The Keyword is PERSPECTIVE
I just had marketing meetings this week and my brain is swimming with marketing terminology. A big one is “keywords”!
Like everything I tend to see interrelationship with various parts of my life, and I got to thinking about keywords when it comes to my consultations. Sure enough, there were a couple of keywords that stand out that can be life changing for an individual.
Why Perspective Matters
When I'm facing clients in my clinic the thought crosses my mind what would happen if this client didn't have this openness to new perspectives? I always seem to take my inspiration from my clients. I swear they have as much, if not more, to teach me than I do them. It's a beautiful sharing and I love it every time.
This week's blog has two particular clients I'd like to share or at least chapters out of their books anyway.
The Influence of a Dairy Sensitivity
The first client is a 28 year old male, quite young to have consistently low calcium labs. There didn't seem to be a reason for this and all other labs looked good. His doctor did not create a diagnosis. Our second client is a 42 year old female with continuous blood clots for the last two years. She was frustrated and feeling hopeless and also: Can you imagine the amount of fear she has had throughout every day?
Both clients were working with their primary care doctors and following instructions. Here is the part that I love. I love getting to come in and care coordinate. I love having a functional medicine and naturopathic perspective behind me so I can understand the science and medicine and can relate to their medical team members. I love having a psychoneuroimmunology education so that I can have the nervous system’s involvement in mind as well. With those perspectives behind me, now I get to come in and add from a nutrition and mindset perspective as a necessary role in this whole health model.
One reason I love this care coordination mentality is that clients get to hear additional perspectives. Perspective is the keyword today! The other is “additional”. This is because a new perspective shouldn't overcompensate takeover or replace any other perspectives but it should do exactly as the word suggests: add!
So let's take a look at each of these past clients. call client number one Tom. One of the core competencies that helps me add to the functional wellness model is the four phase system with which I work. In this case I focused primarily on the first phase that I like to call signify. This is where I look for the gaps. This is where I look for what's different for this person not just what follows the pattern of disease but recognizing anything that could be impeding their bodies natural and normal functioning.
After the signify phase complete with consultation, interview and all of our analysis and assessment , a possible impedance to function unearthed for Tom was dairy sensitivity. When I mentioned this possibility he said oh I feel terrible when I eat dairy. Interesting!
Now let's get back to the problem at hand: consistently low calcium scores and I wondered about the possibility that if he's in a rejective state and one of these major sources of calcium (which is dairy products) is it possible that he's preventing his cells from getting the calcium out of the food and utilizing it properly? It was worthy of an experiment anyway because dairy didn’t make him feel good! As long as we weren’t treating a disease, but using numbers as guideposts to improve his overall wellbeing, as long as it wasn't harming him, and as long as we could use nutrition as a way to add and take away what serves him best, this was a great piece to his puzzle. I'm happy to say calcium numbers rose and as a side bonus joint pain he had been experiencing decreased. Amazing. Now I don’t know what science has to say about the possibility, but in the question, we possibly found an answer to helping him feel better overall. He felt so good, we worked on a maintenance dietary plan for him and we continue to encourage calcium coming from other sources and less so from dairy products. This was a great added perspective for this particular client, and what a great teachable moment to provide calcium rich food education!
Scary Blood Clots
Let's call client #2 Samantha. I loved working with Samantha because again in a state of hopelessness and despair and with the advice to just rely on the medicine there was still a lot of fear there. In her case it was really important to work on this mindset of fear. Of course I'm looking nutritionally as well and again using our signify phase to figure out what the gaps are and what is unique to this particular client.
Here's a bit of science class for you. We have natural clotting mechanisms, different types of blood cells that rush to an area where an injury in a blood vessel is identified. Not only with the help of these blood cells but also certain proteins called fibrinogen, a sort of like a mesh kind of like our own personal Band-Aid is formed.
Because I know this is the process, my mind is always thinking about what could be happening to derail this process? We think of things like our lifestyles, our age, our habits, our environments, the use of birth control, the possibility of fat rich diets, lack of exercise, the presence of diabetes, obesity, hypertension, or smoking. Nutritionally we get to look at labs and food logs and see what impact nutrition could be having on these components. We noted cholesterol levels were higher in the bad than we'd like them to be and lower in the good. This had us looking at her diet and the functioning of her liver. Whenever I see cholesterol I also look at stress levels. Why? Because cholesterol is needed to form the hormones that create cortisol. Cortisol is used when we are in stress.
The beautiful partnership that happened with this client as we got to work with her team was that we got to add the additional perspectives of supportive nutrition and non supportive food choices, and we got to work on her mindset of the fear of what these blood clots mean for her. We got to work on her stress levels so that her body wouldn't need to continuously make cortisol-supporting cholesterol. We also got to work on the lifestyles and habits that were creating an environment for this to be a problem for her.
She feels a lot better and more in control now that she understands what's going on and the part that she plays in it. I'm happy to report that she's doing much better. She came in to share this concern of hers, and it ended up we were able to help her achieve goals in exercise, reduced fat diet, smoking behavior, and pre-diabetes. This is a win, no matter the diagnosis she’s working on with her doctor.
Value that Exceeds the Expense
These are such beautiful stories of sharing that I get to be a part of. I love being the librarian that can add the particular books that might make all the difference to a person or maybe just even add a new piece to their puzzle. Especially in today's economic climate I think it's important that we as practitioners and helpers pay attention to client need and value and use of resources. I think our clients are asking for that and they're not wrong. We need to be cognizant of providing quality with affordability, that the value exceeds the use of the resource. If you are in the position of our Tom or Samantha consider getting additional perspectives from people you trust. It's OK to have a team! It's OK to have a community around you so that you can create a cellular community of vitality and health inside of you! I value this opportunity anytime someone reaches out so if this is you please accept my humblest thanks that you allow me to hear your story and add some additional perspective. You might get started with our $60 discovery consultation. You'll leave with an actionable plan of strategies and hopefully hear some new PERSPECTIVE.
Amanda Plevell, PhD, MSCN, NMD, CNHP is a Board Certified Natural Medicine Practitioner and Clinical Nutritionist. Together with ANMC’s team of support professionals, she’s bringing the pieces of nutrition, the mind, and therapeutic ongoing relationships to the healthcare continuum. ANMC combines curated education programs with personalized plans that make it easy for anyone, anywhere to benefit from. Find out more here: anmcholistichealth.com
“Our unique offer fills in the gaps to complete your picture and provides a powerful therapeutic relationship for a complete whole health solution, because I know that our clients want to have all the pieces, education, and trust so that they can make informed decisions for themselves.”