Written By: Dr. Jason Bergerhouse, D.C.
TRANSCIPTION OF INTERVIEW:
Alright. Alright, Dr. J here with another wonderful podcast. It’s part of our design to thrive series. And I’m sitting down with Dr. Heather Reagan. She is a phenomenal acupuncturist, gave me a phenomenal treatment today, in fact, and she’s been practicing acupuncture for 12 years now. So, we are going to dive deep into the holistic… holistic health care, and… and how, you know, we as Americans actually need more of it, and why we need more of it. So, you’re definitely not going to want to miss this one.
Dr. Jay: So, how’s it going, Dr. Heather?sdsdsdsd
Dr. Heather Reagan: Hi, how are you? I’m excited to be here.
Dr. Jay: Yes, we are excited to have you for sure. So, you’ve been practicing for 12 years now. What got you in? What made you want to become an acupuncturist?
Dr. Heather Reagan: I will say I started to see a Chinese herbalist, a little old Chinese man in LA when I was about 18. And he was doing herbs, shoveling herbs in a back alley, and he didn’t speak any English. And I walked in and he read my tongue and pulse and Iris and did a full diagnosis with that, threw me some herbs, and I’ve never felt better since. I was hooked since that moment. So, yeah, I knew I always wanted to go into Chinese herbology, and then acupuncture kind of came along with it.
Dr. Jay: So, when you saw this guy in the back alley, were you struggling with any symptoms? Did you have any conditions that you wanted? Or was like pure curiosity.
Dr. Heather Reagan: I was dealing with some like chronic lung bronchial issues that I just could not get rid of. I had seen every specialist when, at that time, for any type of lung asthma issues I was seeing, they were just throwing like constant antibiotics and steroids at me. And it was just getting worse and worse. And so, that’s when I sought out holistic medicine, and someone told me to see this Chinese herbalist, this little old man that literally spoke no English and prescribed me these herbs and I took them and… and yeah, I was like, never felt better. So, I just kept going back. And even for preventative care, he just kept prescribing me. I literally had no idea what he was giving me because I had no knowledge of Chinese medicine at the time, and nothing was in English. But yeah, he just kept giving me that. And I felt better and better. And so, yeah, so I knew eventually, I wanted to go into it.
Dr. Jay: Isn’t it interesting how true healing is such a universal language? In fact, there can be such a huge language barrier, but when speaking or communicating health, you’re just a healer, in general, that language transverses much like music, right? It’s a universal language, it transverses over the language barrier. I find that absolutely fascinating.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Jay: So, you touch upon something there. So, you were on antibiotics, you were on some medication, you’re sick of the drugs. You know, as a chiropractor, 14 years, you know, I’ve had so many patients, countless numbers of patients come in and tell me, you know, they don’t want to be on the drugs. They don’t want to be, but they feel like they have no other option. And they kind of visit me as a last-ditch effort. Do you kind of run into the same types of issues with the clients that you come in contact with? Or is it like a last-ditch effort for them?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, since I do a lot of functional medicine stuff, I mean, patients will come in with all kinds of disorders, and like binders full of lab work that they’ve had done, and specialist after specialist that they’ve been to with no answers. They’re just like, “Sorry, it’s an idiopathic reason why this is happening, meaning we have no idea why you’re having like 19 different symptoms of everything.” So, yeah, I definitely see the last end of… I’m the last-ditch effort, for sure. And that’s when we like dive deep into all of the lab testing and go into this whole functional medicine approach with like really figuring out the root cause, like why are all these branched symptoms. You know, happening like why… why does Western medicine continue to like symptom treat with pharmaceutical drugs and just band aid over band aid over band aids.
Dr. Jay: Right. And unfortunately, with those band aids, it always leads to more band aids. Because you know, when you start treating the symptoms via trying to force the body into submission, as I call it, because you’re altering the biochemistry makeup of the body by putting artificial chemicals into the body, which causes a whole nother sets of symptoms in and of itself. It’s like why wouldn’t their first line of action be, “Hey, let’s figure out the cause. Let’s take a more cautious approach. Let’s take a step back here,” rather than trying to throw a bunch of chemicals. You know, if somebody comes in… you know, if somebody goes to like Kaiser for a skeletal muscular issue, let’s say it’s back pain. Well, the standard protocol is painkillers and muscle relaxers. And then if that doesn’t work, then they usually increase the dosage. And if that doesn’t work, “Okay, now we’re going to finally refer you to the PT.” Well, why wouldn’t they just refer somebody to the physical therapist from the get go?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: Why is the standard of treatment like, “Hey, you know, let’s force your body into submission. Let’s alter your body’s biochemistry. Let’s mask the symptoms.”
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: You know, it’d be like spraying over your oil light that comes on in your car with a can of spray paint and say, “Oh, it’s gone now. I guess we’re good.”
Dr. Heather Reagan: Absolutely.
Dr. Jay: So, what is functional medicine, right? So, I, I kind of understand it from a holistic standpoint, but for our audience, how would you define functional medicine, or what is it actually?
Dr. Heather Reagan: I would say, I mean, to the basis of finding the root cause of looking at your environment, your lifestyle, your diet. Epigenetics is a huge part of functional medicine, how our environment and our lifestyle changes our genetic makeup, our health. Why are…? You know, and that we take a deep dive into doing a lot of functional lab testing. So, I mean, not just the basic stuff that you would get from your endocrinologist or your general practitioner or something like that. Like, we dive deep into checking, like the backstory of why these labs are not coming up normal. So, if you get a basic endocrine panel done, like a steroid reproductive hormone panel done, and we find out like… like your normal general practitioner endocrinologist will come back and say, “Okay, your levels are just a little bit off.” Well, why are they a little bit off? Let’s… let’s take a back, step back and look at the back channel pathway of what makes… what makes horm… these hormones and what makes those hormones. And basically, we treat the root cause of what this whole hormonal imbalance is. So, we look at your adrenal glands, your thyroid, everything that actually makes up so… I don’t know. Complicated answer there.
Dr. Jay: No, that actually makes complete sense. And, you know, just to go back and just getting the fundamentals, you look for the cause. So, we deal with a concept called remove the interference. I wrote about it in my book. I talk about the philosophy of removing the interference, removing the things that are sabotaging our health, whatever that may be. It could be your cell phone, usually it’s multifaceted. Usually it’s diet, nutrition, sedentary lifestyle behaviors, electromagnetic radiation, as we talked about.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: Ad nauseum on that when I was when I was laying face down, you know, because I can’t relax. I just talk. So, what, in your mind, is most important? Because when you’re looking at these labs, and you’re finding where all these… when they don’t have enough of this hormone, or they have too much of that, how important is it to treat that with herbs and supplements, versus, like you said, when you find out the cause, versus removing the thing that’s causing the body to go haywire? How important is it? Because I realized that, yeah, you need to balance out the hormones. You need to… obviously, people need supplements, they need to do whatever they’re going to do to balance everything out. But how important is it for them to stop the behaviors that are creating that, a lot of the lifestyle behaviors or, you know, things in their environment that could be causing that? So, how does your mind work when it comes to that?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah. Well, hormones are just reactors. Hormones are not causes. So, hormones just react to whatever is disturbed in our environment and our lifestyle, whether it be our diet causing leaky gut, all this gut inflammation and everything else. So, we don’t… I don’t directly just jump on trading hormones ever. I always work on lifestyle changes first. So, whether it’s… number 1, I always start out with the gut. I mean, that’s our entire immune system. So, gut inflammation causes brain inflammation, causes a whole, you know, disturbing part of our whole endocrine system. So, I always start out with gut issues. So, food sensitivity testing, nutrient deficient testing, I do all of that first. So, I start out with the gut. Then we look at mindset. We work on mindset, of course, stress, trauma, infection, all of these other things called endocrine disruption, not just… I mean, hormones, like I said, are just reactors. They’re not actual causes. We have to look at the whole body, the whole system, everything that’s going on in your… that you’re taking into your environment and lifestyle that is causing this hormone disruption.
Dr. Jay: Wow, that’s absolutely fascinating.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: Really, with all of the current crisis and the hysteria over the cold virus that we’re dealing with, do you see a lot of the patients now just coming in with a whole they’re just stressed out of their minds?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Oh, for sure.
Dr. Jay: Is it a lot of like fear? Is that a major sabotager of the body, would you say in your experience?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Fear addresses… I mean, attacks your adrenal glands. And your adrenal glands are like the main functioning endocrine gland that kind of takes over everything. I mean, that, you know, addresses the whole feedback loop with the thyroid, and your hypothalamus, your pituitary, and your ovaries, and your testicles, and everything else. So, it’s fear, yeah, attacking your adrenal glands are probably the number one thing that I do see. And that is just a negative feedback loop throughout the whole system.
Dr. Jay: Wow. So, so true. Yeah. And I could see it in people’s posture as a chiropractor that they are locked into a sympathetic fight-or-flight response.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: Which is, you know, that constant, their adrenals are just working over time. And a lot of it has to do with stress. And one of the things I tell him is like, “Stop watching the news,” you know?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: “Stop exposing yourself to that, because all it does is piss you off and stress you out.”
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: “So, the greatest thing for you to do would be shut off the television. That’s one way that you could, you know, gain back some of the energy that you’re lacking, because you’re not wasting energy by focusing on stuff you can’t control, you know?” But how sad is it that we live in a current time where it’s just like everybody is in a high state of fear?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: I mean, you just see it. I mean, it’s totally obvious. I mean, you get the so many people I see ad nauseum every single day walking by themselves with masks on while they’re outside, by themselves in their car with masks on, because they’ve gotten so used to wearing it, you know?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: What is your… you know, we’ll probably get into a bit of controversy here. But what is your view on people wearing masks?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Oh, gosh, I definitely think it is unnecessary to wear a mask when you are outside all by yourself not near anyone. Which I was just in Santa Barbara this weekend, and I can’t believe the entire city was in masks, even on the beach laying out. And I was like, “This does not make any sense. Like, you are literally 200 feet from a single human being, a breathing, heart-beating person.” Yeah, so I mean, I definitely think it’s weakening our immune system in the long run. I feel like it may be positive if we’re in a tight-knit space with like, 1000 people in a… you know, in a concert or something like that. Probably not… it’s probably okay to wear. But in the most… in the long run, I feel like it’s probably weakening our immune system, because we’re just not… you know, we’re just not coming into contact with like all different types of things that we need to come in contact with to react our immune system to help us, you know, survive and thrive.
Dr. Jay: Yeah, yeah. I heard about a story where this family got kicked off of a flight because they couldn’t get a mask on to their 18-month-old.
Dr. Heather Reagan: That’s ridiculous. Children wearing masks is absolutely like, I feel, child abuse. It’s very disheartening to see.
Dr. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, on the practical like, you know, when you expel a waste gas, or you’re expelling CO2, you know, and so all that gets trapped. So, you’re breathing it back down. So, you know, from what I know about physiology, now your kidneys have to work double time to buffer the, I think it’s… it’s either an increase in pH or a decrease in pH. I can’t remember if it makes your body too alkaline or too acidic. I think it’s too acidic. But I’m not entirely sure. But now your kidneys have to work double time to buffer out, you know, to make sure the blood stays at a balanced slightly alkaline level. And then you get the secondary respiratory infections. And then, you know, I mean, nobody’s medically trained on how to wear masks. I mean, how many times do you see people fidgeting their face, even Fauci himself, you know, pulled down his mask with his hands, obviously. And so, now it’s like, all of a sudden, now you get the unintended consequences of wearing a mask. It makes you uncomfortable. I’ve worn… I’ve tried to wear one for like 2 minutes and my face gets itchy and I can’t stand it.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: So, yeah, so anyway, I wanted to touch upon that, because we definitely see so many people in masks. And they are making themselves, in the long run, I think they’re making themselves unhealthy. Now, if you just wear a mask into a store, you buy your groceries and you exit out, I don’t think that’s long enough to make an impact negatively in your health.
Dr. Heather Reagan: That’s because their immune system is completely weakened from just hiding and being a hermit in their house and not coming into contact with actual constant bacteria and viruses that our normal body comes in contact to all the time. Our immune system needs to be activated. It needs to be alive and to like thrive and to build more healthy antibodies to fight things. We need to have… you know, we need to come in contact with germs all the time.
Dr. Jay: And isn’t it sad that that message isn’t reaching the public?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: The only message that the public hears is, “Wash your hands ad nauseum. Use hand sanitizer, like it’s anointing a whale. Wear a mask. Socially distance yourself from your friends, your family, your people that you care about the most. Do Skype for Christmas, Skype for Thanksgiving.” It’s like, all these crazy things, right? That’s the only message the public hears. And it’s so frustrating for me to know what I know about health and to realize we have a phenomenal truth, but it’s not reaching the public because we’re censored, we’re considered you know, quacks. And that’s not the narrative that they want to reach. It’s almost like they don’t want people to feel empowered. They want them to be disempowered.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: They want them to be locked into a fear state, because we know fear cranks out the adrenals, now, you go into fight or flight, and now your cognitive ability to make decisions for yourself and your family, make good decisions about, you know, everything goes down. Cognitive function declines when you’re in the stressed state.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah, of course.
Dr. Jay: I’ve always done poor on tests where, you know, I’ve stayed up all night to try to cram and study for them.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Sure.
Dr. Jay: Versus if I just sleep and say, “Alright, whatever is going to happen is going to happen.” I always do better on those tests.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Jay: I mean, I went in more relaxed and, you know, more rejuvenated. So, it’s really frustrating and sad. And you asked me during my treatment, “Art, do you feel any stress?” Well, that’s what stresses me.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Sure.
Dr. Jay: When I get focused on that, like, how come we don’t have a bigger voice? How come chiropractors don’t have a bigger voice? How can an acupuncturist don’t have a bigger voice? How come naturopaths don’t have a bigger voice? Because these…. this is also the message that people need to hear. We can do a balance. We can meet in the middle and have great conversations about this. But that whole voice, that whole side, shunned out.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: There were even chiropractors that were forced to close down their clinics in certain States because they’re considered non-essential.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Which is ridiculous. Preventative medicine should 100% be essential, because we are.
Dr. Jay: Yeah. Well, right.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yes.
Dr. Jay: Now, I believe hair stylists are essential. And if you’re a small business owner, it’s putting food on the table, providing for your family, paying your bills, that’s essential. Like, this whole essential, non-essential, the only people that I thought should have been deemed non-essential were politicians, especially in the State of California.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yes, Amen.
Dr. Jay: But, you know, even hairstylist, you know, because looking good is feeling good, and that’s a great part of health. So, you see people’s immune systems being suppressed, which makes them more prone. And we know like, you probably read the studies, like I had, that show the majority of the people that die are unhealthy. They have comorbid factors. They’re on multiple drugs and medications. I was even surprised that one of the common medications people take is Statins has a side effect of causing inflammation of the lungs, so does aspirin.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: But we’ve been told for years to get aspirin a day, right, keeps a heart attack away. And yet it has these perilous side effects to it. So, it’s like in your view, where should Americans be with their mindset, with their philosophy? What should they do to try to open their minds up to a whole different side which hasn’t necessarily been communicated them about health and well-being? What do you think needs to happen with the mindset of Americans to, you know, not only survive, but thrive to, truly thrive as individuals, as people? Because, you know, everybody’s just caught up in the fear. Their immune systems are being suppressed. They’re worried. They’re just in a fear state that there’s this invisible bug that’s going to wipe us all off the planet. Where can people take back their empowerment, so to speak? What would you suggest?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Alright. Well, first off, just sit back and like look at the real statistical physiological stats that are happening. Like, obviously, this is only killing a point very small amount of people. So, the fact that this has changed our entire world this last, you know, 12 months is just unbelievable. Like, I mean, it is… statistically, this is just another flu bug. So, it’s actually killing less people than the flu does yearly. So, I sit back and just look at the stats, like instead of turning on your TV and listening to all the media that is just like embedding into our brains, and for who knows, whatever agenda this is, whatever political belief that you have, it is just sit back and actually look at the stats yourself as an individual.
Just, I mean, whatever research studies you want to read, just don’t get them from the media, like don’t get them from CNN or anything like that. Just go to PubMed and do your own research and just, yeah, take back your own freedom. And don’t be sucked in by all of this because it is literally killing so many people, the mental harassment that they’ve had from the media, like anxiety and depression and suicide, and like, all of the… all of this, it’s just been so much. I mean, I have patients that have had severe anxiety and can’t even leave their house, and it’s just like, what is that really doing to your health? That’s like, I mean, the mental component of all of this fear is just as large as the actual physical, physiological being on the inside, you know, damage that is happening. This, the mental is… the mental damage that this fear is doing is huge.
Dr. Jay: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, that does make waves, you know, of, as a man thinketh so is he. So, whatever we focus on, you know, it’s like Tony Robbins says (I’m a big fan of Tony Robbins), he says, whatever you focus on grows.
Dr. Heather Reagan: For sure.
Dr. Jay: Because that’s where your energy flows, wherever your focus is. So, if you’re focused on the virus and the fear and the doubt and the anxiety, guess what? You’re just going to get more of that.
Dr. Heather Reagan: And you’ll manifest it into your physiological being. So, wherever your intention, your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions, everything, if that is attached to a negative intention or a negative thought, it will only… you will only mag… you know, magnetize that to your vibrational frequency. You will only bring that right into your own protective bubble that you should be in. You know what I mean? Like you… the law of attraction, you will… your frequency will just attract the negativity that you are seeking out in your thoughts and your intentions and your fear. So, yeah, I mean, I believe like, exactly like you said, wherever you focus your energy, or wherever you focus your intention, the energy will flow. So, if you focus the intention on having faith and positivity and gratefulness and all of this stuff, I mean, only good will come, only positivity will come.
Dr. Jay: And that’s so key too, because in Dr. Joe Dispenza, his book, ‘You Are the Placebo’, he talks about people getting a placebo treatment that they thought was chemo, and they literally lost their hair because they believed it was chemo. They believe they were going to lose their hair. So, they manifested the reality.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yep.
Dr. Jay: And so, what you just said is so key, so, key, because the fear, the worry, and the anxiety is just only going to perpetuate, and it’s only going to get worse because you end up attracting that into your life. One of the quotes that I thought of for this year is, are we so afraid of dying, that we’re too scared to actually live?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Powerful.
Dr. Jay: So, it’s like we’re so freaked out about succumbing to this invisible bug that we’re not even living. So, what’s the point? I don’t want to live my life in fear. In fact, I’ve worn a mask maybe 5 times and I see about, you know, 100 patient visits a week. We don’t require our patients to wear masks, and the ones that do, we don’t discriminate. And, you know, I’ve had constant exposure to nurses and every week. And I never had any iota or ounce of fear that. Because I believe in the power of my immune system, that I believe the body has an incredible power to heal itself. You know, and these are my constant thoughts.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: Every single day, I don’t give in to the fear. In fact, I’m more afraid of our government that I am in this invisible bug out there. So, but that was really key what you said. That’s so empowering. And but, you know, our patients, at least the patients that come in, there are those few that are like in that perpetual fear state, you know?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: But luckily, I attract a lot of likeminded individuals in my office.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah, as you… as you… yeah, as you share. The law of attraction, if you, you know, keep yourself at a higher frequency, you only attract higher frequency beings and people that are likeminded and people that, you know, just generally naturally will vibrate towards your frequency if you’re running at such a high frequency of vibration.
Dr. Jay: Amen. So, do you have…? You know, because I’ve run into this problem with my family. There’s a lot of my family members, just they concern me like Charlie Brown’s teacher, where I’m like preaching, standing up on my little pedestal.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: Do you run into that issue with some of your family members, like they don’t listen to you because they kind of think you’re just out there with all your witchcraft and sorcery? Do they think of you like a witch doctor with a bone through your nose?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Gosh, I would say, luckily, my family is very supportive and they do believe me. But I have had some patients practicing in Nashville when I had… when owned the clinic in Nashville. I would definitely had the people that thought I was… patients that I thought I was like a voodoo doctor. They’re just like, “I have no idea what…” like in their strong Southern accent, like… like, “Dr. Voodoo, I have no idea what you just did to me, but lord, I feel better.” Yes. So, yes, I have had… yes, I’ve had…
Dr. Jay: Oh, I like the skepticals turned believers.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Very much.
Dr. Jay: We definitely have. I’ve had my fair share of patients like, “I’m deathly afraid to get adjusted, but I’m here as last-ditch effort.”
Dr. Heather Reagan: For sure.
Dr. Jay: And then they get adjusted like, “Holy cow, that was it!” So, not only do they feel better, but they’re like, “Man, it didn’t even hurt.”
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yes.
Dr. Jay: And I’ve had my fair share of those too.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yes.
Dr. Jay: One of my patients used to call me a witch doctor.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah, I’m often called that, witch doctor.
Dr. Jay: So, what would you say your specialty is? What do you see the most of in your clinic?
Dr. Heather Reagan: I would say I see a lot of endocrine issues. So, lots of hormone imbalances, fertility, menopause, thyroid issues. So, I see… I also see a lot of sports medicine cases with pain, pain management. But I like to really dive deep into hormonal issues.
Dr. Jay: So, you’re like the more that complex cases that go beyond just a simple skeletal muscular issue?
Dr. Heather Reagan: For sure. Yeah.
Dr. Jay: And you said fertility?
Dr. Heather Reagan: I do see a lot of fertility patients, a lot.
Dr. Jay: So, these are women that can’t get pregnant?
Dr. Heather Reagan: That is true. Yep. Why did I just… repeated pregnancy loss. I see a lot of patients with repeated pregnancy loss.
Dr. Jay: Miscarriage.
Dr. Heather Reagan: 2 or more miscarriages. But yes, in my practice in Tampa, I saw about 50 fertility patients a week, yeah, with about a 90% success rate. So, I’ve helped almost 1000 babies be born.
Dr. Jay: Wow.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah, or conceive over my 12 years of practice.
Dr. Jay: That is awesome.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah. So, I do I love fertility. I love treating fertility.
Dr. Jay: What are your thoughts? Do you think there is…? Well, for one, I know you know that the body has an incredible power to heal itself. And with the infertility stuff, you know, I’ve definitely seen women in my 14 years that have a sense of hopelessness, like they’re just not ever going to get pregnant and, you know, they’re… they’re kind of riddled with that, that doubt because they’ve been trying for so long. Do you think there are cases out there that can’t be healed? Or do you think it’s just a matter of figuring out the puzzle and unlocking that Labyrinth, if you will, to get to their inner healing and their body will heal? What are your thoughts on that?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Well, there’s a lot of… there’s a lot of the genetic and physiological components to fertility. So, that’s why we dive pretty deep into genetic testing. I do all types of really deep endocrine testing to find out exactly like if it is a physiological reason, if it’s an autoimmune issue, if it is a nutritional deficiency. There’s… there’s so many different reasons why it can physiologically be happening. But mindset is a big part of infertility. So, that’s what…
Dr. Jay: Mindset.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Mindset. And so, acupuncture really can address that with fertility as well. Unlike anything in like an IVF clinic, or you know, going to any type of fertility specialists in the Western world, Chinese medicine that can actually tap into the… the psychological part of infertility, which can… it’s on a whole deeper level of how we can address the whole brain-mind-uterine-ovarian connection. And it’s… it’s on a very spiritual level.
Dr. Jay: What is the mindset that goes into causing somebody to be infertile? Is it like, is it something that manifests itself over time where they’ve been trying, she can’t get pregnant, so then all of a sudden, it works its way up into her head, and now she’s doubtful that she will ever get pregnant again? Or is it more of like a trauma that happened at some point in their past, and they have a negative mindset, almost a subconscious sense of being from that trauma that happened in the past that prevents them from getting pregnant? How does the mindset tie infertility specifically in what you’re talking about?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah, I mean, same thing that we talked about with the Joe Dispenza and Tony Robbins thing with the intention and all of that, that’s, if you have that blocked, like as far as if you continuously tell yourself the story, like, “I’m not going to get pregnant. It’s not going to happen this month. I’m going to start my period this month. I just know what’s going to happen. I know,” you know, and you just get yourself into this whole negative spiral, it’s… it’s the same thing physiologically like and mentally that it just, you get… you basically can manifest it not happening. But physiologically, like with the adrenal glands and your stress and the fear and everything else, your… if you take a step back at your adrenal hormones that are less produced when you are in such a state of fear and stress, your hormone pregnenolone, which comes from your adrenal cortex, that adrenal hormone will basically, your body does this thing called the pregnenolone steal, where it basically takes all of your pregnenolone and shoves it towards your cortisol pathways to make more cortisol to keep yourself in this fight-or-flight survival state. And that pregnenolone is a hormone that you need to make progesterone, estrogen, testosterone, FSH, LH, and all of your reproductive…
Dr. Jay: So, it’s like a precursor to all those hormones?
Dr. Heather Reagan: It is.
Dr. Jay: Wow.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah. And so, when your body is in this crazy stress fight-o- flight state, your body will do this thing called the pregnenolone steal. And it will take pregnenolone and it will literally just try to make more cortisol to actually keep your body in survival state. And so, you don’t have enough progesterone for that luteal phase for implantation. You don’t have enough estrogen to thicken your lining to cause luteinizing hormone spike to actually release a follicle. And same thing with FSH, it lowers all of these reproductive hormones. So, physiologically, that’s what happens in the body when we’re in this stressful, fearful, negative mindset state. Like, physiologically our hormones will not be produced.
Dr. Jay: Okay, that’s amazing. So, you see more of the mindset when it comes to infertility with the women that are like they get into the kind of this mindset, like, “Okay, I’m going to be ovulating at this time,” and it becomes very, like analytical and they’re all up in their heads trying to analyze, “Okay, we need to have sex on this day, this day, this day,” or whatever, you know? So, you see a lot of infertility cases with that kind of a mindset, huh?
Dr. Heather Reagan: For sure.
Dr. Jay: Yeah. When me and my wife decided that, hey, we were going to start trying, it was like, “Okay, we’re going to start trying,” but it was never any doubt that she was going to get pregnant. It was like, we’re just going to let it happen, however, it was going to happen naturally.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: And was funny story. When my wife told me she was pregnant, I said, “Well, how the hell did that happen?” I was actually shocked at how fast it happened.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Awesome!
Dr. Jay: I didn’t expect it. And there was about 2 hours of silence of just processing the fact that she was pregnant. Because it was like a head spin, you know? It’s like, god, I didn’t realize that, you know, as soon as we decided, “Hey, we’re going to have a kid,” that she was going to wind up pregnant Within like weeks of that.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Wow, you’re so fortunate for that to happen.
Dr. Jay: Well, you know, here’s the thing. You know, we live our lives by certain philosophy. Both me and my wife haven’t taken any single medication for over a decade, almost 20 years now. And so, we have a fundamental mindset when it comes to health and well-being. We’ve done green drinks every morning. We eat super healthy. We exercise regularly. We don’t live sedentary lifestyle. So, there was a lot of work and mindset shift and paradigm shift that went into that moment, years of this life that we were living all the way up until that.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: So, I think being physically healthy. So, yes, you need the mindset, but being physically healthy. You know, me and another chiropractor got in this conversation as well, is the things we do affects how healthy the sperm is, how healthy the eggs are. You know, so everything that you’ve done over here, all the way up to this point right here matters when it comes to pregnancy.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Absolutely.
Dr. Jay: Matters to the health of your child. When my wife was pregnant. She didn’t have any sweets, no sugar. The only sugar she got was from fruit. But she did no cane sugar, I mean I’m talking as specific as like, if, you know we’re going to have something, it was like, “Nope, we can’t have that because there’s cane sugar.” I mean, she read the ingredients on everything. She starved her body of sugar. And as it turns out, Riley, I mean, you know, that picture, right there was 5 minutes after she was born.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Aww, she’s so alert.
Dr. Jay: And, you know, and because of this philosophy we live, even though Riley was breech, we knew that that was God’s plan. We knew that Riley wanted to be breech. And we knew she was strong willed. She was stubborn. She didn’t want to flip. We tried everything. We tried even hanging my wife upside down from an inversion table, and she still didn’t flip. The only thing we didn’t do was the manual inversion, and I watched it, I’m like, “There’s no way we’re doing that to our daughter.” And she came out super, super healthy, the roundest head I’ve ever seen. When I was born, I had a coconut, because they used the plunger.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: They got in there with the puncher and plunged me out. But anyway, so yeah, so all that to say, you know, super healthy, but what you do up until that point, you decide, “Hey, we want to have a kid,” matters. I mean, gosh, I’ve seen women smoking while they’re pregnant.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: How could you not think that effects the health of your kid?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: Or drinking coffee, how do you think that caffeine is not going to affect your kid?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Sure.
Dr. Jay: You know, you could see it affects the measure, the heartbeat of your child while they’re in the womb after you…
Dr. Heather Reagan: Drink coffee, yeah.
Dr. Jay: … eat anything or drink coffee. Everything affects everything. How can we think it doesn’t? Anyway, so I digress. So, yeah, so you see a lot of infertility cases.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: Okay, that’s really cool. And so, would you say that your practice is primarily made up of the majority of like women? Or do you see a balance of men and women? Or do you see typically more?
Dr. Heather Reagan: I would say probably 70% women, 30% men. And most of the men are for musculoskeletal cases, but I do treat all kinds of things for men, erectile dysfunction, all kinds of low testosterone, all kinds of different endocrine issues, diabetic patients, I see all kinds of Internal Medicine stuff.
Dr. Jay: For men, is there such a thing as toxic masculinity?
Dr. Heather Reagan: That’s a funny question.
Dr. Jay: I’m joking. That seems to be the narrative now.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah. So many toxins lower your masculinity, are you saying?
Dr. Jay: No, they’re just saying toxic masculinity because, you know, it’s all about it’s making women tougher and feminizing men, that seems to be the whole reversal. And that whole thing, I believe was started by the Me-Too movement, and it was all about, you know, men, all that toxic masculinity, you know?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: But guys are naturally the way they are, if they’re healthy. Women are naturally the way they are, if they’re healthy. So, in essence, to say toxic masculinity and testosterone and all this stuff is toxic is to deny science, is to deny the natural physiological makeup. And that’s what makes women so incredibly who they are and how they function. And men, it makes them who they are and how we function. That’s why we tend to be a bit more competitive, you know, and stronger and better at certain athletic endeavors, although there’s phenomenal women out there. But, you know, to say it’s toxic is just, it’s crazy. It’s basically to deny, you know, natural physiological makeup and things. But that’s really cool. So, what channels do you have? How can people find out more about what you do and what you’re all about and everything?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Sure. Well, I do have a telemedicine practice online, the naturalfertilitydr.com. And that’s where I see a lot of fertility patients from all over the country. I have patients in New York and Wisconsin and kind of all over the place. But we do a functional medicine consult, a Zoom call, and then… and then we do all… I run all their labs, and then we do a follow up and kind of give them a full protocol, diet, lifestyle environment, toxins, every chemicals, everyday stuff to get rid of, things to do, balanced their basal body temperature charts, everything, and then we get them pregnant. So, that’s my online channel that way. But I also have a brick-and-mortar practice here in Folsom, California in Northern California, where I see all kinds of patients, not just fertility, I treat everything. So, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Jay: That’s awesome. And I’m glad you do that online, because that gives people access to you that are in different States.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: What’s kind of tough about what I do is I have to be physically present with that person. So, I can’t work on people in Texas and all that. And I hear from people on a weekly basis that are, “I wish you were in my State.”
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah, that’s very scary, especially since a woman carrying a female fetus is… is actually producing those female’s eggs. So, you… your wife being as healthy as she was, is she’s actually producing her grandchildren at the same time. So, she is in control of all of the genetics or a strong part of the epigenetic disposition of your daughter’s oocyte, so your daughter’s eggs. So, I like to tell my patients it’s why I want to do acupuncture through their whole pregnancy, so we can focus on building the health of not only the nervous system and the circulatory, all of the systems of the fetus itself. But especially if you’re carrying a female fetus, you know, the generations that you are actually genetically building their eggs as well, their oocytes as well. So, it’s very important like your… that your wife had such a healthy pregnancy because she… her, your daughter’s children will have a much higher susceptibility to being having such a healthy disposition as well.
Dr. Jay: Wow. That is surreal and scary at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s just really sad that we just don’t realize that, and that’s not a message that gets preached to us. And it should be, because it’s such an important message.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yeah.
Dr. Jay: I mean, the future of our species…
Dr. Heather Reagan: Is how we take care of ourselves, especially… yeah.
Dr. Jay: Well, and We don’t know, genetically, how it might impact future offspring down the road.
Dr. Heather Reagan: We’re already at a steady decline of reproduction.
Dr. Jay: We’re already at a steady decline.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Like a high steady decline of reproduction. So, if we continue at this level, just male infertility alone, we should… if we stay at the same trajectory that we’re at right now, we… males will be able to… or will not be able to reproduce in about 60 years.
Dr. Jay: Wow.
Dr. Heather Reagan: So, that’s how much of an effect our… our male infertility and DNA fragmentation has gone on such a downhill slope. And that is like all of the highest of highest research studies out there, all of the highest meta-analysis done of male infertility. We are really on a trajectory to discontinue the human race.
Dr. Jay: Oh my gosh. So, what you’re saying is let’s create a commune where we live with a bunch of likeminded people who care about the…
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yes, exactly.
Dr. Jay: … perpetuation of our species and future. Well, it’s been such a pleasure…
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yes, absolutely.
Dr. Jay: … chatting with me today. I can tell you’re an expert. I can tell that you deeply care about your patients, and you deeply care about this world at large. And you’re really good about what you do. Any final comments you want to leave with our audience today?
Dr. Heather Reagan: I will say take care of your health as much as you can now, and whatever you can do preventatively to take care of yourself. Because it is much less expensive to take care of your health now than it is to actually treat yourself when you’re sick. So, pay for the supplements, pay for the chiropractic work, the acupuncture, whatever naturopathic work, whatever it is, the diet, the organic, everything. The cleaner toxin to keep out of your system, your environment, your lifestyle, it is much cheaper to do that now than to pay for the medical bills once your very sick. So, preventative medicine is the way to go.
Dr. Jay: That is awesome. And how can they find you on your online channel? Because a lot of people that listen to this podcast are actually out of State.
Dr. Heather Reagan: Okay.
Dr. Jay: So, what’s the website again?
Dr. Heather Reagan: Yep, so you can look me up at bloomacupunctureandintegrativemedicine.com, or the naturalfertilitydr.com. And so, I do virtual consults for fertility on that fertility website, or I do virtual consults for any other internal-medicine stuff on my first website that I mentioned.
Dr. Jay: Very, very cool. Alright, guys. Well, you heard it. So, you gotta invest in yourself. It pays dividends in the long run. Why wait until you get sick to finally start taking care of yourself? Let’s focus on prevention. Let’s be proactive. Let’s save this planet. And let’s spread the truth. So, make sure you share this, like this, love it, and share it with your audience. God bless you guys. Have a wonderful day. Very cool.
