily. You're 

Dr. Brighten: like, it's so nuanced. It is a little nuanced. 

Dr. Crawford: So, uh, a fibroid again is usually an excess presentation. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Um, uh, tissue growth where we wouldn't normally see tissue growth.

Um, I would say, so, blood deficiency is what we would call in most presentations. Every patient who gets diagnosed with anemia is going to be blood [01:48:00] deficient. Not every blood deficient patient is anemic, but if we have a blood deficient patient, or if we have, if you have an anemic patient, you would not recommend doing a lot of blood moving during that.

You would be giving them urge to help them build blood. 

Dr. Brighten: And what would that look like, building blood? 

Dr. Crawford: That's more of the, like, using Dongue and Romania, that kind of 

Dr. Brighten: thing. Okay, interesting. I want to keep going down. I've got more way more questions for you but you brought up the tongue and I'm like people are gonna want to know about tongue diagnosis post diagnosis because you were saying like This is how in China.

They were they were basically classifying these Diseases that were moving through populations, but and then you told people okay looking for scallops tongue What kind of things can people look for in their tongue? And like what is it suggestive up? Of course, this will not make them like a certified practitioner No, I think it is really but they might 

Dr. Crawford: be able to address their health on a day to day basis or help their friends and family By doing this and make it normal.

It's like hey, show me your tongue. Let's see what's going on So we talked about things like that [01:49:00] Thick coating. Yeah. That's not really ideal. Uh, the shape of the tongue, it shouldn't be too narrow and rigid. It also shouldn't be really wide and flabby. Mm-hmm . It should be happy middle. If you stick out your tongue and you notice that it's like coming out the sides of your mouth.

Yeah. Or it's got giant tooth mark scallops on it. Mm-hmm . That's excess water retention. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. 

Dr. Crawford: Uh, if you. Look at the tongue body and it's, it's very, very, very pale. That's usually blood deficiency. Oftentimes we'll see that in patients who are anemic. You can also check, um, under the eyelid. You can go look in there if you don't see like a healthy red kind of, you know, pink tint to that.

And palmar 

Dr. Brighten: creases. Yeah. Look at the creases of your hands. 

Dr. Crawford: There you go. Whenever 

Dr. Brighten: I check this on patients, they're like, why are you looking at this? And I'm like, because if you're telling me you have heavy periods. Like, I'm palm 

Dr. Crawford: reading. 

Dr. Brighten: I want to know what's, yeah, sometimes people are like, are you, yeah, are you palm reading?

But I'm like, I want to look for any conjunctival power, like any power, because I can start working on that before the CBC comes back. Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Um, yeah, there's things you can start right away. [01:50:00] And the tongue will show you a lot of that. So it'll show you the, uh, relative temperature. Like, um, if it's scarlet red, it'll show you blood circulation.

If it's like a really dark purple color, blood's not circulating very well. You can look at the sublingual veins underneath the tongue. If they're really, really dark purple, and if they're really, like, forked and veiny, that's, uh, Impaired blood circulation. That's what we call blood stasis. So, uh, oftentimes you'll see, um, in a women's health context, a lot of large clots 

Dr. Brighten: in 

Dr. Crawford: that kind of situation.

Dr. Brighten: Tip of the tongue being bright red. 

Dr. Crawford: Tip of the tongue being bright red. Okay. The tongue is broken up into geographical sections. We use thirds. So, uh, and, um, there is a scientific basis for this. Which is that the tongue grows, when we're an embryo, out of pharyngeal plates. And the pharyngeal plate that becomes the pelvis and lower body, becomes the, the posterior, the back third of the tongue.[01:51:00] 

The thorax and the abdomen becomes the middle. And the upper chest and head becomes the tip. Bright red tip of the tongue is reflective of, Chi rising that's heat going up which it tends to do and we oftentimes will see that in patients who have a lot of symptoms Between here and here and that's very often insomnia anxiety worry and overthinking Could be headaches or dizziness Inflammatory issues in the brain.

Do 

Dr. Brighten: you see a lot of this in perimenopausal women? 

Dr. Crawford: Oh Yes 

Dr. Brighten: Because his progesterone drops you are anxious. You are worrying your mind is racing 

Dr. Crawford: Sleep quality goes down. Yeah. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. And then, so talk to us if the back of the tongue is the pelvic area and below, what can people be looking for at the back of their tongue that could be suggestive of reproductive issues?

Dr. Crawford: So yang pathologies, which are hot, which are warming, tend to [01:52:00] rise. Yin pathologies, which are heavy, tend to rise. tend to sink. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. And 

Dr. Crawford: so that's going to be an accumulation of dampness, which is a yin pathology. It's something that has substance over time. So if you see like a very thick coating on the back of the tongue, you can assume, Oh, okay.

There's a lot of dampness in the lower body and that's oftentimes going to be represented in something like a fibroid, for example, fluid filled tissue. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. Interesting. And then what would it, how would it present if it was yang? Interesting. Okay. 

Dr. Crawford: Uh, you can have both at the same time. Of course. No 

Dr. Brighten: one ever said you could have one thing at a time.

The red 

Dr. Crawford: tip would be a more young pathology. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. Okay. That's interesting. And then in terms of pulse, like what are, what do you, you know, there's, there's three places that you read for the pulse. Tell us about those. 

Dr. Crawford: There's three, there's three positions on each wrist. So you have, um, uh, again, we were looking at it sort of geographically represented.

So we have, uh, the head and upper torso, the. Uh, thorax and abdomen [01:53:00] and then the pelvis and lower body and so and then on each wrist that's different organs so you have the heart liver and gallbladder and Left kidney. So 

Dr. Brighten: the left kidney left left hand, 

Dr. Crawford: correct? Yes, because 

Dr. Brighten: people watching in the camera, it's going to be reversed Yeah, right and then on 

Dr. Crawford: the right.

This is my right hand you have lungs Uh, main digestive organs like stomach and pancreas, spleen, that kind of thing. And then, um, the, uh, right kidney. Okay. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. So if you're listening to this, you definitely want to come watch this on YouTube because there's a lot that we're seeing. With COVID. How is COVID presenting with the pulse?

Dr. Crawford: In the pulse? 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: So, uh. Did I 

Dr. Brighten: ask a weird question? I mean, I don't know this. It's going to, 

Dr. Crawford: it's going to present a lot of different ways. Well, the first, my first thought when you asked was like, I see most of my COVID patients with telemedicine because I don't want to get sick, but that, um, the. 

Dr. Brighten: Fair. The, 

Dr. Crawford: so I don't take the pulse.

Um, uh, look at the tongue and that's really helpful. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. So what does the tongue look like? 

Dr. Crawford: [01:54:00] Well, Uh, the tongue tends to be swollen and, uh, wide bodied, a lot of scallops, a lot of very thick coating. 

Dr. Brighten: Uh, 

Dr. Crawford: we'll also see in later presentations of Long COVID when there's a lot of micro clotting or, uh, endothelial dysfunction is the word of the day.

We'll see a lot of the sublingual veins protruding. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, so it's like, and it looks like varicose veins under your tongue. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what it looks like. You take the tip of your tongue like you're trying to reach to your nose. Mm hmm. I don't know if you can do that, everybody. You can comment, let me know, and you can see.

There's people that definitely can do that, um, but you reach towards up there and you can see underneath your tongue. 

Dr. Crawford: When, when somebody has, and it will change in different presentations, of course, um, with the pulse, the, uh, In acute viral attacks, when somebody is like fighting a virus, they have a fever.

You're going to feel a lot of inflammation in the pulse. So you're going to feel a very rapid pulse. The heart rate goes up. You're going to feel a replete pulse. It's going to be, have a lot of heat to it. A lot of. Pounding quality. You're going to feel it up really superficially at the level [01:55:00] of the skin You can just rest your fingers on the skin without any pressure at all and you'll be able to feel a pulse there That's what we call a floating pulse And then as you press down you get more information depending on what's going on for the individual.

Dr. Brighten: Yeah Interesting. I love that. So with COVID, it can actually affect us at the DNA level. It's having a big impact on some people's longevity. Can you talk to us about that? 

Dr. Crawford: Yep. It has, uh, shown the potential to shorten telomeres. So, uh, tell 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. Good tells are I like, yeah. Tell what it's tel meres 

Dr. Crawford: are. Um, if you think of the, if you think of your string of DNA, if you remember that, you know, double helix, kind of long string picture.

Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park, right. or the, or The toy we all played with in high school is kind of a, yeah. Like the advanced slinky. Um, uh, the ends of it are like a shoelace where the, that little plastic sleeve has come off 

Dr. Brighten: mm-hmm . 

Dr. Crawford: And they start to fray. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: And. As [01:56:00] those fraying ends get shorter and shorter and shorter, basically our life expectancy goes down.

Dr. Brighten: Yes. 

Dr. Crawford: And, uh, COVID, acute COVID, shortens telomere length very significantly. So this is why we say it's really important that when you catch a virus, you do everything in your power, recover from it adequately, don't let it linger, because as long as it's sticking around with you, it's continuing to cause that kind of damage.

Dr. Brighten: Okay, so now that everybody is scared, what can we do? What can we do for our telomeres? 

Dr. Crawford: Don't work while sick. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. 

Dr. Crawford: Rest. 

Dr. Brighten: Right. 

Dr. Crawford: And then once you feel better, take one more day off of work. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. 

Dr. Crawford: And even if you don't feel like staying in bed all day, fold your laundry, 

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm. 

Dr. Crawford: Take a break, sip a cup of tea, take a nap.

Do really light work. Don't force yourself back into a [01:57:00] sympathetic dominant, go, go, go. I'm back at it. I got to catch up for the three days that I was laying down kind of situation. 

Dr. Brighten: What about exercise? 

Dr. Crawford: Mild. 

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm. 

Dr. Crawford: It's important to move. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: And when, when we're resting, we're not getting exercise, our body is still working very hard on the inside.

But when, when you can move again, you should, but you should engage in graduated exercise. Mm hmm. Low intensity exercise. The first day that you feel like you want to get back to work and hit the gym, you Go for a walk and when you feel tired or you start to break a sweat, maybe go to say, okay, that's enough.

Because you, at that point, you have used a lot of qi to fight off this virus. You are qi deficient temporarily. You might not need to take astragalus, although that is the kind, like if you want to take one dose, that's probably the time to do it because you're the most vulnerable then. But you. [01:58:00] Uh, take it easy and then graduate yourself.

Like if you're in if you're in your 40s like me You don't just go right back to a high intensity workout on the fourth day you you go for a walk and then you go for a longer walk and then You do some light resistance training and then you kind of work your way back up The 

Dr. Brighten: thing about being 40 is I think you're wiser and you've learned your lesson Let's hope so.

I mean I was I remember being in my 20s now the way that I earned money You Being in schools as a group fitness instructor and I got sick and I remember just like pushing it and pushing it Like, you know I I took a few days off then came back And I pushed it and I pushed it and I pushed it and before you knew it.

I really had like Like bronchitis. I was not infectious, but like I couldn't even keep working and I was like, well Now I can't even make money because I can't do any cardio. Like I can't even yell at people Like to do their job and like I just remember that one experience I think I was like, I don't know, maybe like 22 and I was like, never, never will I do that [01:59:00] again because I think people think like, you know, they, you know, as soon as they feel a little bit better, like just get back to it, everything's gonna be fine.

But really that's a, you take a step forward to take 20 steps back sometimes. 

Dr. Crawford: Yes. There's a saying in many traditional disciplines, whether you're, you know, Learning a new martial art or architecture or I'm learning to play the cello right now, and I don't sound very good But it's the saying is invest in loss invest in failure like it learn from it But you're investing your time and your effort into something that's going to help you in the long run.

It doesn't feel good right now 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, it's 

Dr. Crawford: really hard right now. And so for a lot of us, that's Take one more day off of work. 

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm. That can be hard. It 

Dr. Crawford: can be so hard 

Dr. Brighten: We have brought up pots several times in this conversation Can you define that for people and then I want to walk into that conversation.

Yeah 

Dr. Crawford: pots is a disautonomia [02:00:00] Autonomia, I don't know if I think it's caribbean caribbean. I think you can say it both ways, but Every i've been corrected for saying it. It's still a big 

Dr. Brighten: word. So explain it to people more 

Dr. Crawford: than three syllables So there's no wrong way to say it. There's it's um pots is a the symptom that most people get that defines POTS for them is dizziness when they stand up and then when they lie down their heart rate starts getting elevated or sit down sometimes.

And so it is very much a fluid metabolism issue where you're not getting water and blood pressure to regulate themselves. It's very much a gas regulation issue, because when your autonomic nervous system cannot regulate itself very well, you either get stuck in fight or flight inappropriately, or stuck in rest and digest inappropriately.

That's less common, although it does happen to a lot of people, and then they just feel like they're getting blamed for being lazy, when really they're like, I can't [02:01:00] go any faster. 

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm.

Dr. Crawford: As long as we've been talking about controversies in the medical industry and things that have been addressed, not very well during COVID, I would love to use pots as an example of this. People are seeing a cardiologist for POTS. I'm sure there are cardiologists who are doing excellent work with POTS.

The symptom, one of the symptoms of POTS is in the heart, and that's why this is happening. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: But cardiology is a heart study focused medicine, and POTS is a dysautonomia. It is a disease of the autonomic nervous system And so I have seen a lot of patients get prescribed beta blockers. Yeah for POTS When they are in their 20s and 30s And beta blockers are a wonderful class of medications for people who are in their 70s and 80s when they have elevated heart rate and [02:02:00] high blood pressure and they Are at severe risk of a cardiovascular incident Because beta blockers slow down the heart 

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm 

Dr. Crawford: When they're, younger people are in their 20s and 30s, beta blockers slow down the heart and it suppresses the symptom of tachycardia, but it makes them feel terrible.

Yeah. And it does not address the autonomic dysfunction. 

Dr. Brighten: So how do you address that? 

Dr. Crawford: Breathwork. 

Dr. Brighten: Back to the nasal humming? It 

Dr. Crawford: can be. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. 

Dr. Crawford: So nasal humming can be an appropriate first step. My favorite first step breathing exercise to give people who are dealing with a dysautonomia, like POTS, is a breath hold.

It will often make them feel dizzy, but the way that Chinese medicine looks at dysautonomias is if we, everybody knows the yin yang symbol, the, it's called a taiji, 

Dr. Brighten: and 

Dr. Crawford: so you have [02:03:00] the black fish with the white dot that's, that's going down, that's yin, and you have the white fish with the black dot that's going up, that's yang.

The, um, this very accurately represents the fight or flight and rest and digest aspects of our autonomic nervous system, parasympathetic and sympathetic. And, 

Dr. Brighten: and is it in terms of Yin and Yang? Yeah. Okay. 

Dr. Crawford: Yang is much more sympathetic. Uh, we are active, we are moving around, we are doing everything that we got to do during the day.

Yin is meditation, is sleep, is rest. Sitting still and being relaxed and we need to have a balance between these two things We also need to be able to change between those modes appropriately. You're being chased by a bear. You should be in sympathetic dominance when you are dealing with a dysautonomia these Phenomenon are not occurring at the right intervals and they're not They're not changing each [02:04:00] other and, uh, and moving from, you're not moving from yang to yin to, from yang to yin appropriately.

Mm hmm. So breath work is one of the best ways to regulate this. We call this qi gong. 

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm. 

Dr. Crawford: Which literally means like working with qi. Gong, like gong fu, kung fu just means like diligent hard work. Mm hmm. And so, and, and qi is qi. So you're just working with your qi. You're trying to You're not trying to force it to do anything.

You're just trying to get it to work appropriately on its own, which is Autonomic function. It's working in the background all the time. 

Dr. Brighten: When people think Qigong, I don't think they think breath I think they think like shaking and dropping on your heels and like 

Dr. Crawford: and it can be that 

Dr. Brighten: okay 

Dr. Crawford: But but it starts with the breath.

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm. 

Dr. Crawford: So Qi is gas. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: we are inhaling Oxygen and nitrogen and we are exhaling carbon dioxide and that gas exchange is the first step of regulating gas movement within our bodies. We also [02:05:00] have, um, gases in the bloodstream. We have gases coming out of our skin. We have, we, we respirate through our skin.

We, um, we have, um, Uh, a microbiome that is farting a little bit all the time. Yeah, 

Dr. Brighten: by the way, those farts, it's not you, it's your microbiome. Yeah, that's 

Dr. Crawford: it. Yeah, 

Dr. Brighten: that's 

Dr. Crawford: it. Instead of blaming the dog, blame your, blame your microbiome. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Uh, and so when dealing with POTS, we're looking at regulating breathing exercises.

So this is usually breath holds followed by sighing. So breath holds are, uh, breathing in and, and, uh, more than you breathe out. Sighing is breathing out more than you breathe in. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. 

Dr. Crawford: So, we're doing one until we cause just a little bit of symptoms, and then we're doing the other to relieve those symptoms.

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm. 

Dr. Crawford: And it's sort of like you're just getting the wheel spinning in the right direction. And you do it over and over and over again enough, and it regulates your stress response. It regulates your [02:06:00] immune response. It regulates your autonomic nervous response. 

Dr. Brighten: Anybody could do this then. 

Dr. Crawford: I have Not just 

Dr. Brighten: those with POTS.

I think we all need to regulate our stress response. 

Dr. Crawford: Absolutely. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: I've yet to see someone who didn't benefit from self regulation practice. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. Are you going to give us a demo? 

Dr. Crawford: Would you like me to? Yes, I do. So, so a breath hold. So, I'm going to sit in kind of a nice comfortable posture. So, um, the breath hold that I recommend people start with, if they can do it standing, I recommend to do it standing because, um, it's a little bit.

It's a little bit harder. It's a little bit stronger. We're in chairs. I'll do it sitting today So you're just gonna take in a deep breath and hold it as long as you can really and I'll usually recommend people try with 30 seconds and if they can do 30 really comfortably I'll say go for 60 seconds.

Okay, 

Dr. Brighten: and 

Dr. Crawford: if they Can't go that long. Some people start to get dizzy after five seconds And I'll say, okay, cool. Just relax your breath. Just breathe it out. Just try to [02:07:00] exhale without making a noise. And that's like a very natural, soft exhalation. And then you do it again and hold as long as you can, and then just gently let it out.

And I'll usually have people do that for five minutes to 10 minutes. And as they do this, they will oftentimes start to develop some of the. Excess symptoms of POTS. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. So what does that look like? 

Dr. Crawford: Dizziness. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. 

Dr. Crawford: Uh, not usually tachycardia but um, Dizziness very often when that starts to happen then I Have them lie down and then they start to sigh so and if they start to get tachycardia Uh, when they're lying down, sighing will often help to relieve it.

So, um, they can take a deep breath in and then. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. So not like, uh, no, I mean, you 

Dr. Crawford: could, you can, [02:08:00] 

Dr. Brighten: you 

Dr. Crawford: can make that sound too. 

Dr. Brighten: I sounded like from the Goonies. A strong, forceful exhale. 

Dr. Crawford: Um, if they don't have time for this, and I'll have them do that for 5 to 10 minutes as well. And then, because they've been moving a lot of qi, and it takes qi to move qi, they'll usually need to rest.

And so I have them rest for 2 minutes, 5 minutes. 

Dr. Brighten: And then they 

Dr. Crawford: can get up and do whatever they want to do. And they do this like 3 times a day, something like that. And it trains the autonomic nervous system how to respond appropriately to this kind of intentional stimuli. 

Dr. Brighten: If 

Dr. Crawford: they don't have time for that, Or if they are, say, driving a car, which is a sympathetic dominant activity, and that triggers a flare of POTS, or they're just out in the world doing something, I'll have them do box breathing, which is usually a four second inhale, a four second hold, a four second exhale, and a four second hold.

And so then you get, this is just a complete regulation of, you know, that kind of thing. 

Dr. Brighten: That's [02:09:00] fantastic. You know, when I Was recovering from, uh, long COVID and POTS. I noticed, so we had a pool at our house and what I noticed is that if I, I was getting in the pool, going underwater, holding my breath and just moving through there, that it was helping regulate me.

And then I was like, you know, what if I focus on my breathing by putting on my snorkeling mask? Oh, interesting. Yeah. And so I started doing that and it helped so much. Now we were still during lockdown, so I couldn't like go out in the ocean, but I would just. Get in my pool and go in the water and just like hunker down and just focus on my breathing like through a tube and I like I think also just being in the water, my pool is a saline pool like and a bit of the buoyancy, just everything like that, my body feeling weightless in that moment while I could just focus on breathing.

Helped my nervous system be like it's cool. You guys we don't have to strain here Yeah so it's really interesting to hear you using breath because I was explaining it to people and I'm like, you know, I've not [02:10:00] seen any science about recovering from Breathing through a snorkeling tube, but it absolutely helped and then after when they finally, you know Opened everything up and then I was able to go out and snorkel It was crazy because I couldn't lift weights.

I could barely go for walks, but I can get in the water In the ocean and breathe and snorkel and not have tachycardia. 

Dr. Crawford: Yeah, um, one of the other things that I don't think is, again, we're addressing these from multifactorial, these are multifactorial illnesses, there are multiple causes and so we're addressing them from multiple angles.

And one of the side benefits to doing breathing exercises, whether they're intentional or not, is it's getting you to breathe more. 

Dr. Brighten: And 

Dr. Crawford: so as a consequence of being ill for a long time, most people become sedentary, and we've talked about the benefits of moving. But one of the things that we don't do when we're sedentary is breathe.

We breathe less. We breathe less frequently. We breathe less deep. And so doing [02:11:00] any kind of breath work, like, can you hurt yourself with the wrong kind of breath work? Yes. Are you likely to? Not really. Unless you're, you know, doing really heavy, you know, like, uh, we call it the huff and puff while you're operating a motor vehicle, like, you know, don't, you know, take this to extremes, but for the most part, people are going to get a benefit from just breathing more.

Dr. Brighten: Mm hmm. Yeah, I know. It's something that I think, when you talk to patients about this, I've seen, I'm sure you've seen this, I've seen this, you talk to patients about this, and they'll, they're not even aware that while they're in the office, they're very shallow breathing, retelling what's usually been a traumatic history of feeling ill, being dismissed, like all of those things, and when you just bring attention to that, you can watch their entire posture, everything about them shifts when they just become aware of how they're breathing.

Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Yeah That's something we can use diagnostically as clinicians [02:12:00] as well as noticing when are when are our patients holding their breath? When are they sighing a lot? 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: that's their body trying to regulate itself and so if we can take that natural inclination and give them breathing exercises to do that promote that or Give them medicines that move their bodies gases in the same direction We're usually getting them to move the right way towards health You 

Dr. Brighten: I want to talk about sweating.

Because we brought this up several times and we've talked about saunas, sweat lodges, all of that. How are you using sweating in terms of preventative of like day to day health with people? And then in contrast, how are you using it when people are ill? 

Dr. Crawford: When people are ill, I'm a little more cautious with it.

Like sweating at the very first sign of illness is usually a great idea because you can sometimes like Like you were talking about sweat it out and then you're just better the next day You can also use it for people who have a lingering illness to really [02:13:00] activate the immune system and get get the body working more Let's just say more better The um, uh when people are chronically ill I usually like them to engage in light sweating.

So just like low intensity exercise Low intensity sauna just enough or foot soak just enough get the pores to open Yeah and water to move just a little bit, but you don't want to be dripping Sweat buckets passing out on the floor making a snow angel out of sweat. Like you should be Uh, just getting fluid to move is the is the right direction And then as your body's strength increases as your resiliency increases do it a little bit more 

Dr. Brighten: And then what about just for like everyday average individual going about life?

Dr. Crawford: Uh, most healthy people should be sweating every day. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. 

Dr. Crawford: Just once is enough. If you miss a day, it's not the end of the world. Uh, take a rest when you need a [02:14:00] rest. But, um, get enough physical exercise or use a sauna that you break a sweat every day. 

Dr. Brighten: And how do you like prescribe sauna? Like how do you use it?

Because you know, there's studies that are like, Oh, you know up to 40 minutes or four times a week and I'm just wondering from Chinese medicine perspective There's the science and then there's the tradition. Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: the the tradition is generally So you were going to modify it based on what the patient needs.

There's no one prescription. That's right for everybody for people who are more qi deficient We're going to recommend very shorter durations sometimes for people who are extremely cheat efficient. We won't recommend they sweat at all We'll recommend they warm their body until just before they would sweat.

Dr. Brighten: Okay, 

Dr. Crawford: that's unusual Usually would warm the body until you break a sweat and then you're good. You got water to move. That's enough Take a break. Don't don't overexert yourself because sweating is exertive. Yeah for people who are basically healthy Um, you know 40 minutes is fine if they tolerate it well hydrate 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, [02:15:00] definitely.

Get some 

Dr. Crawford: electrolytes. Do the electrolytes. 

Dr. Brighten: Cold plunges. A lot of people are chasing you sweating with cold plunges. Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: I think the rule of thumb with that is if you feel like Your health is improved from it. If you feel like the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, it's, it's, if you're overall fairly resilient, it's, it's pretty good.

It seems to help with like recovery from exercise and injury. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Um, I don't like people putting ice on their skin like ice packs on injured areas for long periods of time. I think that promotes Arthritis, actually, I think it promotes. Okay Chronic joint pain because it's reducing blood flow to the area.

I like heat but I think Contrast therapy like getting really hot and then doing a really cold thing and then getting really hot again. I think that's great It's like a massage. You're getting some pressure. You're getting some traction. You're getting some pressure. You're getting some traction. 

Dr. Brighten: What about Women who are postpartum, pregnant, [02:16:00] uh, on their period.

What's Chinese medicine say about cold? 

Dr. Crawford: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for asking. None. 

Dr. Brighten: No cold. Don't do 

Dr. Crawford: that. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Yeah. So, uh, postpartum women are extremely qi and blood deficient. It takes a lot of qi and a lot of blood. To build another human. Yeah, and then to express it from your body or to go through major surgery to have it removed Yeah, either any way the baby comes out It's hard.

It's work. Yeah, it's work and and um, uh, there's a huge huge practice in many cultural traditions of um, Uh, letting the mother rest. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: sometimes making the mother rest 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah 

Dr. Crawford: with Family and friends support. So some of this extends to like the mom doesn't bathe for three weeks or the baby never touches the ground.

Like, you know, somebody's carrying the baby at all times, but a lot of it is like someone's making your food. Someone's doing your laundry. [02:17:00] Someone's giving you a little bath in your bed, like a sponge bath or something like that. Um, but you're not exposed to the cold, 

Dr. Brighten: you know, like every culture except U.

S. culture does this. 

Dr. Crawford: Everyone I've ever seen like, yeah, I mean, or at least has like maternity leave built into the national health care. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, when I had my kids, I had just had freight freezer meals and I froze them in a way. So very warming foods. And lots of different herbs that went into that and froze everything in a way.

So it was like a little library in there because I was like, there is no one to come and to cook. Like we didn't have that, that kind of support, but I always adhere to the like 30 days minimum. Because that's my culture as well of like 30 days. The feet don't touch the floor. Like, I'm not gonna use the bedpan.

I go to the bathroom. That's a little bit much, but like, but you know, basically staying in the house, staying and then it was the same thing with our children. You know, in [02:18:00] terms of like, you know, initially they, Not on the ground, but they're like always with you. Someone's always holding them. It's what people call what gentle parenting now or attachment parenting.

What's the word? I remember I was living in Berkeley and still carrying a two year old in a pack on my back. People were like, Oh, you're an attachment parent. No, like I don't know. This is just, Like, what I've seen a lot of cultures do, it seems to make sense, but sure. 

Dr. Crawford: I, I think it, I think it's that. I think it comes from sharing your microbiome with your baby.

Oh, yeah. And the family's microbiome with the baby. Mm hmm. Um, because it's not just the mom that's carrying it. There should be a lot of aunties, uncles, like, you know, the dad, like, older siblings. Say more about that, 

Dr. Brighten: because there are people who will be like, I'm not letting anyone see my baby for the first three months because I don't want them to get sick.

Dr. Crawford: Well, the baby has a developing immune system. Mm hmm. And so, um, Not letting anybody who's sick into your house when you have a newborn is probably a pretty good idea. 

Dr. Brighten: Absolutely, that's a hard line. Um, 

Dr. Crawford: not letting anybody see the baby I think is probably a little too extreme. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. 

Dr. Crawford: If you're during a pandemic, 

Dr. Brighten: [02:19:00] Yeah.

Dr. Crawford: You know, like, you're taking more precautions. Totally, that's a different case. So 

Dr. Brighten: people who are like, I don't want anyone to come into my house for the first three months my baby's born, why is isolating a baby not Maybe in the best interest of baby's microbiome health. 

Dr. Crawford: Because the child has a developing immune system and the microbiome is a big part of that.

Okay. One of the things, one of the things, we don't know a lot about specific aspects of the microbiome and how they convey health to humans. But, one of the things we do know is that a diverse microbiome, is important. Diversity is, is diverse biomes are more resilient than sterile biomes. Monocropping is not the best way to support agriculture.

And so in a human, you want to inoculate the kid, I guess, with as many different other people's biomes as you can. Maybe not as many, but with many. Um, If you raise a child in a sterile environment, um, there, there is evidence that [02:20:00] points at higher incidence of food allergies and autoimmune issues and, uh, surrounding that child with other people or exposing the child, at least other people, letting other people hold your baby periodically, safe people, safe times and all that is probably healthy for the baby.

Dr. Brighten: I'm curious. You have two kids, right? 

Dr. Crawford: Yeah. 

Dr. Brighten: What did it look like for your wife postpartum? 

Dr. Crawford: Um, 

Dr. Brighten: you're like, oh i'm on the spot 

Dr. Crawford: It was really hard for us because we had a lot of conflicting information and we were new parents We didn't have a ton of support locally from extended family for long periods of time and We Tried to do the things that we thought were, would be the best, but ultimately we were just, I think too isolated and.

Yeah, I mean my it's my wife's story to tell [02:21:00] but she had postpartum depression and Our kids seem really healthy. So I think they're coming out Okay, that 

Dr. Brighten: speaks to the resiliency like we as humans are not very good at reproducing but we are very resilient once we are here Yeah, we're very resilient yeah, I'm just gonna say I appreciate you sharing that though because 

Dr. Crawford: I wish we would have had a larger community of people around us telling us what to do as new parents.

From a place of, this is what we know works, this is what we know is going to be healthy for you. Just, just do it. Like, relax. Because when it's just the two of us, I've got my education, but I have no experience as a parent. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: Um, she is. exhausted. Neither one of us are sleeping. It's hard to make good decisions.

Uh, you're just trying to function day to day. Uh, we were trying to run a clinic together at the [02:22:00] time. Um, we had people bringing food over occasionally, but mostly we're cooking our own meals. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: It's rough. 

Dr. Brighten: I appreciate you sharing this because I really thought I was going to ask this question and you're going to talk about like, Oh, I made sure that she had these herbal tonics and I made sure she'd like all of this stuff.

And you're like, it was hard. And I think that is so real because I hadn't been practicing that long when my son was born and trying to run, you know, you're, it. Until you've been practicing for like 10 years, it really feels like it's all like a new practice and it's like and you're running the business of things.

It was really hard and I look back and I, I think a lot of people feel this way. The mom my first child got versus the mom my second child got. Like I, my heart breaks for him that I'm like, I mean, he's really awesome. So I'm like, well, maybe this is the way it had to go. But like, it is something where I'm like, God, there's so much I think you wish you knew.

Yeah. Yeah. Back when you when they were born. 

Dr. Crawford: [02:23:00] So one of the things that I like to talk about in my social media content is how um There's no such thing as a free lunch. You never get something Just as a pure benefit and you never get something just as a pure evil And so mostly i've talked about this in the context of like we don't have famine anymore in most nations as a result of production We have it as a result of poor distribution of food, but we don't You We don't have famine because we have years that crops just don't grow.

That's new. The things we've traded to get that is probably food quality. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: And um, I won't go into all of that, but in terms of, um, having babies and, um, we, we don't have,

we have dramatically less infant and child mortality than we used to have. We have lower birth rates in the United States than we [02:24:00] used to have. Um, because there's not as much pressure to have a lot of kids. Yeah. We have 

Dr. Brighten: retirement plans instead of children. 

Dr. Crawford: We hope so. Um, we, you know, We, um, but what we've traded for that is a lot of the community support and we think we can do it all ourselves 

Dr. Brighten: and we 

Dr. Crawford: can't.

And so

we're also really resilient as humans. And, um, humans, uh, the story of every person who's alive today, if you look back at all the generations that came before you, is people who survived a lot of terrible things. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: War, trauma, famine, disease. And uh, we wouldn't be here today if not for them. And we can survive a lot.

It's not necessarily good for us. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: But, um, kids who are brought [02:25:00] up, you know, like our kids are getting raised in a, in In a society where like, we didn't have all the community support for them that we needed, that they needed. But, um, they did get a lot of attention from mom and dad that other kids might not have had.

And for better or for worse, I'm not saying this is better. I, um, it's just a thing and it's, it's not, it's one of those things where we don't, we don't really know the consequences now. We will know them in a few generations. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. I, I agree. You know, I've spoken with people who talk about how the United States is such a rich country and how rich they are and I try to explain to people how community poor we are, how so many of us are taught to be individuals, to isolate, to, you know, have only the nuclear family, the multi generational family is something to be mocked.

I mean, In many countries, you have children that live in the house [02:26:00] until, you know, their 20s, their 30s, even when they get married, their wife will move into the house and it's so that they can set them up and then things, you know, set them up for success later in life and then things shift and, um, then you're taking care of your parents.

And so, you know, when I look at how A lot of societies who have thrived, who have lower rates of postpartum depression, who have, uh, who have people who want to have multiple children, I mean, I think in the U. S. when people, you know, they talk about how like the birth rate is so low and And, you know, there's a lot of reasons, but I think something that often gets glazed over is the fact that I would have probably had four children had I had the support to have four children, and that was from somebody who, up until I was 30, thought I would have zero children, was like, no, I'm not going to have children, like, it's not It's too, it's too hard, it's too much, all these things.

And so I look at that and I'm like, there probably wouldn't be a birth problem not with me and women who are like me who, you know, would have had more children, but there wasn't the [02:27:00] support. It wasn't possible. Like, even if I was a stay at home mom, shout out to every stay at home mom because that is the key.

Hardest job in the world. Um, I think about like how I just I just I don't even think I could possibly do it I'm like, how did they do it? They're like it's seriously Those are like the CEOs of the world 

Dr. Crawford: because in most societies where you where there are more women functioning as stay at home mom They are in a community of other moms 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: and there is not just one mom and two to four kids.

It is All the moms in the community or many moms in the community and many kids. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: and everybody's just You're hanging out. You're working together. Some people are cooking. Some people are cleaning some people are, you know, holding a baby Some people are you know? Navigating a toddler conflict like over a toy, but there's There's a lot more people and it doesn't feel like the burden is on you as the only adult in the room and [02:28:00] It's, raising kids is hard.

It takes a lot of adults to do it. 

Dr. Brighten: It really, it really is hard. And at this point, you also, if you don't have the community, you have to hire the community. And that is something that we learned very quick, having a child, just how expensive having a child is when you don't have the community. And I'm like, you can't tell me this isn't a rigged system to make.

to help the economy to be more profitable and When you look now in the united states people are paying more than their mortgage for child care. 

Dr. Crawford: It's insane 

Dr. Brighten: Why would people want to have more kids? Like why would they want to do that? Because what they're staring down is poverty or being one Paycheck away from being homeless.

There's no safety net 

Dr. Crawford: there. Yeah, you're either guaranteed isolation and depression and mental emotional fatigue Exhaustion or you're guaranteed poverty Yeah Why have a kid? 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: like, 

Dr. Brighten: yeah. Well, they are awesome. I do love my kids. But it is, you know, when you're faced with those choices, [02:29:00] it's, it's very hard to see.

So these took the unexpected tangent. I actually didn't think we were going to talk about this. I didn't think we were either. I know, but I, you started going there and I was like, this is actually, I think, something a lot of people resonate with. 

Dr. Crawford: You can't separate Chinese medicine from Chinese culture.

You can't. And one of the things that. Chinese culture does really well is, uh, it's a collectivist culture. It's a very family oriented culture. Yeah. And, um, it's, it's so, so different from the U. S. in terms of how people act around kids. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: It's not like other people's kids. You don't talk to your, you don't talk to them.

Dr. Brighten: I got so much to say about that. I'm like, oh my god. So like say it because uh, it's really interesting So we've traveled a lot. Um, and so my toddler at one point we spent like five months in europe with him Um, and nowhere did anyone side eye us or say [02:30:00] anything mean about him because he was like one Okay, he's like turns a toddler and you know, they find their voice that they can scream.

Yeah, this becomes a thing Yeah in spain first everybody's just like giggling. Everybody's just like yeah, you do you kid like whatever in france I thought the french were gonna be like so I was like, they're not gonna tolerate this Nope, they're just like the waiters are like, what can I do to help like jumping in?

We were on the metro And the only person in that entire time who turns around and says like, you know, your kid needs to shut up is an American woman. I will tell you, do not mess with the French. Oh my God. Did they 

Dr. Crawford: pounce on the American woman? They 

Dr. Brighten: were like, they were cussing at her, being like, you turn around, you shut your mouth, you shut, like, I was like, oh, but it is such a contrast when people are like, I could never travel with my kids.

I'm like, leave the U. S. And you will see. How much people love children, how much they love them. They don't complain on planes about children. Like they respect that this is a small human. 

Dr. Crawford: I mean, like the [02:31:00] waiter, you know, sees a small child screaming. It's like, Oh, is he hungry? Do you, can I, let me just bring some food to the table.

But like, I'm sorry, your, your child is disturbing our other patrons and guests. Will you, will you please, uh, do something about that? 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, no, but that, that time on the metro, I felt I'll like, Felt bad for that woman because I like literally like there was just like a pack of I 

Dr. Crawford: hope she felt bad about baby 

Dr. Brighten: defenders I changed her behavior.

I also was like she's an older woman I'm, like maybe this is like her one trip to paris for her whole lifetime Like I felt bad for her, but then I was also like don't tell a baby to shut up. Like you're an 

Dr. Crawford: adult Maybe the baby has a toothache. Maybe the baby's exhausted and can't sleep. Yeah, like 

Dr. Brighten: he was just excited Excited.

He's on a train. Yeah, how novel is that? Yeah. Well, I wanted to I want to talk about some readers readers listeners questions readers Uh, but I wanna there was some listeners questions. Uh, one was about chinese medicine [02:32:00] helping with adenomyosis And I feel like we touched on that a little bit but just you know from your perspective adenomyosis, like that, I would assume is like a damp stagnation kind of situation.

Dr. Crawford: Usually presents that way. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: So we're looking at formulas that are going to, um, help with fluid accumulation and, um, we're going to look at floor formulas that are going to help with reducing some of the inflammatory component of that. Um, we would call it clearing heat or moving blood. Um, and it's, yeah, it's, it's one of those conditions where it's something that you can manage it.

Um, and you can really help and usually, hopefully, you can get patients to a place where they don't need to take herbs forever. But it's a long term treatment. It's not, you don't just take one pill and you're just better. 

Dr. Brighten: The best conventional medicine often offers is stay on the birth control pill until you're ready for a hysterectomy because unless, if it's diffuse adenomyosis, if it's focal and they can excise it, that's different, but that doesn't mean it won't come [02:33:00] back.

Dr. Crawford: And, yeah, and I mean,

there's a time and a place for everything. 

Dr. Brighten: Absolutely. And there 

Dr. Crawford: are, there are definitely some women who are in a situation where that is the best solution for them. Is it the best solution that exists? Probably not. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: But if that's what makes, if that's what gets you through, okay. But 

Dr. Brighten: yeah, my point in bringing that up is that like you're saying like, Oh, this is a longterm treatment.

And it's like, even the birth control pill is something that you'll be expected to stay on lifelong. Stay on longterm. Yeah. It is a longterm treatment, but if you can use something that. gets you to a place where you don't have to have a hysterectomy. There is absolutely a time and a place and I absolutely have patients who are like, best thing I ever did, wish I did it sooner with the hysterectomy.

And yet there are situations where someone has a hysterectomy, they go into menopause sooner, they feel awful the whole time and that's not having an oophorectomy, their ovary is removed, just the hysterectomy. If it's not done correctly, it can [02:34:00] put you into menopause sooner. And there are women who are like, You know, I ended up having prolapse.

I had all these problems. I wish I never did it. And that's where I always wish we had a conversation about all the options that are available for that case Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: and in a more mature integrative medical system, I think we would do that. 

Dr. Brighten: Absolutely. There's actually um, Dr Laura Shaheen who I am interviewing You would, you would totally jive with her.

She's a reproductive endocrinologist who very much respects Chinese medicine in terms of fertility. She's in Seattle, uh, for anyone who wants an integrative reproductive endocrinologist. I'm like, you're in Corvallis, correct? 

Dr. Crawford: Uh, McMinnville. McMinnville! Close to Corvallis, yeah. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah, yeah. So like, it's, it's actually like pretty quick to get between the two.

Like, and you get, these are two great airports to go between, in case you want. In case, in case anyone's looking for that. Um, there was a question. How do I know if my husband's pseudogout is hot or cold? How do you figure that out? 

Dr. Crawford: Um, hot pseudogout is usually [02:35:00] hot. Like you 

Dr. Brighten: put your hand close to the joint and you 

Dr. Crawford: will tell, oh there's heat coming off of that.

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. Okay, that's pretty cut and dry. Yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: uh, cold pseudogout will usually look like a white area. Like it's just, 

Dr. Brighten: oh, it's blanched. 

Dr. Crawford: Yeah. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay, interesting. Uh, what are some tips to get the most out of an acupuncture treatment? 

Dr. Crawford: Uh, wow, that's a great question. Um, 

Dr. Brighten: I thought so. Get the most 

Dr. Crawford: out of an acupuncture treatment.

Don't drink caffeine right before your acupuncture. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. 

Dr. Crawford: Do have something to eat. Okay. Maybe an hour or so before, so your blood sugar isn't really low during acupuncture. Um, give yourself time after acupuncture to stay relaxed. Acupuncture, if it's done well, if it's for you, should put you in a pretty parasympathetic dominant state.

You should be feeling pretty yin afterwards, uh, and pretty relaxed. And sometimes we'll call it like, you know, oh, you're, you're, [02:36:00] you got the needle high. You know, and people are just like, I'm good. Don't get in your car and go right back to work, you know, relax. Ask the clinic if you can just hang out in the waiting room and read a magazine, not scroll your phone for a minute.

Or you walk to a park nearby and spend some time there, just reflect. 

Dr. Brighten: But, 

Dr. Crawford: uh, yeah, don't just get up and go. 

Dr. Brighten: You said acupuncture is one of the most overused aspects of Chinese medicine. In the 

Dr. Crawford: West. 

Dr. Brighten: In the West, you said that. Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: So if you look at how acupuncture is used in China, where it has existed for a very long time, and it's part of a very mature medical system, it's used for a very few specific things, and it's really effective for those.

It's really great for a lot of kinds of musculoskeletal pain. It's really great for neurological things like stroke recovery, migraine headache, neuropathy. It can be really useful in those kinds of situations. It's. Not a modality. It's a modality that can influence the body in [02:37:00] many, many ways, but it's not necessarily the most time and cost effective way of treating those things.

So when people come into my office and they're like, I really want to use acupuncture for stress reduction. I'll say, okay, let's talk about the cost. Sources of your stress and how do you how does stress manifest in your body? And what are you doing to manage it now? And if they need acupuncture to get them into parasympathetic Sympathetic dominance and walk out and be happy and then they're going to make changes in their life That are going to like help them go for a walk every day help that I'll teach them some breath work and have them do That 

Dr. Brighten: yeah, 

Dr. Crawford: that's fine If they, and if they want to, come get acupuncture every week for the rest of their life to manage their stress and they feel good doing that, okay, they can.

I think there's probably better ways to do it. 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. So, how do you know if a Chinese medicine provider is legit? What do you do? Should you look for? 

Dr. Crawford: You should look for. So kind of the bare [02:38:00] minimums are board certification from the NCCAOM. That means that they pass the national licensing board, uh, not licensing national, uh, board certification.

Um, and that's, that's a baseline for competence. Okay. Um, not all states accept that for licensure. I think California has their own proprietary board exam. And so in California they would want to pass the California boards, but then that and state licensure. And that's kind of the bare minimum. And then word of mouth is usually the best.

Who does your doctor know? Who, who do your friends go to? Um, do they specialize or have a lot of experience in the world of illness that you're dealing with? Most acupuncturists in the United States are functioning as general practitioners. They'll treat anybody who walks in. 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: And um, I wish that the profession were a little bit more mature in that respect because a lot, especially when you're working in the world of chronic illness, you should, you should know the story that your [02:39:00] patients are, have, are going to tell you.

And you should know the story that they're going to write going forward with treatment. How is this going to go? 

Dr. Brighten: Yeah. 

Dr. Crawford: When fibromyalgia patient, I usually know a lot about their history before I even see their intake because there's so many things in common. And I usually know how the treatment is going to progress through the different stages.

There's nuance for on both sides of that for everybody and personalized stuff, but for the most part We know how this is going to go beginning to end. 

Dr. Brighten: And you said you see people via telehealth? Are people able to meet with you? How can people find you? 

Dr. Crawford: Uh, they can find me on my socials, uh, Crawford underscore wellness on most platforms and Uh, website is Crawford wellness.

com 

Dr. Brighten: Okay. And can you meet with anybody in the States? 

Dr. Crawford: Yeah. Yeah, I can. Um, there's some limitations to what we can and can't do depending on where they are, but, um, I'll talk with anyone. 

Dr. Brighten: Awesome. 

Dr. Crawford: Yeah. 

Dr. Brighten: Well, thank you so much. This has been such an awesome conversation. There's so many great nuggets in here, and [02:40:00] I really appreciate you taking the time to share all of this with us.

Dr. Crawford: for having me.