Author Archives: Masina Wright ND

Insulin Resistance

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Insulin is a hormone that is produced by the pancreas that helps cells to absorb glucose in the blood. When we eat a lot of sugar or carbs, there is a rush of glucose (sugar) absorbed into the bloodstream and the pancreas responds by releasing  insulin, signaling the cells to  allow the sugar in. When blood sugars dip low from chronic hunger or lack of food, there is very little insulin produced.

A lifetime of sugar rushes and sugar deficits can lead to Type II Diabetes, a blood sugar disorder that is characterized by insulin resistance. Insulin resistance happens when your cells stop being able to efficiently respond to the presence of insulin. Imagine you live next to a train track, or by a fire station. Eventually the constant trains or sirens become background noise – we stop hearing them out of habituation. Insulin resistance is kind of like this – chronically elevated blood glucose results in cellular apathy. Each little cell stops posting the GLUT4 receptors in the presence of insulin and the glucose cannot be absorbed. This results in a starvation state for the cells with an overabundant state in the blood, with resulting nerve damage from high blood sugar and cellular aging from nutritional deficit. Can you imagine how this could be improved with nutritional regulation of blood glucose?

The good news is it is possible to improve insulin sensitivity at a cellular level, especially at the pre-diabetes stage. The first step is to adjust your eating habits and diet. The chronically elevated blood glucose needs to stop happening as it is the flooding of the system and causing the habitual “resistance.” This can be achieved with high protein and vegetable meals with abundant healthy fats eaten every 6 hours or so.

Our cells like a slow, steady amount of glucose and insulin in the blood. The logic is as follows: protiens and fats and high fiber carbs like vegetables and grains break down slowly in the digestion, giving a slow steady stream of nutrients and building blocks. Processed carbs, sugar and fruits are broken down quickly and result in a rush of glucose. Therefore, to slow the rush of blood sugar one needs fiber, fat and protien present with each meal. This makes sense – it is always easier to handle any situation in life when things come at us in a moderate, orderly fashion. The microcosm is the macrocosm.

look up healthy fats and high protein foods!

The ginseng family including Panax Ginseng and American Ginseng are also used to lower blood sugar while increasing the ability to adapt to stress. This adaptogenic action exhibits effects across multiple endocrine organs including reproductive, adrenal and pancreas, making it a great herb for modern medicine. The ginsengs work at the plasma membrane level as well as improving steroid hormone receptor sites, which may explain their benefit and use in improving insulin resistance.  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10571242. There are many other botanicals that have a history of use in blood sugar management including bilberry, cinnamon, gymnemna and more.

Vitamin and mineral deficiency can also worsen existing insulin resistance and exacerbate high blood sugar. The trace minerals chromium and vanadium are both cofactors in the glucose-insulin complex and deficiencies in either of these will worsen blood sugar issues. Chronic magnesium deficiency is also commonly found in people with insulin resistance. This could be due to a deficient dietary intake as magnesium is found in leafy green vegetables and broccoli as well as fish, raw nuts and seeds, avocados, bananas and dark chocolate.

Finally, high intensity, short-term exercise is essential for improving insulin resistance. This kind of exercise shifts metabolism into fuel-burning mode, instead of fuel saving mode. Being active multiple times a day is even better for shifting into glucose utilization mode and improving cell receptor activity. http://www.thebloodcode.com/type-2-diabetes-recovery-needs-daily-exercise/ . Exercise is the only thing that will independently stimulate individual cells to produce those Glut 4 insulin-regulated glucose transporters found primarily in fat and muscle cells, instantly improving insulin resistance and decreasing blood sugar.

In summary, insulin resistance is a complicated condition that is essential to address in the treatment of diabetes. Fundamental nutritional changes and lifestyle basics are essential starting points for anyone interested in improving blood sugar parameters and taking an empowered stance towards metabolic recovery.

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Well Hello

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Its been a long time since I have posted from the medical world of Dr Wright. I am now in Albuquerque New Mexico, Land of Enchantment and Liver Disease. So many dying ciswomen in their 30s suffering of liver failure here, and transwomen too. I have been pleased with the cultural competency for trans and non binary folk in this city so far!  My hospital’s respect for the transfolk and their pronouns I have seen come through the door at UNMH has been heartwarming. The work is never done, but the foundations are in place thanks to those who have done this work before me.

There are so many things I could write about  it feels overwhelming. Like

  • how does one deal with anxiety in a productive way that does not encourage substance use?
  • how much does good food really influence health
  • and
  • the value of death: vs life. what is a life well lived
  • what is a good death

As an internal medicine doctor I know part of my life is to facilitate death. This is the job of the warrior; and as a hospitalist  I tend to those as they fight in their own particular battlefield . I have been privileged to sit with Death, and she is a  mistress no one wants to see. And yet, often such a sweet gift.

I wish that hospital medicine could embrace healing meditations and buddhist lectures. Imagine folks watching these daily in their hospital beds instead of cooking shows and NCIS? These are a few of my faves:

Anything by Pema Chodron as well: I look for ones longer than 45 minutes

I certainly haven’t mastered the art of effectively handling my own stress without turning to food, or alcohol, or any thing that distracts me from the what-feels-like intolerable levels of emotion building up inside. So, I have empathy for my patients that use this coping mechanism to get through their life. What is the difference that has me as a privileged white woman in my 40s still strong and healthy foundationally, vs their 30 year old bodies that are broken down by alcohol? Genetics is certainly a piece of it. The Navajo, Zuni and Pueblo folks here have what must be a genetic succeptibility to liver failure secondary to alcohol use disorder. They are too sick, too young, and too many of them to have it be environment alone.

I cant help but feel these women are carrying the trauma of generations of dominance, trauma and oppression and it is manifesting as this alcohol sickness – a genetic trait passed from white rapists to their progeny and concentrated in generation after generation. Tie that to poverty, a lack of fresh fruits and vegetables, and ongoing systemic depression and it makes complete sense that we have these women dying, daily, in our hospital.

It is a helpless feeling, this system oppression and individual illness. This is certainly a piece of the burnout of becoming a physician. We do our best to hold together the pieces of survival for each person, holding the hope, while also titrating the reality of recovery.

As a person very new to this state I have very little working knowledge of the cultural climate of health care here and even what resources are available. As a new resident and hospital based physician, I have basically no time to investigate and advocate for this community at the ground level. All I can do is hold the space for the sickest of the sick and even in that I don’t have time to be present for their stories or their traumas.

Dandelion and Milk thistle, turmeric are not native botanicals to this part of the country, so I doubt they are used in traditional medicines?  I wonder how much early liver protection with these herbs, as well as anger management, trauma based care, and other integrative therapies could be used to protect and heal the liver in the teens and twenties for these folks? My acupuncturist said New Mexico is the land of wind, and heat, both properties of the liver meridian. This would argue for an environmental component to the imbalance as well. Food, Water, Emotions, Genetics, Trauma, Environment, Substances – so many nuances to health and to disease. And I, as a doctor, am depressed with the minimal amount of time I have to explore these facets with each individual that may lend insight into prevention before these women end up in our hospital beds.

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Rheumatology: Pain, Joints, and Autoimmunity

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I just finished my final elective of medical school. I chose Rheumatology because I have such a strong genetic tendency towards this class of diseases, and because it was something I felt under-educated about heading into Internal Medicine.

Rheum itself means “a watery fluid that collects in or drips from the nose or eyes.” Whereas rheumatism is “any disease marked by inflammation and pain in the joints, muscles, or fibrous tissue, especially rheumatoid arthritis” according to online dictionaries. Clearly these two do not match up? Although perhaps one could argue it is the “watery fluid” of the joints that is attacked by immune system dysregulation in most of these conditions, resulting in pain, inflammation and joint destruction. Most of these conditions are also multisystemic, affecting the heart, lungs, kidneys, eyes, skin and more. The umbrella of rheumatology is large: conditions I saw in clinic included rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, scleroderma, psoriatic arthritis, polymyositis and dermatomyositis, pseudogout, gout, and polymyalgia rheumatica. There are of course more that I did not witness.

A large part of patient management involves managing and regulating pain. Opioids are now recognized as crutches inhibiting recovery for many people with long term pain rather than panaceas. Dr Clauw, a pain specialist from Michigan explains this way better than I could, and also addresses several prescription and over the counter medications as well as lifestyle management techniques for living your best life with chronic pain. Watch this YouTube video now, or listen to it while you drive: https://youtu.be/B0EhNajqkdU 

One conversation that came up several times was the use of topicals for pain. Many folks cannot take ibuprofen for pain due to stomach or kidney disease, or are already on long term therapy with prescription strength NSAIDS and still have pain. Voltarin, a topical NSAID was prescribed regularly, specifically for osteoarthritic pain at the base of the thumb with good success.

Many patients use CBD preparations for consistent pain reduction. Some people call cannabiboids “opioid sparing medications” as people can reduce the amount of narcotics needed on a daily basis with the concurrent use of CBD products. The doctors I was working with did not specifically endorse nor did they advise against medical marijuana as Maine is a state where purchase and possession is legal with certification. However, they did support individuals trying topical marijuana preparations of their own initiative for pain management.

The biochemistry of cannabinoids is super interesting if you are into psychoneuroimmunology. This recent article from Naturopathic Doctor News and Review does a pretty good job of outlining the basics of CBD oil as well as some of its politics in reference to mental health. Its use in pain management is multifactoral. There are two main cannabinoid receptors in the human body both of which are relevant to rheumatology and management of chronic inflammatory, neuropathic and mechanical pain. CB1 receptors are found throughout the brain and body and are responsible for most of the psychotropic effects; they are also found on osteocytes (bone) and chondrocytes (cartilage). CB2 receptors are primarily on immune cells  as well as osteo and chondrocytes. The underlying physiology is complex and still being researched extensively but one thing is clear: cannabis-based medications are effecting in reducing chronic pain via their effect on the the endocannabinoid system in humans and altering pain chemical signalling.

As aggressive autoimmune diseases, most of these conditions require sophisticated, high end medications to manage their progression. I saw many cases of men and women who had life changing benefits from DMARDS, or Disease Modifying AntiRheumatic Drugs. My main take home point from this rotation was if one of my patient is newly diagnosed with one of these conditions, REFER! to a rheumatologist as the medications are advanced and specific. My great-grandmother was bed-bound by 40yo with rheumatoid arthritis and she did not have the benefits of science to treat her disease progression. Even tho I am also a Naturopathic Doctor, I have respect for the powerful efficacy of these medications and do believe they improve and maintain quality of life in potentially destructive conditions like these.

On the other hand, medications alone are often not enough to manage and maintain the best health possible. The 2017 textbook I was given for the elective had a small section at the back for complementary and alternative therapies that have good evidence for rheumatology.

  • Vitamin C is an essential component of cartilage and collagen. Supplementation reduced progression of joint and cartilage destruction over time. My Note: Vitamin C is naturally occurring in high levels in many raw fruits and vegetables. This is a great reason to eat fresh raw foods as part of your every day diet with any kind of inflammation or joint disease.
  • Vitamin D is for more than strong bones; it is also a hormone that effects immune health. Countries that have less sunlight year round have higher occurrences of autoimmune disease. Get outside 20 minutes daily minimum all year round, and supplement vitamin D every winter. Have your blood levels tested every fall to ensure optimal levels of this hormone and nutrient.
  • Fish Oil has known anti-inflammatory properties in its EPA component and many brain benefits in its DHA. This rich omega 3 essential fat is best eaten as a meal at least 3 times per week – a tin of sardines, mackerel or herring has way more nutritional value than a couple of fish oil pills and costs so much less. Any seafood will contain fish oil  – the littler the fish, the higher the benefit when it comes to these healthy oils. If you do go for the fish oil pills know that you get what you pay for. Evidence shows you need about 3000mg of fish oil via pills daily for benefit, or at least 450 mg DHA and 750mg EPA. I like Nordic Naturals Brand for best quality and efficacy if you are going to go the pill route. For tinned fish, there are lots of brands, but this is my fave and it’s easy to find in regular grocery stores.
  • Omega 3 oil is also available in vegetarian form as flax seed oil or marine algae oils.

The evidence for a specific kind of diet for autoimmune disease is variable. Dr Jackson referenced the Mediterranean Diet as the best foundational nutritional plan for Lupus specifically. This makes sense as it is a low inflammatory, high fruit, fiber and vegetable diet with known benefits for heart health and longevity.

Many people choose to go paleo, or follow the whole 30 autoimmune diet plan. Phoenix Helix is a podcast dedicated to autoimmune health and paleo nutrition. During my rotation I listened to a great episode with Dr. Aly Cohen, an integrative rheumatologist who spoke on scleroderma and integrative medical management. In addition to reviewing some specific suggestions for scleroderma, Dr. Cohen spoke on the importance of reducing processed food chemicals, pesticides and additives and choosing clean drinking water, not from plastic bottles. As she said, over 90,000 chemicals have been introduced to the ecosystem and therefore the human body in less than 100 years. Autoimmune disease is linked to this toxic burden and inability to process the chemicals. Find out more about her work @thesmarthuman on Twitter and Facebook.

Three weeks of rheumatology clinic was only enough to learn the basics of diagnosis and management, and gave me great respect for my fellow Rheumatologicial internists. Each of the conditions under the Rheumatology umbrella have advanced immune dysregulation and multisystemic consequences with potentially dire outcomes. Fortunately, pharmacology has a class of exceptional medications that work quite well, especially when paired with nutritional initiatives and long term pain management strategies that focus on quality of life. I am grateful to Dr. Stanhope and Dr. Jackson at Central Maine Medical Center Rheumatology Associates for letting me ask too many questions while they were trying to write notes during their busy clinic days – and for the freedom to enjoy afternoon sunshine on my last medical school rotation!

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A Habit is Harder to Break than a Heart

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Ugh. New Years Resolutions. Worst idea ever! And yet – I had a tough end of 2018 personally so I decided to make some resolutions in an effort to bring structure and more wellness to my life.

Well, it is 13 days in and I have already failed all of my official resolutions. In fact I failed my first one in the first two days of the year:

1. spend less time on my phone, especially in the company of people I love

Excuses are bountiful. However, If you are in the same boat as me with lofty goals and a complex life, I encourage you to think about resolutions as a year long goal, not something to be abandonded by week 3. It could take even 3 years to build the structure that you need to support the foundation of your bigger dreams/resolutions like an art or writing studio and time to produce new work.

The Winter Solstice (12/21/18) is when we annually rekindle the spark of the year ahead. This tiny flame grows to a raging bonfire at Summer Solstice with our culling and tending and then dwindles down to the blue flames of Halloween and Nov-Embers. Then the cycle begins anew with the next Winter Solstice.

If you looked at your resolutions as a fire you were to tend for a 12-36 month duration, would that change your approach? Your commitment to your Self or Visions?

I have things about my lifestyle I need to adjust, and those are built on deeply entrenched habits that function as crutches that allow me to perform in my hugely challenging day to day life. I cannot just pull the supports from my foundational Activities of Daily Living; I CAN build new supports/habits to relieve the not-so-functional structures.

Building a new wellness foundation takes a team or at the very least a multifaceted approach. I failed my New Years Resolutions the first week because I did not have my new structures in place to support them. I now see who and what I could rely on to make this reality functional, and this second week of the year I was 50% more successful in my goals.

What are your NYR? What changes do you need to make this happen?

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Notes from the Road: Buenos Aires WPATH

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I am in beautiful Buenos Aires at my second World Professional Association for Transgender Health. My first was held in Amsterdam in 2016 when I was a fresh faced, just-finished first year medical student. Now, as a mid-fourth year student I am significantly more exhausted and disillusioned; I also have so much more doubt about choosing this field of medicine as my calling.

I like to tell the story that I returned to medical school to practice transgender health. Specifically, to be able to prescribe transitional hormones and participate in the insurance racket to reach more people. And that is part of the story. The root truth is I have been compelled to be a full scope physician for many reasons and transgender medicine gave me a focus because it was something I could not attain as the Naturopathic Doctor that I was before.

The last session I attended at the WPATH ARGENTINA conference was an incredible and inspired panel of Brazilian intellectuals speaking on depathologizing the transfeminine and deconstructing cisheteronormativity. Fran Demetrio, a transfeminine Brazilian professor was so passionate and eloquent in her discussion of injustice, oppression, systemic violence and the colonization of knowledge imported by biomedicine. She was being translated which made some of the discourse hard to fully comprehend and I wished WPATH had provided a professional translator for her because what she had to say was so profound and important and well thought out. She framed a paradigm that took the personal out of the conversation and raised it to a social construct and human justice level. In rough translation, she explained that not including the existential experience of trans voices in episystemic medical knowledge creates symbolic violence and perpetrates the colonialism of transgender relationships. This generates mental health violence and tramples the [transgender] patients knowledge. Considering and understanding this is essential to depatholgize the trans experience.

Despite the  multiple disparities that this population faces world wide, there is a slowly increasing body of trans identified physicians and health leaders in the field. However, to date  many of the people making the decisions about gender medicine are not differently-gendered themselves. Surely, this is problematic. The numbers of trans identified health care leaders is increasing by the year, and with groups like the Transgender Professional Association for Transgender Health, they are seeking greater control around the discourse of gender medicine and claiming their place as necessary voices in the didactic.  

The tensions between cis and trans leadership has created a simmering anger within this medical community. A socialist friend of mine shared that in activism in general there is a current trend towards challenging aggressions towards advocacy leaders in many different fields with a similar theme of  – who has the power to speak and represent the cause?

I was personally attacked in this rising conflict this year when I created a transgender health elective as a third year medical student for global medical students to supplement core medical school curriculum. A variety of trans and nonbinary people on social media threatened to create a petition against the course as it does not have a transgender identified course leader and there were multiple flamings on Facebook. I personally received several vitriolic emails from different people about the course, its content, and my leadership. I was privileged to have a team of (cis and transgender) people who have been in the field for a long time holding leadership positions to assist me in creating online and email responses that were balanced, appealed to reason, and illustrated the many ways the course seeks to uphold and respect the “nothing about us without us” principle while promoting evidence based foundational medicine.

I brought up this conflict between cis and trans leadership in the didactic of transgender medicine again at one of the ethics seminars at WPATH, where leadership and authority privilege was being discussed. Unfortunately, I was emotional in my questioning of the ethics behind attacking ally’s and advocates, as I am still deeply shaken by this experience. The response from one of the panelists was that when working as a non trans person with the gender diverse community there is so much anger one must simply expect to be attacked and be ok with that.

I am a person who has been excavating emotional violence in my personal life and creating real boundaries to protect myself for the first time. I don’t think I can intentionally choose a career were the population I am exhausting myself to serve reserves the right to be emotionally violent towards me indiscriminately because of their experience of violence. That is like saying that my mother has the right to be violent towards me in any way she sees fit because of the abuse she and her mother suffered. No.

Again.

“not  including the existential experience of trans voices in episystemic medical knowledge creates symbolic violence and perpetrates the colonialism of transgender relationships. This generates mental health violence and tramples the patients knowledge. Considering and understanding this is essential to  depatholgize the trans experience. “

Dr. Demetrio’s message ultimately lifted my perspective of the conflict to a healing systems approach. With this in mind, I am still recalibrating my commitment to trans health as a specialized field of medicine, while intentionally making room for the many trans identified health care leaders. As a nontrans woman and a white queer/lesbian, I devote the next phase of my medical education to the foundations of internal medicine as well as lesbian health, vaginal happiness, fertility, community health, and queer health issues like addiction and mental health. My view of women’s health includes trans and cis women, as does my passion for community wellness. I am confident that these past 11 years of studying transgender medicine and advocacy work will continue to inform the communities I serve, if in a less direct way.

I see now that when I claim my leadership vision within a paradigm that matches my own identity I can be stronger and more authentic.

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I Always Bring My Lunch

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I was in NYC in August this summer, doing a short 4th year medical elective at the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery. I did some couch surfing, and stayed at an Air BnB in Williamsburg my last week. Medically it was an outstanding experience, and in my dream future, I will get to be a physician working at this clinic in Manhatten. Being away from home, I realized how much I rely on having my own kitchen! Making my lunch is I keep my body feeling good despite spending most of my time working in a hospital or relaxing in bed.

What do you do for lunch every day?  By lunchtime every day, I will eat basically anything. I sometimes eats my lunch at 10:30 AM I am so hungry. The more glucose my brain is burning, the more I need that hit of fat, phytonutrients and fiber.

Therefore, my cunning plan is to eat super healthy sometimes boring basics for lunch – lots of veggies, good quality fats, high fiber fruits, raw vegetables and very few processed carbs. Then,  I dont have to think as hard about what’s for dinner and still maintain a good nutrient balance.

So, what do I actually eat? Greens and grains, with cheese, avocado or nuts/seeds and random chopped veggies like carrots, cucumber, tomato, radish. In summer I love to put flowers in my food. A grain free diet is popular with the keto crowd, but I advocate to have at least a few cups of whole grains in the diet per week. The fiber, magnesium, B vitamins and serotonin release metabolically help keep the mind-gut axis regulated. We rotate our grains between short grain brown rice, wild rice, quinoa, and millet to maintain variety of flavor and nutrient profiles.

I heard once in a conference lecture that nutritional studies were done evaluating T4 –> T3 conversion activation (active thyroid hormone.) Subjects were fed fat based diets, protein based diets or carbohydrate (CHO) based diets. Only the diets with carbohydrates evidenced thyroid hormone conversion. Since I am a huge fan of having optimized T3 production for an effective metabolic mileau, I advocate for having a moderate amount of whole grains in ones basic nutritional foundation.I wish I had the study in-hand to back this up but I dont; maybe once I am out of medical school I will have time to research these things more fully. The bottom line is that whole grains are good for health and tasty and I like them in my lunch. They are filling and delicious and beneficial.

I like to layer the grains on the bottom, then a huge handful of greens – whatever has the latest expiry date when I am shopping! We rotate spring mix with herbs, arugula, baby spinach, crispy green leaf lettuce, and occasional kale salad (leftover.) I need fat with my lunch to feel satisfied, so I douse the whole thing with yummy olive oil and a delicious vinegar like balsamic or umeboshi or fire cider vinegar. Then, I add some protein: cheese is the easiest and I love cheese.  Tuna, egg or chicken salads are always a win too.

I also love toasted walnuts, pecans, pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds. I buy them raw, and toast them in a dry cast iron pan until they are warm and smell nutty but not burnt. Make sure to stir! I store these in glass jars in the cupboard. The pumpkin seeds are best toasted with some Chalula hot sauce and cumin! Yum. These add a crunch, some richness, protein, and delicious essential fats. Finish the lunch with 2 chopped veggies for color, fiber, and variety: an organic carrot, cucumber spears with pepper, pepper slices, whatever floats your boat.

If you are a hard paleo and refuse grains, or if you are like me and sometimes need a second lunch or a hearty snack then organic nitrite free salami is a good addition. It is filling, savory, and works well with olives, carrot rounds and other veggies for finger snacks. Just veggies is not enough for me.

Lunch Plan B: huge leftovers fan here. If I go out to dinner, I almost always save half for lunch the next day. This is a win-win, because I stop eating when I am full (or save room for dessert) AND I have a pre-made meal to go. I hate waking up extra early to deal with lunch, so I usually get lunch ready the night before. We generally also cook for more than two, planning a lunch or two and maybe even a supper into every meal we co-create. Leftovers are exciting to me because these are usually rich yummy comfort foods like pasta, steak, curries and other “real meals”.

Finally, making lunch saves me money. The first day of my August rotation I went to the nearby Whole Foods for lunch. I wasted 15 minutes wandering around the hot and cold bars, trying to figure out what to eat. My $15 salad ended up being an awkward mish-mash of flavors that did not blend well. That day after work I went and bought $40 worth of groceries (almond flour crackers, apples, greens, cheese, nuts, yogurts and paleo granola for breakfast)  and brought my lunch to work every day for the next week, supplementing with enchilada leftovers.

Bringing your lunch ensures you know exactly what you are eating. It keeps you committed to your intentions with food, and lines up the healthy choices for you in moments of  “Im Starving” brain meltdowns that would otherwise allow for easy Trash. It is also a great way to plan your daily insulin for diabetics! Finally, it frees up dinner for more social food activities that may be less greens and grainy.

Oh, and bring a snack, maybe two. For Fall and Winter I find an apple is the hardiest fruit. Combined with nuts and raisins, it’s a great choice. Someone once said, if you dont want to eat an apple, you are not actually hungry. This holds true as long as your teeth are in good shape.  In winter and summer, cut up fruit like citrus or stone fruits an berries are refreshing and delightful. I also love dried mango slices from Trader Joe’s. If you crave yogurt and aren’t having it for breakfast, it’s a good option too. I love the dairy-free yogurts too like soy, almond and coconut singles, which are far better choices than anything a vending machine or a cafeteria might offer.

My basic formula is eating good quality food 65% of the time. Then I can easily process about 35% cheeseburgers, nachos, pizza, sweets, and other junk. To change your body composition this may need to become more like 75:25 and exercise has to be added in. I eat at least 60% of my daily food at work between 9-5pm. If I make sure these foods are healthy, wholesome and invigorating to my brain and bowels, my nutritional work is done for the day. Yay!

 

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The Pain Conundrum: Options & Alternatives

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I’m a woman with chronic pain. It waxes and wanes, but I have been on flourbiprofen, a prescription-strength NSAID for about 20 years. I take it about a week before and the week of my menses. That is two weeks a month of strong NSAID use. Plus, ibuprofen for occasional headaches or other pains.

After spending a week observing a nephrology office in January, I started thinking about my own NSAID use and  kidney health. After getting some lab evaluation (creatinine, BUN and GFR) it turns out I have stage 2 kidney disease. WHAT!! I consider myself an extremely healthy woman, and no doctor has ever mentioned kidney issues, much less had a conversation with me about the well known, scientifically proven ways that NSAIDS like ibuprofen, alleve, midol, and aspirin damage kidneys.

Here is the science: The kidneys receive about 25% of the blood flow from the heart, and filter blood through their delicate & intricate filter and tube mechanisms.

 It is prostaglandins that increase pain and inflammation. All NSAID medications work by inhibiting the cyclooxygenase (COX) enzyme, thus decreasing prostaglandin synthesis.However, ibuprofen and all NSAIDs also interfere with the body’s natural blood vessel constriction and dilation hormones through this system, ultimately affecting the kidneys. In the long term, this damages the delicate kidney structures from irregular blood flow. It can also lead to chronic high blood pressure.

To make matters worse, there is a second way that ibuprofen, aspirin and other NSAIDs damage the kidneys. The immune system can react against these drugs and cause an inflammatory reaction right in the matrix of the kidneys. This is called Acute Interstitial Nephritis and can happen after only one week of use. It can also become a chronic, simmering problem that is definitely underdiagnosed.

So, what to do? We cant use opioid pain medication like we used to because it is extremely addicting, and now ibuprofen, aspirin and products like Motrin or Alleve are also harmful. Sadly, acetaminophen, or Tylenol is a centrally acting medication with little anti-inflammatory action and it doesn’t work well for most pain although it is great for fever.

First of all, I would argue we as a culture need to become a little more tolerant to living with some discomfort. Pain is often a sign that something else needs to be addressed: like, hydration, nutrition, posture, or drug/alcohol overuse.

Second, the practice of prevention goes a long way to decreasing the duration and quantity of pain medications needed. WE ARE LAZY!! Simple stretching and at-home exercises can do wonders for back and body pain as can weekly yoga. People who don’t know basic stretches can be referred to physical therapy for individual assessment; this is covered by most private and federal insurances. The newest guidelines from the American Academy of Family Physicians recommend:

“Nonpharmacologic treatment, including exercise, multidisciplinary rehabilitation, acupuncture, mindfulness-based stress reduction, tai chi, yoga, motor control exercise, progressive relaxation, biofeedback, low-level laser therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, or spinal manipulation, should be used initially for most patients who have chronic low back pain.”

Finally, botanical medicine has an evidenced role in combating pain. Most herbs are better used proactively for prevention of pain and inflammation than acutely when symptoms are already present. Turmeric, ginger, black pepper and boswellia all have a long history of use for muscle and joint issues. New Chapter has a herbal Zyflammend product line that specifically addresses pain and/or age-related joint disease that is worth trying. Take as directed on the label, 2 tabs daily for at least 6 weeks to assess your response.

DLPA is a less used supplement for chronic pain and depression. This is DL-phenylalanine, an amino acid that gets converted into tyrosine. Rather than directly addressing pain, DLPA slows endorphin breakdown by decreasing enzymatic function. This results in higher endorphin levels for pain control as well as increased adrenal hormones such as norepinephrine. The dosage varies from 1500mg on an empty stomach each morning to 200mg twice daily. For gynecological pain like mine, cramp bark is another option. This needs to be taken in moderately high doses (3 caps 2-3 times per day)  just before menstrual pains begin, and continued throughout the pain window.

These are all good options for all kinds of pain, not just back pain. If we as a consumers were willing to put the same effort into treating & preventing our various pains proactively instead of just popping 3 Advil every 4 hours, we may live longer and healthier. The effect on the kidney is also real, and needs to be talked about more. I see patients dying of kidney failure in the hospital every day, and it is not pretty. I know that I am forcing myself to be more tolerant of the low grade pains I live with, and I just started using herbs (Vitanica’s cramp bark) and (walking and stretching) exercises in an attempt to minimize the pain medications I may really need in a few days. I am hoping it makes a difference, because my kidneys aren’t really up for another 10 years of this.

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Embedding Resilience in Medicine

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      Half an inch from the first four thoracic vertebrae lie the central nervous system transistors (stellate ganglion) for your fight and flight nervous system. Needless to say, my upper back is constantly aching. I am metabolizing the unique stress of being a brand new doctor/medical student in hospital life. It’s a different kind of stress than the first two academic years: those were crushing content & exams, but they were ivory tower academia. This is the very real medicine that is literally birth, life and death stuff. More visceral than literal, I find myself often crying,  sometimes gagging, and occasionally elated.

The purpose of third year clerkship aka #MS3 is to get a sampling of each major specialty to help us decide on a residency. Its a generic med school formula consisting of: Pediatrics, Surgery, OB/GYN, Internal Medicine Inpatient & Outpatient, Family Medicine, Psychiatry, Community Health. Inpatient, we legally cannot write patient notes. While we can actively participate in patient care,  everything we do needs to be seconded by a licensed doc; therefore, we are mostly shadows, errand runners, and absorbent sponges.

Unfortunately, some throwbacks to fraternal physician hazing rituals are still in place even for third year medical students. For example, my Internal Medicine inpatient rotation, which is already a 6am – 6pm shift 5 days a week (with a 1 hr drive on each side) also requires 6 -24 hour shifts in the 6 weeks. I asked a friend who is a year ahead of me and attended a different hospital clerkship if her rotation was scheduled as such, and she said she had to follow hospitalist hours for that same rotation – roughly 730am – 330pm. If the point is to learn each of the specialty’s roles, it makes sense to follow the professional hours. If the goal is to teach us that Internal Medicine requires an exhausting slog of hospital life, and how to forsake all other aspects of our personal and academic life for our career, then this approach in third year makes sense. Slate Magazine said it best: Third Year Kills Humanity of Medicine.

I haven’t done the above inpatient IM rotation yet and yes, I’m actively worried about my health, my marriage, and my coping skills during that onslaught. I did one 86 hour “sneak peek” week with our Family Medicine inpatient service last Fall.  I did enjoy the steep learning curve and patient contact; however,  I often felt lost and useless as my resident dictated her many notes and ran around the hospital following up on pages and other details. I did get some good studying done and learned some basic inpatient skills but there were hours, especially after the first 8,  that I wished I had something more productive I could be doing in.

In reality, the residents are much more forgiving than the administration and often let us leave early (6am – 10/11pm) saying “there is nothing we could learn at 2am that cant be learned at 2pm.” I am eternally grateful for this ray of grace. And I do understand that night shifts and on-call hours are foundational for many physician careers and practicing them could be relevant.  But why, when 55% of Internal Medicine and Family Doctors report burnout, are we being subjected to these mind numbing hours as third years? How will medicine ever change if the hazing continues to be perpetrated generation after generation?

I accept that being a doctor requires selflessness & sacrifice. I accept that long hours are often required and I like to work – for an income, for a team, and for a good reason. I’m a second career medical student, I study and practice clinical skills because this is what I love! I accept that as a resident I will bear the brunt of hours spent watchdogging and admitting in part because we are the cheap labor force of institutionalized medicine. But, I have 1.5 years of med school left, and 3-6 years of residency/fellowship ahead. What is the purpose of having me work 86 hour weeks now,  and how is it going to benefit my relationship towards medicine?

To embed resilience in doctors, we as a profession and as an academic incubator need to provide time & space for rest, relaxation, and quietude. Only in parasympathetics can we metabolize the soul-rattling experience that comes from facing death and sickness and the burden of chronic disease in North America. Not only are we facing grief/loss/mortality, we are taking on the enormous responsibility of decision maker. A backlog of unprocessed emotion leads to substance abuse, chronic pain, sleep disorders, lack of compassion, and who knows what other organic & chemical dysregulation. We need regular daily time to cook good food, sleep with our loves, be intimate and vulnerable, Netflick and chill, get to the gym or get outside. Only in that space can we emotionally integrate this transformation.

Our clerkship Dean Dr. Taylor sent out this  reaffirming blogpost last month in which an experienced physician Dr. Youngson writes to his younger self. He says:

     “As a medical student or junior doctor, it’s easy to feel powerless especially in a hierarchical medical system that too often teaches by humiliation, punishes those who question the status quo, and grinds people down through overwork and inhuman working conditions…”

Change medical education so that we as medical students (and residents and attendings and all doctors actually) are seen as people who are more than life-saving, problem fixing, chart dictating, disease curing machines. A more gentle, humane practice of time & space for medicine while living life alongside the role of physician has to start at the beginning of the clerkship year when we integrate it’s practice with our academic foundations, or it wont be ingrained as part of the way we approach medicine.

Once I started thinking about time, resilience and integration as the cure of medical burnout, I began seeing evidence everywhere. I heard a NEJM Interview from 01/03/18 with Dr. Armstrong from Massachusettes General Hospital’s new Pathways program where residents are given time and a scientific team to investigate complex patient-based cases. The 12/26/17 issue of JAMA has an article by Jack Coulehan, MD MPH from the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics on Negative Capability and the Art of Medicine that speaks to “sustaining the physician through the ‘humdrum routine’ of professional life… [Using]… the power to recognize the ‘true poetry of life'” and of medicine. This is a reflective practice. He says:

“In pursuing the steadiness and detachment required to master clinical practice, it is tempting to neglect the more difficult project of nourishing engagement and tenderness in our relationships with patients – and with ourselves.”

The future of medical education is not only about competencies met and clinical acumen. The true scholars of the next generations of physicians will be those who can achieve their best in patient care and scientific fulfillment, while also living a satisfying, integrated and joyful life.

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Gender Affirming Health Care: Top Ten Tips

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This article was written for the American Medical Student Association journal The New Physician October 2017. The original can be found at this link: http://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=445109&utm_source=webtoc&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=O17#{“issue_id”:445109,”page”:1}. Volume 66, Number 5.

Picture this: it’s your second day of practice. You graduated medical school, made it into a residency, and now it’s time to be a doctor …. In walks your third patient of the day – medium height, medium build, medium length black hair, charming but shy face and awkward smile and – your quick-fire practiced analysis stops there – frozen, you can’t tell if this person is a girl or a boy. You glance at your paperwork. First Name: Robin. Last Name: Also Unhelpful. The person is talking in a midrange tone, and you aren’t listening because you are frantically scanning their body to figure out what lies underneath the black tee-shirt and dark Levis. You look up at the persons face and see it start to close as they observe you floundering to see past their gender.

Transgender Medicine is a newly emerging subspecialty, but every health care professional is already seeing transgender patients. Trans people have always been a part of every culture worldwide; in the last ten years there has been a public blossoming of gender expression in social media, television, and probably your personal family or friend circle as well. Transgender people have come out as part of our modern society, and as physicians we need to be culturally and medically competent enough to provide good medicine for this community.

As of 2017, there are several epicenters of transgender medicine, research and scholarship worldwide. The Dutch are famous for their longitudinal body of evidence on transgender health, as they have been collecting research and academic scholarship on transition medicine within their socialized health care system for over 30 years. As such, they have a tried and true so-called “Dutch protocol” for male to female (MTF) and female to male (FTM) transitions that has been used as a template for most international Standards of Care.

The US has several gender specialty clinics that conduct research and offer high quality trans health care. These clinics and hospitals are also key players in this rapidly evolving area of medicine, surgery and research. The best known of these include:

  • Fenway Health Center in Boston
  • The Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery at Mount Sinai in NYC
  • The Mazzoni Center in Philadelphia (which puts on the free Philadelphia Trans Health Conference annually)
  • The Center of Excellence for Transgender Health at UC San Francisco

For future and current physicians interested in Transgender Medicine as a specialty, the key areas for concentrated trans care are Family Medicine, Endocrinology, Psychiatry, Surgery/Urology and Pediatric Endocrinology. There is not yet a fellowship available in Transgender Adult or Pediatric Endocrinology (Coming Soon!) but the first fellowship in Transgender Surgery has been piloted this year at Mount Sinai in New York City.

Whether you want to dive into the depths of the transgender community and learn the intricacy of this rich and diverse community or not, as it was said before every physician will see trans people in their career. Take the time now to become familiar with the basics of transgender health literacy, for your professional integrity and your patients.

TOP 10 TIPS FOR BEING A TRANS FRIENDLY PHYSICIAN

DON’T GET HUNG UP ON IDENTIFYING GENDER IN THE FIRST 3 MINUTES. Gender and Sexuality Identity begin to develop at 2-3 years of age. Your patient has probably been trying to figure out their gender for a whole lot of years before they showed up in your office, so chances are their gender is more complicated than your 10 second evaluation. Once you notice you can’t confirm male or female specifically (spoiler alert: you may be wrong in your assessment) MOVE on with your objective assessment and Listen to what the person is saying.

THEY IS THE NEW SINGULAR PRONOUN: For some people, She doesn’t feel comfortable, but neither does He. Some people live in the space between male and female, and those definitive English pronouns can feel extremely uncomfortable. Being mis-gendered by pronouns is also surprisingly hurtful to trans people. “They” is a neutral pronoun that just feels more comfortable for some people. Why not use it? (Ps. Please don’t use the “it’s just not good grammar” argument because chances are your grammar isn’t perfect otherwise; and, while it may commonly be an English plural pronoun, Latin-based languages have pleural pronouns that can also be used in the formal You/singular.) Again, the use of “They” is really helpful to some people for communication purposes, so embrace it, try it on every day, and get used to it. In fact, it really comes in handy when referring to someone whose gender you can’t figure out, as in saying to your attending “I’m not sure what’s wrong, but they look really terrible, would you come take a look?”)

ACCEPT THAT SOME PEOPLE LIVE OUTSIDE THE LINES: Technically, the term is “non-binary” for people that don’t neatly fit into the sex-gender binary of male / female. This is a complex spectrum of identities that can be any shape or form and have any meaning for an individual. The non-binary space can be intentional with hormone use, or how people are born or mature. For people who have always fit within the binary, it can be hard to remember that other people LIKE THE WAY THEY ARE. It isn’t our job as physicians to try and get them to fit within a specific box. For other people, the non-binary identity may be a stepping point, a transitional space, or something they struggle with. As always it is simply our job as health care providers to create a safe place where people can talk about their health care needs, and help them get these needs met.

STATISTICS DON’T LIE: Not a lot is known about trans health care seeking behavior from an evidence based perspective, but from my community I know that many of my gender minority friends avoid health care due to bad medical experiences being misgendered, disrespected, or worse assaulted/insulted or denied care. From the research that does exist, the statistics are alarming. Dr. Angela Carter, a transgender physician from Portland, Oregon writes “One in 5 transgender people have been turned away from healthcare because of their gender, and an estimated 30% have avoided seeking care due to fear of discrimination. Reports suggest that 50% of transgender people have had to teach their physician how to care for them; 24% of trans people have been verbally harassed while seeking care; and, 2% report an actual physical assault while trying to get care.” Read more of her great Trans Health 101 article here: http://ndnr.com/endocrinology/transgender-healthcare/.

PAPERWORK: What is named, exists. If you have a box for Transgender or better yet Male to Female, Female to Male, and Gender Nonbinary on your intake form or embedded in your EMR next to Male and Female, you can have that helpful self-identifying information at the first encounter. At the same time, this improves the patients visit experience, offering a named identity and acceptance from the first encounter. Make sure your staff are educated in trans cultural competency as well. Include training elements like being compassionate and respectful with patients who may have gender incongruent birth names, insurance navigation, and associated pronoun use.

EMRs – UN/NECESSARY EVILS: It will take a long time and many years of advocacy work before most hospitals EMRs are updated to contain alternate gender identities; however, having staff who are trained in ways to communicate about gender differences can soften the experience for the person who is in an acutely ill and vulnerable state needing medical care. For example, triage personnel (and med students!) could say “”So, I know this may be a difficult question right now but what is your preferred pronoun and what is your is gender designation on your health insurance?” This non-judgemental approach leaves space for the person to give an answer without an explanation and conveys compassion in a business-like open-ended manner.

DON’T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER: Many trans people “pass” for their chosen gender completely. We need to be mentally and medically prepared for providing effective and competent health care to people who physically inhabit bodies that are hormonally and anatomically complex. Doing this work AND exploring your own personal, moral, or religious complexities of feelings about trans gender and identity needs to be done BEFORE that patient walks in your door needing your professional skills as a doctor, not your human opinions.

KNOW YOUR RESOURCES: The World Professional Health Association (wpath.org) has been the guiding force and academic collective of transgender scholarship for the past 30+ years. WPATH has been at the heart of the conservation and documentation of the protocols used for transitional medicine. There is a published a Standards of Care (version 7.0) that is available online and in print. University of San Francisco also has a superior online learning center with everything you need to know to start basic primary trans care including evidence based protocols. http://transhealth.ucsf.edu/trans?page=guidelines-home. Fenway Health is the east coast online epicenter for trans health resources and reading and has great free training webinars http://fenwayhealth.org/care/medical/transgender-health/. Take an afternoon and familiarize yourself with these sites, bookmark them, and pass them on.

KNOW MORE RESOURCES: No one should have to travel beyond state lines to get competent medical care. As with most kinds of medicine, having a grasp of your local resources is essential, especially for primary care docs who just can’t do everything (contrary to popular belief.) Know who is providing competent transgender primary care and endocrinology for adults and for children in your area, who has experience with transition hormone therapy, where to refer for respectful electrolysis and other cosmetic procedures, and who is offering the basic surgeries like mastectomy in your part of the world is a great way to provide your gender minority patients with access and resources. If there isn’t anyone offering these services, consider taking a WPATH certification course and becoming that person.

DON’T BE AN ASSH**E: The best thing to do when you make a mistake is apologize. I have over 10 years of professional experience with trans health and gender non-conformity has been part of my social circle for 20+ years and I still unfortunately misgender people, use the wrong pronouns, and say awkward things. And then I apologize and learn from my mistakes. Doctor-patient relationships are built on an exchange that requires integrity and some transparency. You don’t have to be the expert in trans medicine- your patient is the expert in what their body (mind spirit) needs. Your job is to help them maintain a safe and consensual medical space where they can address health concerns and work towards their optimal self-expression. This may include transitional hormones and gender affirming surgery for some, or it may be flu shots and cholesterol testing for others. Or oncology. Or labor and delivery. Or sickle cell anemia. Who knows what the person will need, trans people are people and you have one in your office right now. What will you do?

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Evolutionary Success vs Child Free Living

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As you know, I have been struggling with my biological clock: my age and stress level tick louder than ever. Weighing the cost of motherhood against my career in medicine has never been an equal balance with scales always tipped in the favor of my seemingly insatiable appetite for knowledge. And yet – I’ve been studying fertility since 2004, seeing fertility docs since 2008, and  froze my eggs in 2013. I am always scheming to figure out “when is a good enough time”. Yes, I know there “is never a good time: but as a lesbian with a choice, isnt there a “better time”? And here I am, child free, finally happily coupled, and in my third year of medical school in 2017.

I just completed 6 weeks working with newborns and doing well-baby checks to mostly women under 30 in my first pediatric rotation. I I couldn’t help thinking about the definition of evolutionary success as progeny. Many moms I worked with had 4-8 other babies. Some were on opioids, many smoked pot and tobacco or even took buspirone and SSRIs throughout their pregnancy and had sick/addicted babies. Some were very very young. But evolutionarily, each of them had already surpassed me even with my 2.5 degrees, $500k of education,  and diverse, privileged, happy life. I realized I am currently an evolutionary failure.

I am an archetype of my Generation X.  I don’t have many excuses for child-free living left, having had a bacchanalian and free-spirited 20’s and 30’s. Is it time for me to “settledown”? Who am I if I choose NOT to have a child of my own?

My primary reasoning for not spawning includes RESPONSIBILITY – towards my career/education and more importantly, to the kid. Who brings a child into the world who is guaranteed a mom who is away from home 12-18 hours a day (unavoidable in medical school -residency)? Where is the evolutionary success in that? Generationally, I do not have the same programming my parents had to marry/reproduce, and as a lesbian it didn’t happen by accident. Also, as a kid myself who had a high ACE score, I don’t want to perpetrate even a privileged neglect into another generation. So, here I am: struggling with my generational expectation to break the glass ceiling, achieve my highest ambitions, follow my dreams … and shouldering the unspoken price of doing that.

Maybe I could redefine evolutionary success. Not “survival of the species” but survival of the…planet? Conscious eco-systeming? Or maybe even the more complicated redefining of family/familial success – what if evolutionary success was a life well-lived and well-loved, and a small carbon footprint; a kinship network of peers, lovers, and lifelong friends instead? Children no longer live to serve their elder parents, and even if I had a child, I would not be promised a safe and well-cared for death. Still, at the end of the day, even though I have many cousins with beautiful babies carrying on the family line in all directions, my personal lineage of Wright-Larson will not be carried on unless I have a kid. That feels sad. That does feel like failure.

I stand with my aching feet and my scrubs and pager, knowing raising my own babies is not likely going to be the life I get to live this time around.

I have always been an outlier. I chose Naturopathic medical school in the 90s, chose the urban underbelly in the 2000s, and chose osteopathic medical school in the 20-teens.  I’m 92% reconciled that I will enjoy my child-free life and travel to Tokyo, Vatican City, Barcelona, and live in expensive, romantic urban centers. Because I consistently choose career, love and adventure over a baby and domesticity I will be able to live a certain kind of lifestyle. But that doesn’t make it easier when I come home smelling like babies from a day at work, or when I see my cousins achingly beautiful creative charming kids. There is no consolation prize for evolutionary failure. Only the small faith that I am making the right choice for the kid I would create and maybe a for this planet, and hopefully for, myself and my love.

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