Episode 150: Mental Health and the Gut! Don't miss this episode!
Jun 17, 2024
Jenni
Did you know the root of your anxiety or depression might be lurking in your gut? Join us as we confront the shortcomings of corporate medicine, which too often targets only symptoms like shoulder pain or digestive issues. We'll reveal how innovative treatments like shockwave therapy are revolutionizing physical therapy, and then shift our focus to the profound impact of gut health on mental wellness. Through an eye-opening case study, you'll see how a misdiagnosed autoimmune thyroid disorder, linked to poor gut health, was the real culprit behind a patient's depression. This episode is a wake-up call to treat the problem, not just the symptoms.
Ever felt your healthcare provider doesn't have the time or resources to get to the bottom of your health issues? We explore the limitations of insurance-covered healthcare and share compelling personal stories. By stepping outside insurance constraints, we're able to run comprehensive tests and spend the quality time needed to build trust with our patients, uncovering the hidden psychological factors that contribute to physical ailments. This episode underscores the critical role of mental health in achieving lasting wellness.
Check Us Out On Social Media - Facebook: @bermanwellness , @physicaltherapynaples, @Berman Golf Instagram: @berman_wellness, @bermanphysicaltherapy , @Berman Golf Youtube: Berman Golf, Berman Physical Therapy TikTok: Bermangolf, Bermanwellness
Email us - drberman@bermanpt.com jenni@bermanwellness.com
Check out our website - www.bermanpt.com www.bermanpt.com/wellness www.bermangolf.com
Did you know the root of your anxiety or depression might be lurking in your gut? Join us as we confront the shortcomings of corporate medicine, which too often targets only symptoms like shoulder pain or digestive issues. We'll reveal how innovative treatments like shockwave therapy are revolutionizing physical therapy, and then shift our focus to the profound impact of gut health on mental wellness. Through an eye-opening case study, you'll see how a misdiagnosed autoimmune thyroid disorder, linked to poor gut health, was the real culprit behind a patient's depression. This episode is a wake-up call to treat the problem, not just the symptoms.
Ever felt your healthcare provider doesn't have the time or resources to get to the bottom of your health issues? We explore the limitations of insurance-covered healthcare and share compelling personal stories. By stepping outside insurance constraints, we're able to run comprehensive tests and spend the quality time needed to build trust with our patients, uncovering the hidden psychological factors that contribute to physical ailments. This episode underscores the critical role of mental health in achieving lasting wellness.
Check Us Out On Social Media - Facebook: @bermanwellness , @physicaltherapynaples, @Berman Golf Instagram: @berman_wellness, @bermanphysicaltherapy , @Berman Golf Youtube: Berman Golf, Berman Physical Therapy TikTok: Bermangolf, Bermanwellness
Email us - drberman@bermanpt.com jenni@bermanwellness.com
Check out our website - www.bermanpt.com www.bermanpt.com/wellness www.bermangolf.com
Speaker 1:
This is the Berman Method podcast, featuring Dr Jake Berman and physician assistant Jenny Berman. We are here to treat problems and not symptoms. Disclaimer this podcast is for entertainment purposes only and not to treat anyone or to give medical advice. If you are interested in any information that we are giving and would like to use this for yourself, we recommend that you contact your primary care physician or reach out to us and ask us questions about yourself specifically. Enjoy.
Speaker 2:
And we are back, baby, with the Berman Method podcast, brought to you by Dr Jake Berman and his beautiful co-host.
Speaker 1:
Jenny Berman, physician assistant.
Speaker 2:
All right. We are focused on treating problems and not symptoms. Corporate medicine is excellent at treating symptoms and not the actual problem. You have shoulder pain. Let's not figure out why the shoulder hurts. Just take two advil a day and you'll be fine all day right right. That is true yeah, you've got some ass piss coming out, just drink some pepto-bismol oh, my word yeah that just happened what a garrity is that a word?
Speaker 1:
huh? Is vulgarity a word vulgarness oh goodness, explicitness, oh my gosh welcome, happy monday morning yes, we're back to start the week.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, talking about PT, quick shout out to our shockwave treatment in the PT room If you haven't heard about it. This is amazing technology. It is phenomenal at helping people with plantar fasciitis and tennis elbow, golfer's elbow those are the three big things that it is phenomenal at. However, patellar tendonitis, knee tendonitis, shoulder tendonitis, really anything that hurts it's using radio frequency sending pulses through the skin which is creating microtrauma to the area, which promotes or accelerates the body's healing response, sending your body's own stem cells to heal the area, and it's just been a phenomenal modality. As I've said multiple times on this podcast, and even recently, I've been very anti-modality my entire career until I found this, because there's actually evidence to back it up. So quick shout out to that. Give me a call if you have any questions about your plantar fasciitis or your $750 custom insoles that you have to wear everywhere, your supportive shoes or whatever it is. Let's get rid of it and get back to the basics. Baby, perfect, what else? What else do we want to talk about before we get going here Anything?
Speaker 1:
I don't think I have anything specific other than jumping right into this Monday topic.
Speaker 2:
Yes, this is a very exciting topic that we have for you today that nobody ever wants to talk about in public.
Speaker 1:
Or yeah, ever Not, even not in public. It's hard to talk about yeah not in public, not in private.
Speaker 2:
Just don't talk about it. Just bury it down, put it in the closet. Don't ever look at it.
Speaker 1:
So we're going to talk about our mental health, what and how mental health is really impacting all areas of our body, but also areas of our body impact our mental health too. So it's not just one-sided of we have issues with depression or anxiety. We have issues with depression or anxiety because there's something else internally going on.
Speaker 2:
So it's almost like the chicken or the egg.
Speaker 1:
It's almost like the chicken or the egg yeah, except I would persistently argue it's the chicken that there's something going on internally with us that is causing the problem of our mental health to be shifted, as opposed to the mental health issues happening first.
Speaker 2:
Okay, let's go on, let's dig deeper.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so we have said this several times within the podcast, but over 75% of our serotonin, which is our happy upper hormones, is made in the gut. So, first and foremost, if our gut is unhealthy, we're not going to have the positive hormones being produced from our poor gut health, which are a huge factor, a starting point for mood stability. On top of that, if we have a leaky gut or poor gut health, we probably have several vitamin deficiencies, which again is affecting how our body is regulating our hormones from our brain that affect our mood stability. So those are the first, most important things. Now there's many, many, many things that go into mental health and the start of anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, all these different diagnoses that have been given, and certainly there are times when we need medications to help with the chemical balance of these things. But a lot of times we have to take a step back and look at where is this really coming from.
Speaker 2:
Wow Okay.
Speaker 1:
So I'll tell you an example. We had a client just not too long ago who came to me because she was really frustrated that she just wasn't being listened to and she had gone to her OBGYN because she was having various symptoms and the OBGYN handed her a prescription medication for an SSRI, which is an antidepressant, and said here, take this. And she came to me because she's like you know, I'm absolutely open to taking an antidepressant, but I really don't think that's the problem. So, long story short, we dug deeper.
Speaker 1:
We did some different blood testing in addition to what her OB had done, which was very, very basic, in addition to what her OB had done, which was very, very basic, and talked about her medical history a little bit more, talked about her food more in detail and again, long story short, ended up finding out that she actually had Hashimoto's, which is an autoimmune thyroid dysfunction. So even though her TSH, which was her thyroid stimulating hormone that the OB checked, which was one of three tests that they did, was normal, we have other areas showing that she has this autoimmune thyroid disease, which is largely related to poor gut health and food sensitivities, which we know absolutely impacts our brain and our mood stability. So she went to the OBGYN, who gave her an antidepressant, but never really figured out the bottom line. What was causing this? Where is this coming from? Where are the imbalances? Where are the vitamin deficiencies? Where are the food sensitivities that are increasing the anxiety and depression by affecting the hormones of the brain?
Speaker 2:
Wow, there is a lot in that and I'm going to pick one or two or 38 things out from the last two minutes that you just said, because my mind is in a pretzel right now, right out of the gate. This is a perfect, perfect example of what we start every podcast with saying that we are focused on treating problems and not symptoms. Western medicine is an expert at treating your symptoms and not your problem. So this lady went to an OB. She looked at three tests right, right One of them said that her thyroid was low.
Speaker 1:
Normal. Normal, said her thyroid was normal.
Speaker 2:
Her thyroid was normal and said okay, take this antidepressant prescription medication chemically composed pharmaceutical drug that it's almost impossible that she doesn't get some type of kickback from prescribing.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, right, fair assumption.
Speaker 2:
Fair assumption and then she ends up coming to you saying that I don't have a problem taking this, if that's the actual problem. I just don't believe that that's the problem. So this is the second thing I wanted to bring up. If you don't like the answers that you're getting from your healthcare provider, keep asking or ask somebody different. If you don't like the answers that you're getting from your healthcare provider, keep asking or ask somebody different. If you don't like the answers that Jenny or Jake are giving you, then ask somebody different. Don't just take what somebody's telling you for truth, because they're your doctor, they've got the credentials, they've got the plaques on the walls. So this lady didn't, she wasn't drinking the Kool-Aid, she thought there was more to it. And she comes to you and you did what?
Speaker 1:
We did more in-depth history that's a big one the medical history, more in-depth blood testing and really diving into her food intake.
Speaker 2:
So talk a little bit more about the blood testing. How many things did you check for? What did you look for? Did you have an idea based off of her medical history, or how did that come to be?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so basically, when we go through the medical history, it gives me an idea of what types of things we need to be looking at. Certainly, we have our basic tests that we look at on every individual, or most, I should say every. We look at on most individuals, which includes 13 different tests, as opposed to the primary three that most primary care and OBGYNs are checking. So we look more specifically at 13 different tests, though that number can increase depending on medical history, and so, for this patient specifically, I actually checked 16 different tests because I had an itch that there was something else going on deeper down between her thyroid and two other vitamin levels. I ended up checking, so we did a bit more when it comes to the blood testing, but that's what gave me more answers to figure out about her Hashimoto's, uh and and the gut health that we had to tackle.
Speaker 2:
I love this. I'm going to go out into the weeds for a second, but I'm going to bring it right back to this and it'll make sense once I come back to this. So I just played golf yesterday with one of my good buddies and two of his good buddies. Come to find out, one of the guys I had met two years ago because my buddy told him to come see me for his back pain and, long story short, he didn't come see me because I didn't take his health insurance. Come to find out. He's still monitoring his back. I can't do X because it's going to flare my back up.
Speaker 2:
Halfway through the round I saw him twinge at impact. I'm going how's your back doing? He goes. I felt it on that one and I'm going two years later. I mean, this guy's in phenomenal shape. You look at this guy and you're going there's no way, no way that he has a back issue, jacked, absolutely jacked, and his back is twinging swinging a golf club. Because I didn't take his health insurance, he went to some cookie cutter that did, and now he's band-aiding this thing for two years now.
Speaker 1:
Right.
Speaker 2:
So now to come back full circle to this lady, she goes to her insurance-covered OBGYN who would only run three tests, because that OBGYN was only going to get reimbursed for those three tests by the insurance and it told her that there was nothing wrong. Take this antidepressant, Right, and it told her that there was nothing wrong, take this antidepressant. She comes to you and because we don't take insurance, we can give them time. We can give our clients time and listen to what's actually going on. And with this detailed past medical history that you had the time to listen to, you're like oh, we should look at these tests Fast forward. We end up, you end up looking at 16 different tests, not three, 16. And it's like wait a minute, we got Hashimoto's here, not depression.
Speaker 1:
Right.
Speaker 1:
Right, in addition to some other vitamin deficiencies too, which again are coming or based off of the fact that she's not absorbing nutrients well due to her poor gut health.
Speaker 1:
So it is all related, and certainly it takes time to improve the gut health, it takes time to get vitamin levels up to where they should be, and so in the meantime, we do need to be addressing the mental health aspect, the anxiety, the depression, the mood swings, the irritability that are affecting our day-to-day quality of life. And that's where I want to transition a little bit in talking about counseling and health coaching, because this has such a big impact and it's things that a lot of times people don't want to talk about. Such a big impact and it's things that a lot of times people don't want to talk about, so they don't even want to go approach a health counselor, mental health counselor or a health coach, because they don't want to talk about their problems. Or, again, like you've already mentioned is, a lot of times the good ones aren't in network, they're not covered by insurance, and so it's another out-of-pocket expense to go talk with a health counselor, but it's such a big part of treating the overall health component.
Speaker 2:
It's absolutely huge, and one of the running jokes in the physical therapy world is that physical therapists are the bartenders of the healthcare field.
Speaker 2:
Because we are able to spend as much time as we do with our clients, our patients, we're able to connect on a level that the vast majority of other healthcare providers cannot, which in turn makes the patient that much more comfortable to then start spilling the beans and talking about really deep, personal, emotional, psychological things, and almost every single time it happens to us to me they always feel somewhat embarrassed, where it's like wow, you know, I'm sorry that I'm talking to you about this stuff. You know, I bet you didn't know that you were a psychologist too and I always laugh and I say you can't treat one without the other. You're coming to me for back pain, but you've got this psychological thing that is weighing you down. I can't help you with your back pain. If you've got a psychological anchor, you gotta do both. And that's where the public shaming in and the embarrassment comes into play, is where people don't feel comfortable talking about these vulnerabilities.
Speaker 1:
That's so true and I have a student right now, actually a PA student. She said the same thing to me after her first or second weekend with me is wow, you really do a lot of health coaching and mental health counseling and psychological components of treating the patient. And my answer to her was because I have the time and the patients trust us. They come in and see us on a weekly basis. We really get to know them. We get to understand their lifestyle and really dig deeper into what is triggering them to cause the binge eating or to not eat enough or to just turn off when it comes to thinking about exercise. We were able to talk with them about these things. What is standing between you and this switch of quote-unquote health and having the time to talk with them, gaining their trust? It certainly opens up the psychological component, but it's such a big factor to getting them to where they want to be.
Speaker 2:
Yes, even in the PT world there have been many people that I've met over the years that have a victim mindset, a victim mentality, and even if they don't explicitly admit it, very few of them do and I would never, ever, ever call you out unless we were on that level about having this victim mentality where you don't want your back pain to get better, because if your back pain gets better then you're not going to get the attention from your spouse or friends and family members. You know it's always you're seeking out this attention, this sympathy or empathy kind of thing, and it's really hard for somebody to admit that to themselves and that goes deep. That goes really, really deep. That goes way back into some dark places and at the end of the day, if you can't address those things, then that's a life that you are settling to live with. I mean that's the quality that you'll never get a better quality of life. You just won't because you're not willing to live with. I mean that's the quality that you'll never get a better quality of life. You just won't because you're not willing to address it.
Speaker 2:
And I tell every single staff member that comes on to our team we've got three core values. Core value number one connect emotionally. Number two create a wow experience. Number three create a family environment.
Speaker 2:
And core value number one is connect emotionally, because if you don't connect emotionally, if you can't connect emotionally with somebody, it doesn't matter how good of a provider you are, they're not going to do what you ask them to do. They're not going to come back because they don't feel safe, they don't feel heard, and that's a challenging thing. You've got to get on a level where they feel like they're heard. The customer feels like you're listening to them, hearing them and truly, truly believing what they're going through and how it's affecting them. And it's challenging to do for some people. A lot of people don't think that it's okay to talk about these things. You're here for back pain let's fix your back pain. You're here for physical therapy let's just create the transaction in and out kind of thing. It's like wait a minute, that's not what we're doing here. Everybody else in this country is doing that.
Speaker 1:
Right.
Speaker 2:
That's not what we're doing.
Speaker 1:
Right. So to kind of pull it all together, first things, if you are struggling with anxiety, depression, on top of your struggling to get out of bed in the morning, you can't stay consistent with getting your exercise in. You're struggling with night eating or just not eating enough. On top of that, the low energy, the weight gain that you're experiencing, the poor sleep all of these things are symptoms of something else going on. And certainly going and getting hormones or going and getting SSRI meaning an antidepressant can certainly fix the symptoms for a period of time, but it's not addressing the problem. So find somebody that'll dig deeper and really identify what is causing this. Is it a vitamin deficiency? Is it an autoimmune disease? Is it your gut health? But in the meantime, we absolutely need to also address the situation with counseling, having someone that you can talk with, seeking out a licensed mental health counselor or a health coach that can help you get through these things while you're actually addressing the problem. It's so important.
Speaker 2:
Love it, absolutely love it. Do you want to wrap things up on that?
Speaker 1:
I think we should, and we can post in the show notes the two counselors that we recommend most frequently. So you know, like I said, we do a lot of it in our office, but we also know our limits and refer out to when we want our clients to work more closely with an actual licensed therapist or counselor. So we'll post in the show notes the two that we use most frequently, who do telehealth and are wonderful. So shout out to them, but reach out to us if you want to dig deeper into your body specifically.
Speaker 2:
Specifically if you think that you're taking a drug that's not really treating the real problem. I mean, how many times have we run into that? If it's not a weekly basis, it's at least a monthly basis where we run into somebody and it's like yeah, I've been taking this for years now. I don't know why I'm taking it. I don't really feel any different. The doctor just told me to, and the brutal reality is that doctor probably forgot that they did it. Or you've changed doctors in the meantime and they didn't even do a thorough medical history and they don't even know that you're on it. Or you've got 17 different doctors who are each prescribing their own medication and they don't even know that you're now taking three medications that are supposedly treating the same thing and now they're counteracting each other.
Speaker 1:
Right, right, and that's the biggest problem is having multiple different doctors. And you know, it happens in our world too, with having seasonal patients and they have a doctor up north and they have a doctor down in Naples, and then we start getting this cross-prescribing, which is a big problem.
Speaker 2:
Same thing happens in the PT world where if you're seeing me, you're seeing your chiropractor and you're seeing this over glorified personal trainer that thinks that they're a physical therapist you're getting three different suggestions or ideas on what your problem is and you just go in circles. So I explicitly tell people when we first get started if you're seeing a chiropractor and you want to get started with me, you got to choose one or the other. I'm not saying that I'm better than a chiropractor or ch want to get started with me. You got to choose one or the other. I'm not saying that I'm better than a chiropractor or a chiropractor is better than me.
Speaker 2:
You just have to choose one or the other because at some point you are going to get flared up and I need to know was that me that did that, or was it the chiropractor? And at some point you're going to start feeling better and I need to know is that me that's causing that or is it the chiropractor? When there's too many hands in the cookie jar, you don't know what's going on. You don't know what you're treating anymore. It's the same thing with prescription medications.
Speaker 1:
Right, exactly Good, all right, great Happy Monday to everybody.
Speaker 2:
Like subscribe. Share this with somebody that you know needs it. This is a deep one. We don't always go this deep on this podcast. However, this one means a lot to us personally. Professionally. Share this with somebody that you know needs this and don't be embarrassed. Email us. Everything's confidential and we can have a conversation and keep it an A-B conversation and help other people see their way out. So just let us know if you want to talk more about it. Subscribe rate and review. Let's get some more reviews. Email us the next topic that you want us to talk about. This was a suggestion that was emailed out to us, so thank you for the suggestions.
Speaker 1:
Perfect.
Speaker 2:
And don't forget about Shockwave plantar fasciitis, tennis elbow. Let me know.
Speaker 1:
Ciao for now. Thank you for subscribing on your social media and podcast platforms to the Berman Method Dr Jake Berman with Berman Physical Therapy and Jenny Berman, Physician Assistant, with Berman Health and Wellness. You can find more information on our website wwwbermanptcom for physical therapy. Wwwbermanptcom forward slash wellness for the health and wellness. You can also find us on social media, Facebook, Instagram and on your podcast platform, so be sure to follow us, like us, subscribe to us and, if you would like any further information, definitely visit our website and reach out to us. You may also find our free reports on the websites as well, where you can download this free information for yourself. Have a great day.
