EPISODE SUMMARY
This episode covers a lot of aspects of the relationship between physical and mental health.
A parallel healthcare system that takes into account more holistic methods.
Food is medicine.
Healthy food doesn't have to be expensive
Rachel's personal journey from being a Prescription writing Nurse Practitioner to Functional Nutritionist.
Rachel Maples
(806) 794-3232
To contact Ruth: 806-747-2735
ruth@blairclinic.com
Transcript
Welcome welcome welcome to What Pain in the Neck? I am Ruth Elder, your host. In this episode, I am talking to my now friend, Rachel Maples. Rachel is a nurse practitioner who specializes in nutrition for mental and physical health. She has her own private practice within Shiloh Counseling Services here in Lubbock. When I recorded my conversation with her, for some reason there was a glitch in the audio in the first couple of minutes of our conversation. So I’m just going to set this episode up. Rachel has been a nurse practitioner for a long time, back before that really was a popular or common thing to be. In this conversation she is talking about what her journey is, from being a nurse in the standard medical system. Starting off working as a pediatric nurse, labor and delivery, full time as a traditional nurse practitioner. Then staying home with kids for a few years. And then in the last few years, what has happened in her career to make her change focus a little bit and become more integrative in her focus. What does that mean? Why did that happen? It’s a fascinating story. And without further adieu, I’m going to turn it over to Rachel. She's going to start talking about her early days as a nurse practitioner.
I became a nurse practitioner and worked in a family practice setting with five doctors, and then I was the only nurse practitioner. And back in those days, which was in the late nineties, there were not that many nurse practitioners in Lubbock. There were just a few, a few PAs, a few nurse practitioners.
So what's the difference between a nurse practitioner and a PA? A PA being a physician's assistant.
Really there's not a lot, practically speaking nowadays, they basically do the same types of thing, same type of job. However, one stems out of nursing. And even back when I was in nursing school, holistic nursing and looking at the whole patient, the whole person was something they taught us in nursing school. It’s a little bit more of an independent mindset with the nurse practitioner, you're practicing under your own license, as well as the certification; whereas a physician assistant, my understanding, and I have friends that are PAs I love them to death, gut my understanding is they practice under the license of a physician. They're very highly educated and really they can prescribe medication and order lab work and x-rays and all that. But they are technically working under the license of a physician. We work under our own license.
But you still can prescribe and order x-rays and blood tests and all of that, right?
Yes. Nurse practitioners definitely do all that stuff every day. And I did back when I was working as a nurse practitioner. So I worked as a nurse practitioner for several years, four or five years. And I really did enjoy it, but then when I had kids, I kind of joke that I'm not really a very good multitasker. So, you know, they say women are, but not all women. So I was like, “you know what? I think I just want to focus on one thing,” which is, you know, raising my kids and being at home with them. So I took a step back and discontinued working as a nurse practitioner, and then I just worked some little part time jobs while I was raising my kids. So I let that certification go. I'm still licensed as a registered nurse, but I let the certification go as a nurse practitioner, so I no longer prescribe medication or anything.
Yeah, so keeping that up would have meant you would have needed to take a lot of continuing education classes and things like that. Is that correct?
Well, yes. Not only that, though, I would have had to have worked in the field to keep it up. You can't just quit and do continuing education. You also have to continue to work in the field at least part time. And there weren't really part time positions. It was mostly full time or nothing. So yeah, so I let that go, but I think it was just all part of God's plan because at this time for what I'm doing now, I wouldn't even want to be prescribing any medication. So it works out well.
So you set that up perfectly. So what are you doing now?
So now for the last couple of years, I have been working with the therapist. It's at Shiloh Christian Counseling Services here in Lubbock. It's basically a Christian counseling group of therapists, there's about five or six of them. And they approached me because they wanted somebody to come in and help with the physical side of mental health.
Yeah, the physical and mental really go together. And I think that we're going to maybe get a little deeper into that a little bit later on.
Yes, definitely. For sure. I mean, the mind body connection, most people have heard about that, but people don't always realize how much your physical health can affect your mental health.
And vice versa, right?
Yes, absolutely.
Yeah. So one thing that I think would be really interesting to hear about is how the physical and the mental fit together. And maybe you can describe that from your day to day work of what you do now. So if we can hear about your process, your work, and then how you work with both the mental and the physical health.
So yeah, at Shiloh, we look at the whole person, the whole client. And so what I do is clients make appointments with me and they can see the therapist if they strictly want more of a traditional therapy type session, or they can schedule an appointment with me. I do a very in depth intake form. It takes about an hour, that first visit, and then the second visit is included with that. But on that first visit, I take about an hour. I talk to the client and go through the whole health history, issues that they're facing, physically, mentally, emotionally right now. And then everything from diet, exercise, their social support systems and all that type of thing. And then I just take in all that information and kind of analyze it, look at it, kind of look at the medications they might be taking, the supplements, what they're eating and that type of thing. And then when they come back in for the second visit, that's when we really get into some recommendations that I might have on different things that they can do; lifestyle, supplements.
So it's nutrition and exercise and all of that because the mind body connection is so strong and how we treat our bodies can really affect how, what's going on in our mind and how we're feeling emotionally and dealing with things in life.
Yeah. Great information. So first of all, mind body connection. What is that? Can you give us some examples or how does it work? And then secondly, when you're talking about recommendations, I know every person is different, but do you have some examples of what kind of some typical recommendations might be?
Absolutely.
Because when I'm hearing nutrition and exercise and lifestyle. It's like, “okay, are you gonna turn my whole life upside down and everything is going to be different and difficult to do?”
Well, no, not really. It's all about baby steps and it's about just taking it one day at a time and small changes at a time. And sometimes people are already doing somethings great, but then there's other areas that they've never thought about or they're not focusing on or whatever. But yeah, the mind body connection, I mean, one example would be like our gut microbiome. And so many of us in America, our gut microbiome is off and it's what basically that means is, you know, we have a good bacteria, in our gut, good and beneficial bacteria in our stomach.
But if it's off, if, for whatever reason, maybe it's medications that we have taken, or it's the diet that we eat, if it's super high in carbs, sugar, that type of thing, or just, you know, artificial sweeteners, or you know, there's so many different things that can kind of throw off our gut microbiome. Some of the foods that we eat, if they have pesticides and things like that, that can really throw it off as well. One example, this is pretty specific, is you can get an overgrowth of yeast in your system, which we all have yeast in our system normally, but that can actually cause anxiety attacks and even more severely it can cause panic attacks.
So how would you know when you're working with somebody?
It just depends on what they're describing. I have had some clients when we go through the whole health history and what they're dealing with and what their doctors have told them. Or, you know, I've had clients who've gone to doctors and the doctors have just prescribed maybe an anti anxiety medication. But then once I talk to them and I find out, well, they're not really eating well at all, mostly what they are eating is powdered donuts and Dr. Pepper and things like that, because that's what they're craving. Then if I can help them see that, “okay, we need to stop this and we need to stop this kind of cycle, we need to get on some healthy, high protein, lots of vegetables and a good probiotic.” I mean, it is just amazing what can happen when people start to eat better and hydrate and get out in the sun and get that vitamin D. There's so many different things that I could talk - I mean, I could go on and on and on.
But again, it's small changes, but over time, once you, you know, do more and more of these things, it can really help physically. And then it can help mentally and sometimes. You know, people can get off antidepressants and different medications like that. I'm not saying that I tell them to do that. That's something that they always would clear with their doctor if it's something they want to do. But once they start feeling better, then a lot of times they're able to do that.
That's great. I particularly liked how you said when you were describing your recommendations. You were describing it the way I like to describe it. You were saying high protein and high fiber and it's so much more happy to think about eat a lot of this instead of thinking low fat or low carb or low calorie of all of those. So a lot of times we think when we change our diet, there's all these things we can't have. Can you talk a little bit about that? What we should be eating and can be eating and things that are great for us, because there's so much focus on stuff that's bad for us. Can you talk about what's good for us?
Oh, yeah. I mean, there's so much great-tasting food out there that is good for us. There are a lot of things that are important to eat and that most of us actually want to eat, so yes, high protein, good fats, lots of vegetables, moderate on fruit, and getting rid of a lot of grains, but not all grains. there are some grains that are good ancient grains and things like that.
Okay, so can you give us an example of maybe what a typical food plan from you might look like? I don't know, I'm assuming they're individualized to some extent?
Yes, yes, they definitely, they're individualized. I'm not a nutritionist, so I don't do a specific food plan because I'm really looking at the whole picture here. So nutrition is a part of it, but there are other parts that are important as well. But I would say an overarching theme that works well for everybody is pretty high protein, healthy fats. And again, with my clients, I get into the specifics of what, what I mean by that.
Yeah, and actually I think it'd be great if you could clarify what healthy fats are, because I've studied this a lot, but I know that there's a lot of confusion out there about fats in particular.
Right. Right. So specifically on oils, it would be like extra virgin olive oil for cooking, Avocado oil is great, Coconut oil. But a coconut oil has a intense flavor so not everybody wants to necessarily cook with that. Grass fed, butter, that type of thing. Those are all really good. And then just in as far as proteins go, grass fed beef - again, I mean, you have to look at your budget and what can you afford and that type of thing, but even beef, chicken, fish, I mean, all of those can be really healthy.
We're pretty lucky here in West Texas because there's some pretty great local ranchers that have grass fed beef that you can buy without the middleman, so we're pretty fortunate here.
Oh yes, definitely. Yeah, we have a lot, you know, and we have some good places that we can go and buy those or online or, but it's local. And anything we can get local, you know, produce, that type of thing as well.
Okay, so you said the meal plan is just part of the picture. So what's some other things that would be part of it?
One of the things that kind of ties into this is how functional nutrition, which I'm certified in functional nutrition and how that...
So how is that different with being a nutritionist? Because you just said you're not a nutritionist.
Right. Right. Nutritionists, they get a degree in nutrition, which is a bachelor's degree, and then I believe they can get a master's and probably go up.
So functional nutrition, what is that?
So that's where you take classes and get certified in the area specifically as - the philosophy is that food is medicine. Functional medicine doctors, they believe that food is medicine and instead of the traditional medical model where you just sort of label the symptoms, the grouping of symptoms that the patient comes in with, you label that and then you write a prescription and send the patient on their way. Functional medicine doctors kind of do, what I do in terms of taking a long period of time talking with the patient and then helping them change their lifestyle and change their diet and nutrition to be able to put an end and put it to get to the root cause of what's causing their ailments and then basically reverse those. The thing that most people don't realize is that 80% percent of our health care dollars in America are for chronic diseases.
80%? Wow.
Yes. And the thing about chronic diseases is that they are - almost all chronic diseases that we see in America are reversible, and people don't realize that.
So when you say chronic diseases, what are some examples of what you mean?
Diabetes, heart disease, obesity. Basically metabolic syndrome, which encompasses all of those.
Would you lump autoimmune disease in there too?
Yes. Yes. Autoimmune disease cannot always be reversed, but it can be greatly helped with nutrition, diet, lifestyle type things.
And so when a patient goes and the only thing they receive is maybe a 10 minute office visit and then a prescription, sometimes that will help some of their symptoms, but it doesn't really get to the root cause. And so, even with autoimmunity, we can get to the root cause of that sometimes. It might not be completely reversible, whereas other things are completely reversible; type 2 diabetes is reversible, much heart disease, high blood pressure, things like that through proper nutrition, exercise and lifestyle, reducing stress and all of that. Those things are reversible.
Great information. So we all know what nutrition and exercise means when you say nutrition and exercise and lifestyle. It tells me that there's more to it than nutrition and exercise. So what are some of the, when you say lifestyle, what are some other things that you address?
Yeah, so that could be everything from toxin avoidance, because there are just so many toxins in our environment nowadays.
So how do we avoid those?
It's difficult. I mean, we do have to be intentional, but some of the easy, simple ways to start is like for drinking lots of water and having a good water filter in our house, like an RO type.
RO, reverse osmosis?
Reverse osmosis, yeah, to make sure the water that we are drinking is really clean and not full of heavy metals and that type of thing. But also just that the products that we buy for our households, if we can get them fragrance free or our products that we put on our body fragrance free, that definitely helps a lot. There are more natural products that we can sometimes use that will help with that too. There's definitely other ways. It's partly just being aware of things, our home environment. I've just recently started collecting more houseplants because houseplants are a good way to clean, to kind of purify your air.
Yeah. I have a lot of plants too. I have gotten so many now because when they do well, they multiply, right? That I've actually been thinking I need to get rid of some, but then I'm thinking, “okay, well, I want the clean air,” but I've gotten so many that it's actually gotten to be like work now to keep them all alive.
Well, I was just slow to the houseplant game. I really should have gotten them years ago, but I just recently told my family in the past year I was like for Christmas and birthday just get me a houseplant and it's worked out wonderfully. So that's one small way. It's just good to be aware of some of the toxins that we do have.
Another thing is the food that we eat. My clients are on a whole spectrum of income levels. So I have some that are on very, very tight budgets and they can't necessarily afford organic, but they can still eat healthy and it's being aware of which foods might which foods might have more pesticides.And so they could, maybe they can buy, they can't afford, for example, can't afford to buy the fresh organic blueberries, but they can afford to buy the frozen organic blueberries. So you know, I might give them that suggestion.
Personally, I buy frozen wild blueberries. I think those are the bomb.
Yes. That's even better. I think no matter a person's budget, I think there are ways to eat healthy. A big part of it that I think I neglected to mention is just getting away from eating processed foods. That is a big thing that really impacts our health. And I didn't even realize when my kids were growing up, I look back now and I'm like, “Oh, I wish that I wouldn't have let them have certain things. I thought I was being healthy and healthy mom and all that.
So can you give us examples, like maybe we have young mothers who are trying to do the best they can and want to make good choices, but maybe you can talk about some of the things that you wish that you had done differently with your kids. So maybe someone else can maybe avoid making those same choices.
Yes, for sure. I think that if I had it to do over, I just would buy less processed food.
So processed food would be like crackers and chips.
Exactly. So, yeah, I bought, like most moms,Cheez-Its and Goldfish and pretzels and things like that. And I think if I had it to do over, I would just do more whole foods.
So that'd be like apple slices and cucumber pieces and olives and beans and things like that, right?
Yes. And I did do some of that. I would make snacks for them and it would be maybe cheese and a fruit, but then I would also have maybe goldfish or whatever. So now I think looking back, I would have found, for the third item on that little snack plate something that was a whole food, maybe a nut that they like, have one child allergic to peanuts so wouldn't have been peanuts, but some kind of nut or something like that they liked.
Great advice. I wanted to grab a hold of just one thing that you said about budget. Personally, I think it's a lot more cost effective to stay healthy than to get into habits that make you sick.
Yes, I think that, I mean, I could not agree more.
And also really if you think about it. It doesn't cost a lot more to eat a couple of eggs for breakfast and to eat cereal and milk.
Absolutely. Right. And that's another thing that I tell my clients, well, first of all, they're very happy when I tell them I'm very pro egg. I really am. I think, but I think with eggs, that's one thing where you get a lot of bang for your buck. If you go ahead and get like an organic egg, like a free range chicken, that type of thing. It's just healthier. You're getting more Omega threes and things like that. So you do want a higher quality egg, but if you think about it, you're getting a lot for your money.
Yeah. I mean, you can eat a healthy, solid protein rich breakfast for less than a dollar, really.
Yes. Absolutely. So yeah, I think, and people are excited when they hear I'm all about like beef. They think that I'm going to tell them that they should not eat beef and I'm like, “Oh no, there's, I mean, especially grass fed, grass finished beef is going to be the best,”. But no, just beef in general is going to just be so much better than a plate of pasta. That type of thing.
You described yourself when we met and we talked, you said, “well, I used to be a professional prescriber.” Now you're doing something different.
Absolutely. So when I worked in family practice, again, I was the only nurse practitioner and there were five doctors. So typically I saw all the patients that came in with acute problems; colds and flus and pneumonia and bacterial infections, things like that. So I would assess them. I would prescribe antibiotics, maybe order a chest x-ray, depending, but then just kind of send them on their way. And I never even thought, I never even learned in school to really delve into anything related to nutrition or diet or anything like that.
Yeah. So one thing that surprised me a little bit when we talked before was I am all about a healthy lifestyle when it comes to eating all the time, but I'm thinking of it more in terms of what we just covered in that it prevents chronic things like heart disease and diabetes and things like that. But you mentioned that you can see people that have acute things like colds, for instance, and you don't have to go to the pharmacy to take care of it. There's natural alternatives.
Absolutely.
So that would be super exciting to hear about.
So I used to just prescribe antibiotics and that's, that's what I did. I didn't even know about the natural alternatives that have actually, some of them have been around for millenia in Chinese medicine and things like that. And then some just for hundreds of years.
But basically, for example, now if a person has a bacterial infection, they can take oral oil of oregano. It can be very helpful to stop like a sinus infection in its tracks. So oil of oregano, quercetin, zinc. There's something called sweet wormwood, which is the natural form of ivermectin, which is a completely safe medication, ivermectin is, but also the sweet wormwood, it's been used in Chinese medicine for 2000 years.
So that's for a virus, right?
That it's actually an anti parasitic, but it works as an antiviral. Yes, it does. And so then there's also so many things that supplement wise that we can, to our daily regimen that I really, some of the ones that I really love are multivitamins and fish oil, probiotics, curcumin, and L theanine is a good one specifically for anxiety. So yeah, there's just so many natural alternatives out there that you don't need a prescription for and that you don't necessarily have to take for the rest of your life. You could take them for a while. You can cycle off and on that type of thing, but specifically for acute illnesses; viral infections, bacterial infections. There's things that we can actually take and do naturally and it won't mess up like our gut microbiome and things like that.
Yeah. I've asked you a bunch of things. What are some things that you would like to talk about that I haven't thought to ask you?
Yeah, I think it's just important to me that people are aware that there are a lot of alternative healthcare providers out there. I think you could, you could label us as that, but we're really not that far out there. But it's almost like a parallel healthcare system that has been developing since COVID. It probably really started before COVID.
But for me, COVID was just a huge wake up call to really see some of the flaws in our healthcare system. So I think it's just important for people to know that they can take their health into their own hands, that they can advocate for themselves, that they can seek out providers who really want to get to the root of the problem, who really want to help them correct some of these issues and really get their health on a better path instead of just taking a medication that kind of covers up some of the symptoms but can also have side effects, you in the long run or sometimes have even detrimental effects in the long run.So I think it's important that people know that.
I think it's also important that people know that, in fact, I just finished a 17 hour course specifically where these doctors across the country were teaching. And these doctors full time are spending all their time dealing with long COVID and post vaccine injury. And specialty after specialty, we had, there were cardiologists and neurologists and oncologists talking about, they're just seeing an absolute explosion of problems and explosion in cancers and heart problems and different things. And it's related to long COVID, it's related to vaccine injury. These things are not necessarily discussed. I mean, sometimes it can be difficult with mainstream doctors because they're so busy. They only maybe have 10 or 15 minutes with their patients and they're not necessarily aware of what's going on. And so I've actually had clients coming in to see me who have gone to see several different doctors and have not actually been helped. And especially lately, I've got several where I'm like, “wow, you kind of have classic, almost textbook symptoms of either long COVID or vaccine injury.” And the great news is there are protocols in place. There is help for that. There is hope for that. Absolutely. If people are suffering, I just want them to know that there are professionals out there that can help them with some of these, these very serious health conditions that they're suffering from.
So if you're listening to this and you're in Lubbock and you think that this describes you, I recommend give Rachel a call. But Rachel, if someone suspects that they fit in that last category, what advice do you have for them? Let's say they're not here in Lubbock, so they can't just come and see you. What would you, actually, can they see you? Can you help someone who's not in Lubbock?
Well, I'm just getting that in place to be able to do zoom. I'm one of the few people that didn't really do zoom during COVID. But one wonderful resource that I just absolutely love is the FLCCC Alliance and it's the it's frontline COVID critical care alliance.
Okay. We'll link to that in the show notes.
Yes. The physicians that started this Dr. Pierre Corey, Dr. Paul Merrick and several others. They are just absolute - they're at the top of their fields and they are just amazing. It's just a wealth of resources for patients to seek out. In fact, these are the doctors and many others that work with them who started the protocols and wrote the protocols when we were just brand new into COVID. They were treating patients back then. And so they have protocols in place now that can help people that are suffering from vaccine injury or long COVID, which is a common thing as well.
Yeah, this is really interesting information. And I feel like that would be a really great episode to talk about long COVID protocols. I have that on my list, that would be a whole episode in itself, but could you just give like a sneak peek, because you've said this word protocol a few times. So, um, can you just give us a little sneak peek and what's involved? Or some examples?
I think the basic things would be to do some of the things we talked about, which is eating whole foods, getting away from processed foods, staying very well hydrated with good water, getting vitamin D, that type of thing. But then there's absolutely supplements on top of that. There's specifically one that from the wellness company, it's called spike support. And that's to reduce the spike protein that people have circulating in their system. That's causing a lot of these issues. That one Dr. Peter McCullough is on the board and he is the world's top cardiologist basically. He has published more in cardiology than just about any other cardiologists on the planet. And he's very well respected. So spike support is great. That's the wellness company. But then there's other supplements as well that, we can recommend.
Really, really great information. Do you want to say on air how people can reach you? We'll definitely put it in the show notes so people can click on it. And then if there's anything that else that we've missed.
Yeah. So the phone number for Shiloh is (806) 794-3232 and anybody can just call that number and speak with Ebony and she'll get you set up with an appointment with me or one of the therapists at Shiloh. I'm also on Facebook. I have a professional page So that's Rachel Maples, RN, MSN. So that's my professional page on Facebook. I think the only other thing I would add that I didn't really talk about was - and I'll just kind of go into it briefly, was my journey of how I sort of started to wake up to - I mean, I did wake up during COVID as to, what was going on with big pharma and some different things like that. Traditional medicine and how things were kind of broken with the system.
But really prior to that my youngest child, who's 21 when he was two years old, he almost died of the flu shot. And he was in ICU for six days. He was on a ventilator for three days and it was a very scary time. But subsequently after that, that's when I started diving a little bit into vaccines because I hadn't been taught anything in school other than vaccines are wonderful, they're great. I gave them as a pediatric nurse, but I kind of dove into that. And so we delayed his four year shots and then subsequently he did get them. Most of them slowly over time, but really, when I look back, I've done so much research now that I actually, if I had it to do all over again, I would not vaccinate my kids. I think for everybody, it's their own choice, but I think what I just want to stress is,do your research, do your homework. Know that it's okay to question, the safety of anything, whether it's a pharmaceutical product or a supplement or a vaccine. It's okay to question the safety of that and the safety tests and to question the safety testing that is or is not done on those products. So I just want to empower people to know that it's okay to just - it's important to be your own advocate and advocate for your kids and that type of thing.
Yeah, that's a beautiful place to end. It's like, be in charge of your own health.
Yes, definitely.
Yeah. Thank you so much for your time. There's been so much great information and I feel like with everything we've said, we've really only scratched the surface, so maybe down the road, would you be willing to maybe come again?
Sure, for sure. Yeah, I'm sure that I could probably talk all day long about this stuff, so that would be great.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.