Luna (pseudonym) is a 45 years old mother with 3 kids, who also works as a high level executive of a tech company. She came in for her mood swing, hot flashes, general body aches, and cyst in the breast. Her blood showed no elevation of FSH (follicle stimulating hormones), which indicated she was not in menopause. However, she noticed her sleep quality had dropped significantly, with midnight wakings, and night sweats. Lately she also experienced frequent urination and urgency. She also complained about her daytime fatigue and brain fog, which interfered with her quality of life and work.

When I met Luna, I was amazed at how efficient she was about her own health issues. She came with a list of symptoms and information she googled. Before she came to our practice, she had visited several health care providers, both conventional and holistic. She also came in with a list of several medications, which she expressed the interest in cutting down or stopping. 

Before proceeding to treatment, the first thing we do when approaching every patient is to go through a functional medicine life matrix. This is like having the patient tell a short story of her life, about the changes in her health, what the triggers had been, and what are the perpetuating factors in her life. This model resembles so much with traditional Chinese medicine, as TCM looks at the patient and the symptoms together. When treating with TCM, we also look at the constitution, the genetic conditions a person is born with, the tendency of certain illness or pattern, and congenital imbalance. 

The conventional medical system is very effective in symptom elimination, and this model of medicine does have its benefits. But when it comes to quality of life, what we truly need is patient centered care.

In Luna’s life matrix, she told me about her high stress and poor diet, which led to her perpetuated indigestion, something that had been going on years before her other symptoms started to surface. She strived to be a perfect mom, wife and boss, which made her prioritize everyone else above herself. Her situation is not unique in my practice. However, to get to the root cause of it was not easy. 

This pattern of stress →poor GI function → poor sleep → insatiable nervous system → imbalanced hormones is seen very often among my patients, which I attribute to a goal oriented society that we live in right now.

First, her imbalance showed in her nervous, hormonal, and GI system. Almost always I can find GI issues whenever multiple systems are involved. Zhong Jia in TCM, or GI, is the postnatal foundation in nourishing and detoxing.

“When in doubt, treat the gut” is our principle in nourishing and supporting our patients.

Luna’s treatment started with acupuncture and Chinese herbs to promote her spleen and stomach Qi, which also require the liver and lung Qi to be unobstructed. Her response to the initial treatment was really well with significant reduction in indigestion and bloating. This improvement also helped her to have less brain fog. 

In the second stage , we incorporated an elimination diet that followed the functional medicine guideline and found out what her food triggers may be for her stress and sleep quality. I also discussed the possibility of cutting certain medication with her doctor, as I believe a collaborative approach with conventional doctors is the best way of health care. Her doctor agreed on the protocol and treatment plan I designed for Luna with the backing of evidence based research.

Meanwhile I encourage Luna to work with a health coach in order to incorporate exercise and stress management into her daily life.

I am very happy to see Luna had made a lot of progress with our treatment plan. Her sleep quality and daytime energy had significantly improved! When we see a patient’s quality of life improves so drastically, we feel proud and happy.