Hola! Today, I’m excited to introduce to you our special guest, Megan Stone where we talk about how you can influence the result of your own health through Functional Medicine and the misconception surrounding it.

Megan Stone is a family physician by training and went to a family medicine residency in Southern California. She has also worked in so many areas of medicine, and has worked in Africa, India, and other developing countries to help with the diseases before she focuses on Functional Medicine.

Her vast experience allows her to see what is the tradition of medicine, what are most people doing right now, and what are the hurdles and the possibilities that physicians can do in the medical community, thereby allowing the patients to do a better job for themselves.

What we talk about

What is Functional Medicine.

The three biggest misconceptions of Functional Medicine

It’s not science-based or evidence-based-Truth is there is so much science-based information in the labs to the functional medicine labs. They are based on thousands of studies, thousands of patients and so this is not just fluffy medicine.
People think they can’t afford it- when you say I can’t afford it, what you’re saying is, I can’t do anything I give up. I’m not going to do anything. I’m not going to read a book that might be $10 on Amazon. I’m not going to look at the millions of free blogs and articles from all the functional medicine doctors in the world. Yeah, maybe you can’t afford the big Whopper plan that someone needs to pay when they are really, really ill and no one has helped them. But most people don’t need that. They just need small things. You can read and listen for free.
People think that those who practice Functional Medicine are not educated-This is absolutely untrue. Brilliant people, doctors, pharmacists, nutritionist dietitian from their respective field, emergency medicine, gynecology, Family Medicine, everywhere Addiction Medicine come from all different fields and gathered to functional medicine and have decided that there’s more a physician can do than what we have in our system right now.

The three steps that somebody that wants to learn about Functional Medicine or is not getting good results from traditional medicine should take in order to learn and get improvement.

Being honest about where you’re at, where is your health? How do you feel when you wake up? There are so many things but write it down, write down what you feel and where or how you would like to feel?
The most powerful tool that is so underutilized and it’s free is meditation. There are so many studies, actual scientific studies about meditation and you could start at three minutes a day. You can find 5 million things online about meditation for free.
And number three, you have to be in charge. So if you are good, everybody that you care about and you take care of will be good. But if you’re not good, who is going to take care of them?

“The eye does not see what the mind does not know.”

-Dr. Megan Stone-

Connect with Dr. Megan Stone

Follow The Journey To Happiness Senior’s Group

A group founded by Dr. Megan Stone together with Life Coach Darrell Price to really address the happiness and the mental health of the senior community, in addition to trying to remove the isolation component as a huge part of lifting up the health of the seniors.

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Transcript

Marilena Grittani, RPh

0:10
Hello, and welcome to The Legal Drug Dealer podcast where you would get health and prescription drug education and advice so you can take control of your own health by making your own decisions. My name is Marilena Grittani. I am a clinical pharmacist with experience in community pharmacy, like the ones that you go and get prescription drugs, stay with me and learn from my experience and the experience of experts that I have invited to educate us. Why The Legal Drug Dealer you might ask? Well, as a pharmacist, I deal drugs and it is a legal job. So I think it’s funny to call myself The Legal Drug Dealer. So that’s the name of my podcast. Here you have the next episode.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
0:58
Welcome to The Legal Drug Dealer podcast and I am very happy to have you here. Today we have a wonderful episode. And it is the beginning of the series that we’re going to dedicate to functional medicine. The first one is going to be with a physician. So she will let us understand what functional medicine is how it works, what is the difference between functional medicine and traditional ways to practice medicine and the benefits that as a patient you can get. After that we will be talking about nutrition with a nutritional functional medicine practitioner. And also we will do it from a pharmacists standpoint, and then from the autoimmune standpoint. So you cannot miss this series. If you’re looking for an alternative way to treat the issues that you might have in your body that are chronic diseases, or you constantly keep getting new stuff and you continue to go to the doctor and nothing gets resolved, but more complicated maybe you need to take a look at something different and that is why I decided to do this series. So I hope that this informs you, educates you and also allows you to have an alternative option from the regular going to see your doctor, get a pill and that’s it. As a pharmacist, I don’t believe that that is the solution. I am more prone to functional medicine. I actually have my own practitioner now. And I do believe the way that they treat you rather than the way that is more traditional based on the insurance and the doctor offices. So I invite you to listen to this and learn with us and see what changes you can make in the way that you perceive your own self and how you take care of your own health. So this is the first episode of the series. We have a physician this time, her name is Megan Stone , she is a family practitioner. She has studied so many areas of medicine that is just interesting how she has changed from the very traditional way of practicing medicine to functional medicine and how she has flourished with it and how important it is for her clients, her patients, and her practice. She’s been in my house. She’s a wonderful human being. She’s very sweet and super pretty. And I think you’re going to have a mind opener time with this chat. But also you will have more understanding of what functional medicine is if you didn’t have it before. And it will definitely open your eyes to these new ways to see medicine. So here you have Megan stone and our chat.

Dr. Megan Stone
3:23
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
3:24
So to start, what is your original education?

Dr. Megan Stone
3:28
So I am a family medicine physician by training, and I went to a family medicine residency in Southern California and I have worked in so many areas of medicine, I did a tropical medicine subtract that means I saw people from all over the world Africa, India, you name it and helped with diseases of developing countries. I’ve also done HIV medicine for several years, and then more recently, traditional family medicine. So I was in the clinic day in and day out. I did nursing homework, inpatient or even urgent care and emergency medicine. So I have seen almost every aspect that I could see. And I think that’s important because I was really able to see what is the tradition of medicine? What are most people doing right now? And what are the hurdles? And what can maybe happen that we could do a better job in the medical community, thereby allowing the patients to do a better job for themselves. And that is when functional medicine came into my life. Probably I attracted that into my life because I was looking for ways to do a better job. And I needed more tools. So I’m so happy that I found it.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
4:37
So what is functional medicine?

Dr. Megan Stone
4:40
Okay, so that is a great question. And there is a very long answer. I’ll give you the short answer first, because that’s probably more so but people would like to know in the beginning when they’re first learning about it, but functional medicine is a way to practice medicine, where we address the how and the why of illness and we really Get to the cause we don’t wonder how can we just treat it and maybe hope that it won’t get worse. We look for how you get this? Why did you get this? What are all the factors that led up to you at this point that you came into our office? And how can we help the progression? And then even better, how can we reverse it? And then secondly, we really want to prevent disease. And that’s a little bit harder because we need to see people earlier in the stages, but that is also another really common goal with functional medicine doctors or practitioners of all sorts.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
5:36
So how different is functional medicine in terms of a new way to practice medicine? Is it something different? Has it changed the ways that you normally practice medicine, how?

Dr. Megan Stone
5:47
Well in some ways functional medicine is not new, and what I mean by that is, common sense is not new. Eating right is not new, doing things that you shouldn’t be doing are not new, but when we combine all of the aspects of what we know we should be doing with traditional medical knowledge of liver function, kidney function, immune system, brain systems. And we put those together, that’s really where functional medicine sort of explodes or shines is, we put everything all together. And so it is new in that we are giving the patient more power and to change their lives actually, versus traditional medicine, we are telling them what to do, they try their best to do it, they come back in three months, we tell them what to do again, and it’s the same cycle over and over functional medicine, we don’t like that. We want you to graduate from us, we want you to learn what you should be doing and then maybe you know when you need help along the way we help you but we want you to be in control and that’s what really should be happening. And then we guide you in terms of safety in terms of what the medical studies say in terms of prescriptions that you may need, you know, they’re things that you still need from us, but we need a lot from you too. And so we teach the patient What do we need back in order to really give you your life and your health back.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
7:06
I really like that because that’s what I’m focusing on. And that’s why the online conference that I’m preparing is about technically called taking control of your own health, because that’s what I think it would. It’s the need. I remember grandma telling me how they used to take care of themselves when they were back in the village where she grew up, because she literally did in South America so there you go, she was she said, well, we knew what to eat we work really hard and they have physical jobs, physical work to do for them to eat, to grow their crops, they have to you know, work in their crops of corn to make the basic bread that we have in Venezuela that said are made from the you taste it by the way. Uh huh. From that corn so that all that was just to make a meal for the family, but it implied a lot of work and a lot of effort that kept them healthy because it was part of their traditional life. And then now we call traditional medicine what it is that is expected for you to go to see the doctor, the doctor fixes everything then you get a pill that is magic, right? And it fixes everything and that’s you’re done and then you don’t compare that with the old ways of living which is what I call traditional medicine. What used to be what grandma and previous generations apply. That’s what I think and that’s why I love functional medicine so much because I think it is the best of both worlds right?

Dr. Megan Stone
8:33
Yeah, absolutely. And don’t get me wrong. I mean, if I get in a car accident, I’m having a heart attack. I want to be in a hospital that is well developed with well trained surgeons and ER Doc’s and that is what we do really well. We are getting that right and the doctors in the primary care offices. Again, they’re trying their best. They are slammed with patients phone calls, charts, it is endless and they are doing the very best they can. It’s just that if we don’t start to make steps from the patient perspective and the medical community perspective, as far as saying that we need change in the culture and we want change, then it’s not going to happen. We’re going to continue on the same wheel over and over and over again. That’s another reason why I went into functional medicine because I really want to be part of the change that helps not only physicians to see their patients get better and you know, have a more well rounded and happier career but the patient’s they need to get better, they need to feel better, we need to spend less money on chronic disease. And if we don’t expect more from the medical community as far as education, offer of what else you can do as a patient to help yourself and also just time, then, you know, we can’t expect that much back from them. The patient themselves so it’s a two way street.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
9:58
I totally agree. And I think part of the large myth of functional medicine is not that it is gone, it’s just not on top of the table as it is right now. It’s because a lot of physicians have noticed that the way that the system works for what is now called traditional medicine is not enough, is good and it works, but it’s not enough. We need to complement what they used to do before, which is what I think is my short concept of functional medicine.

Dr. Megan Stone
10:27
Uh huh. And, you know, with functional medicine, not only do we pull in those older concepts of where does your food come from? Who made it? How much are you eating, the work that you do, the movement you do each day, like what you’re talking about, but we also combine it with what we know from a cutting edge standpoint. So we have a lot of functional medicine labs, that patients that have been going to more of a traditional office, they didn’t even know they existed. And a lot of doctors don’t know they exist because you have to study that, you have to go out and find out and learn about it. But it is a huge industry and it’s there and it’s ready to help. And so it’s actually the combination of sort of the old and the new, and putting it together specifically for each person of what they need. I have some clients who don’t need a lot of fancy labs, they really just need to hear what they need to do. And they need a lot of work with maybe our health and our life coach, and maybe the nutritionist, maybe they have some chronic pain that they need help of getting a hold of, so we recommend different bodywork type of people or acupuncturist, or maybe they are having a lot of trouble with their current medication. So that could be where a pharmacist could come in and help with that so we can understand the interactions and the side effects. They don’t always need the high tech science stuff. And then I have other clients who yeah, we got to get on it. We got to get on it fast because you feel horrible and you’re getting worse every single day. And I’m going to order these things that I have access to.That maybe your other doctors did not realize what to help you. And so it’s taking each person and taking all the tools I have and deciding who needs what. Not everybody needs everything. Not every diabetic needs insulin. Not everybody needs Metformin. You know, it’s the same thing with functional medicine. Not everyone needs a whole genomic study. It just depends on who you are and what you need. And that’s the whole point, it’s customized. And then we work with, like I said, everybody who can possibly help, it could be a therapist, it for sure is almost always a life and health coach. And it can be the pharmacists, nutritionists, personal trainers, even therapists. And so we’ve got to pull on everybody’s strengths, because none of us do everything. And we have to realize that we all sometimes only need a dietician, and that’s it and that’s okay.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
12:51
It’s more of working as a team because each one of the members of that team is an expert in that particular area. And you might know what they do. But you are not an expert. So you cannot help them with that.

Dr. Megan Stone
13:04
Exactly. It’s just the same in the hospital when someone is having a heart issue, we would call the cardiologist. So,yeah, that’s the same thing as we do in functional medicine.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
13:14
And it’s a global thing. So it’s not something completely different. It’s not something that is brand new. It takes everything in consideration. And it’s actually I believe, the best of everything, which I love

Dr. Megan Stone
13:25
Is the most well rounded. Yeah, definitely.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
13:28
So would you say that based on the way that you practice medicine, now, chronic diseases might be curable and might not be that chronic anymore?

Dr. Megan Stone
13:38
Oh, yes, absolutely. If we can continue to develop functional medicine and move it in a way that it can become more mainstream, 100% we can do such a better job. And it is going that way. You know, there are a lot of large institutions that are implementing functional medicine thank goodness into their universities and their large systems and there are some hospital systems that are putting functional medicine clinics. And of course there are a lot of us who are a little bit more grassroots just trying to educate and tell people and we have our own private practices and doing you know, things like we’re talking with you and posting information and blogs and the more traction we get, the more we will start to see the change in the larger community and see that we’ve spending less money on people with diabetes or hyperlipidemia. And it’s not just about spending less money. For me, it’s more about showing people that they actually can feel better. It’s amazing that you know what people accept as how they want to feel every day. They don’t even realize that they have other options. So yeah, I think so for sure.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
14:48
The doctor said that. Did you hear?

Marilena Grittani, RPh
14:50
She is a physician and she said that so whenever you say that what you need is a pill, I’m sorry, I don’t think it’s correct.

Dr. Megan Stone
14:57
No, no, no, no.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
14:58
Pills help. I love my pill. So I’m not against medications, but they have a place and a reason and a time.

Dr. Megan Stone
15:06
Absolutely.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
15:07
That needs to be, you know,

Dr. Megan Stone
15:09
Definitely and my patients who come in on pills and seeing specialists, we don’t cross those out. I don’t tell them it’s one or the other, we move forward with our functional medicine plans. And if they don’t need their pills anymore, great.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
15:25
Wonderful.

Dr. Megan Stone
15:26
Let’s talk to your specialist. Let’s move you forward in the process. It doesn’t have to be a black or white situation, everything’s on a continuum. And we’re moving toward the nicer side of the continuum with less pills and less feeling bad. It’s not so dramatic as it sounds. It is let’s gradually get to where you want to go. And how do we do that? We look at everything, we look at toxins, mold exposures, medication side effects, your past medical history, your genetics, your nutritional status, your physical moving status. Every little thing is looked at from almost like a detective. And then we see okay, what are your vulnerabilities because yours aren’t going to be the same as your husband’s or your kids. Let’s just look at you. I don’t want to hear about what’s going on with so and so. And we address your issues and what do I do to help you? And then also what is your plan, and that’s where the health and life coach really comes into play for the accountability piece, and it’s huge, the mental aspect is at least 50% of the game, if not more. And then a lot of traditional medical offices don’t have that in place because they don’t either value it or they don’t have the funding for it. So yeah, that’s a huge difference.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
16:39
I just fired between quotations, my ob gyn because she didn’t want- she told me I don’t take recommendations from a functional medicine person so I’m not going to look at what that person sent me and I said, well, your fire then, I’m going to find somebody that has a mind open enough to understand, you know, I don’t know anything about it, please go find somebody else because that’s not my thing rather than tell me, I just don’t need anybody else’s input. That was so wrong in my head that I said, well, you know what, I’m going to cancel my appointment with you because I don’t want to, I don’t want you to be my doctor that way. And that’s another thing that patients don’t remember, if you don’t like the way that you’ve been treated, and you don’t like the way that the doctor plans, you can just find another one, because they work for you. And the goal is that you get better, not that you do what they say.

Dr. Megan Stone
17:31
Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Megan Stone
17:33
And you know, the doctors in the traditional offices, one of the issues is, they are already so overwhelmed with what our system has become, that when you try to introduce new concepts to them that they have not heard of, and maybe one of their standard conferences. It’s sometimes too much for them to take on. And it’s like, how could there possibly be something I don’t know? Or you know how I did not hear this last year in my conference in Maui, and therefore it doesn’t exist, you know? And it’s like, no, that’s not true. None of us know everything we do not. Now, maybe take it and read about it and if you don’t agree, tell the patient, hey, look, you know, you might want to look out, I don’t feel like this is safe, you know, but just my opinion, and I’ll help you with what I’m helping you with. And that’s okay. But at least we need to be open. And that’s one of the major issues with the medical system right now- is not being open to what other people are doing and working as a cohesive unit rather than just, I’m the endocrinologist. I’m the cardiologist and nobody knows what the heck everybody else is doing nor do they care. So it’s a problem. It’s a problem. Yeah, we have a root issue in our medical system for sure.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
18:46
We pharmacists see it all the time because we are the point that unites all of them because you get prescription from an endocrinologist and cardiologist, functional medicine practitioner and then they are not on the same page. And some of them are hurting the patient. And we’re like, hold on, this is not working. And they need to know what the other is doing and work together because it’s not that they need to be together for them or practices, it’s that you need to be together for the benefit of the patient. And that is what I see lacking.

Dr. Megan Stone
18:46
Absolutely.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
18:46
Personally.

Dr. Megan Stone
18:46
Yeah, I can see where the pharmacist would see that because they’re the center of it all.
MG
Marilena Grittani, RPh
19:24
I know.

Dr. Megan Stone
19:25
Yeah.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
19:25
And you are like, “Oh my gosh” and then patients come with certain questions that were like, how do I not talk bad about the doctor with this question? You know, because well, sometimes this is a doctor that is 80 years old, which I have nothing against what they do. But at the same time, medicine is something that evolves every single day, and if you’re not on top of it, then you are fine. And whatever happened 30 years ago, is obsolete today. So we need to constantly get improving and that’s another thing that I applaud for people that practice Functional Medicine, that you’re on top of everything, and you’re everywhere. Every single area of medicine is adapted to functional medicine because it works, because it makes sense, because it’s a different way to see it. You cannot diagnose a patient in 15 minutes, that is impossible.

Dr. Megan Stone
20:14
No, and you can’t help them even if they have a diagnosis in 15 minutes every three to four months and with the nursing staff and the check in taking seven of those minutes.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
20:24
Yeah.

Dr. Megan Stone
20:25
How is anybody going to get better? No wonder no one likes coming to the doctor’s office, you know, they leave, they feel so defeated. And you know, they just need to get their prescription, they already waited over an hour and the system is just not right and we really need to change it in multiple ways. But just how the practitioner, doctor, nutritionist, everybody approaches the patient that’s the first way to start. And so that’s where functional medicine is. And it’s amazing. You know, I would love to see what it looks like in 200 years.

Dr. Megan Stone
20:56
I think it’s gonna take over. I think it’s definitely a revolution.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
21:00
Well, if somebody in 200 years is listening to this recording, please laugh with us.

Dr. Megan Stone
21:04
Yeah

Marilena Grittani, RPh
21:05
And please tell the people then what we were thinking about. Or what Megan specifically was thinking about this day, because this is 2020 in the middle of the Coronavirus era. And yeah, I think it would be really good for you to see the different two points. And, you know, I believe in the time capsule, and maybe this is one of the pieces that need to be there.

Dr. Megan Stone
21:25
Yeah, let’s do it.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
21:27
Yes, who knows? Okay, so in your experience, Megan, what are these three biggest misconceptions about functional medicine?

Dr. Megan Stone
21:35
So number one, that it is not science based or evidence based, and that is completely untrue. I mean, I have a fellowship in metabolic anti aging and functional medicine. So I went through the entire fellowship. I’ve also done extra training in hormone therapy in Bredesen protocol for Alzheimer’s disease, wahls protocol for autoimmune disease. The training is endless and every single lecture I attend, literally every slide has several references. And there, they’re always referring back to the references, the studies, the references the studies. Very rarely are we talking anecdotal, we do sometimes need to talk about anecdotal because that is part of functional medicine and medicine in general, but there’s so much science based information, in the labs too, the functional medicine labs. They are based on thousands of studies, thousands of patients and so this is not just fluffy medicine. Is it cutting edge? Yes, but you know, it takes something like, what 30 to 50 years for something to evil be studied, suddenly make its way into medical school and then finally make its way into that every practicing doctor thinks that that’s what’s real. By the time that ever happens, that concept is not always relevant anymore. And so we need to recognize that. Of course, we don’t want to harm anybody. But we need to recognize that the basics that we learn in medical school, those are really good because I can always fall back on those and just know like, okay, this is what thousands of people all over the world are using. And I know that this is probably okay and safe, most likely, but that’s not enough. We’re not doing good enough by practicing in that way. So there’s that number two, people think I can’t afford it. And like I was mentioning before, of course, there are some health systems and universities that are incorporating this in and they are using insurance. A lot of them aren’t using a lot of functional medicine practices that are not using insurance. And the reason is because insurance traps the medical system so much into those five minute 10 minute visits. That there is absolutely zero way to practice functional medicine that’s actually like an oxymoron like a 10 minute functional medicine visit. So that is why it is cash based often. However, I hope, hopefully that will be changing soon. But when you say I can’t afford it, what you’re saying is, I can’t do anything, I give up. I’m not going to do anything. I’m not going to read a book that might be $10 on Amazon. I’m not going to look at the millions of free blogs and articles from all the functional medicine doctors in the world. I mean, I could read all day on just what Dr. Mark Hyman has written. And it’s and it’s free. A lot of his stuff is online. I mean, he’s just,

Marilena Grittani, RPh
24:32
His podcast.

Dr. Megan Stone
24:32
Yeah, his podcast is amazing. This podcast. And so when you say I can’t afford it, really what you’re saying is I don’t want to afford it. I don’t have the time. I’m not going to look up anything that might be free. I’m not going to talk to friends. I’m not going to start my own group and start exchanging information about how to lose weight or eat better on a budget. I’m not going to stop going to Starbucks. I’m not going to go out and walk each day, or start something that I don’t currently do. And so I don’t agree when people say they can’t afford it. Yeah, maybe you can’t afford the big Whopper plan that someone needs to pay when they are really, really ill and no one has helped them. But most people don’t need that. They just need small things you can read and listen for free. So go for it. Why not?

Marilena Grittani, RPh
25:22
Get educated, right?

Dr. Megan Stone
25:24
Yeah, absolutely. And then lastly, you know, people think I guess it kind of goes with number one regarding not science base that they think that people who practice functional medicine are not educated and oh my gosh, the doctors, as far as my fellowship went, we had doctors, pharmacists, and I believe some nutritionist, nutritionist dietician that were part of the faculty and these people were some of the most brilliant people I’ve ever heard speak and I think that’s why they’re in this field because they kind of already saturated themselves in their field. They came from emergency medicine, gynecology, family medicine, everywhere, addiction medicine, and everybody has come from all different fields and gathered to functional medicine, you’re going to find people from everywhere cardiology, nephrology, dietitian, like I said, and they have decided that one, just like I said, what we were doing is not good enough, and there’s more, and these people are so highly educated, and I really look up to them. And so that’s not that’s not true. This is a very special group of people.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
26:28
And that’s precisely why I wanted to do this series about what functional medicine is, what is the point of view from a physician, from a pharmacist, from a nutritionist because you guys understand this well, and I want to learn from you and that’s a little bit of a selfish part of it. But also because I want everybody to be aware of what’s happening and then you do your own research, and if it resonates with you, then you go with more if you haven’t found any answers that are helping you truly with what you are having in your diseases or any illnesses that you might have, then look to another area, I’m not telling you to do crazy stuff. It’s just start listening, and then get educated, and then maybe that- give it a try, maybe we’ll work, maybe talking as a patient, the problem that you have is that you’ve been taking one medication for too long, been a pharmacist that you forgot that that was not good for you, and then as soon as you stop, everything improves, and then you’re like, Oh my God, why didn’t I do this before? So things happen to all of us, and it’s not that we’re doing it ourselves on purpose. It’s simply that it’s not in our, it is out of our area that we’re focused on and then.

Dr. Megan Stone
27:35
Expand your horizons. See what you, what is possible for you.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
27:39
Yeah, it’s like traveling the more you know, the better you get, right?

Dr. Megan Stone
27:42
Yeah, yeah.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
27:43
Tell him that to somebody who travels a lot by the way.

Dr. Megan Stone
27:48
And you know, you can’t see, the eye does not see what the mind does not know. So if you, if all you know is going to your doctor for 20 years, every six months doing the same thing over and over, you’re not going to see any different. You got to start reading and looking and seeing what other people are doing. Maybe it’s time to make a change. It can be a small change, but time to make a change, things do not stay the same forever. We’ve got to progress, especially with our health.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
28:16
We’ll talking about that. What would be the three first steps that somebody that wants to learn about functional medicine or is not getting good results from traditional medicine that they should take in order to learn and get improvement.

Dr. Megan Stone
28:31
So the steps to become healthier basically, number one, being honest about where you’re at? Where’s your health? How do you feel when you wake up? Do you, are you kind of telling yourself lies? That Oh, yeah, I’m good. I’m good, but really, you can barely get through the day because you have your kids and you’re really busy and you just can’t you know, you can’t really stop to think about what might be right or wrong, and being honest about if it’s your weight, if it’s your energy, is your mental clarity. There’s so many things, but write it down, write down what- how do you feel at work? How would you like to feel? Or how would you like to maybe look, if it happens to be? Wait, it doesn’t always have to be that, and where do you want to be? And what do you want to show people? Or what do you want your family to see you doing as a role model, and then the next thing that I think is one of the most powerful tools that is so underutilized, and it’s free is meditation. It is just, it’s so powerful. Again, there are so many studies, actual scientific studies about meditation, and it takes you could start at three minutes a day, I have some people that start at 30 seconds a day because that’s all they can do. But it is so so powerful, and again, free. You can find 5 million things online about meditation for free. I don’t think I talked to anybody without mentioning meditation almost every day with all of my clients. So another one, try to move daily. Find something I don’t care how bad you feel. Try your best if you’re doing nothing, go for five minutes. If it’s a slow walk, you have a pool, whatever you have, move your arms up and down, I don’t care, you need to move. So you can start telling your body and your mind that things are changing, and that this is what we’re going to be doing from now on and you can, you gotta start somewhere and so that’s the place to start while you’re gaining that confidence and those ideas about how to do more and more and more. But just just finding the starting point is huge. It’s very powerful. Also, expecting more from your doctors in the medical community, if you’re not happy with the answers and what they’re giving you, like you said, move on, move on if you need them because you’re in an area that you don’t have very many choices. Then you move on by yourself with studies, online groups, whatever you can read and educate yourself and do not have to wait for a doctor to educate you. There are so many thousands of people waiting to help you online, on the phone, virtual appointments, and just by reading, and so it takes some charge, and takes some power over your life.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
31:09
You control over your health, right?

Dr. Megan Stone
31:11
Yes, please go for it

Marilena Grittani, RPh
31:13
It’s own health, nobody cares. These are the three things that I always say, nobody cares about your own health more than you.

Dr. Megan Stone
31:19
Yep.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
31:20
Nobody knows your body more than you know it, because you’ve been living with it all your life, basically, right? And number three, you have to be in charge. So if you’re good, everybody that you care and you take care of will be good, but if you’re not good, who is going to take care of them? Those are my 3. So I was- I wasn’t the one being interviewed, but I wanted to put that there.

Dr. Megan Stone
31:43
But you’re totally right. It’s true.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
31:45
So Megan, if one of the listeners wants to know because I know you have a Facebook group. You and they’re both of you are very dedicated to the community and they have wonderful stuff doing that and enriched Chris, California, where they live, and the way that have changed those activities that you’re doing, the way that have changed the lives of these people is impressive. I mean, I used to see them every Wednesday at the hospital, and I’m like, they say happy people come in again. Like, what are they doing now? They’re so happy. I want to do the same thing. So what are you doing? How do you do it? And how can people participate on that?

Dr. Megan Stone
32:24
Yeah, absolutely. So I have a functional medicine practice. I do see people online. I see a lot of people online, we can always get together especially now with COVID, and I do now have a physical office practice in Palm Desert, California. So if someone wants to see me in person in my office that will be in Palm Desert, but virtually I’m available completely and it’s very doable with functional medicine. I am on Facebook @drmeganstone, and then I’m on Instagram @stonefuncmed, and that’s also my website, stonefuncmed.com and so when you go on there you can see all the programs that we have, what kind of things that I help people with and treat like, you know, diabetes, dementia, big on autoimmune. There’s a lot of autoimmune disease going on and we help a lot of people with that, and just general health some people just want to be on top of their game. Darryl Price, my health and life coach. He is also a big part of the process, and he is- he and I founded the journey to happiness seniors group, which is what you’re mentioning at Ridgecrest Regional Hospital, and that’s an amazing group that has been going on for six years now every week, and the point of that was to really address the happiness and the mental health of the senior community because we knew that in addition to trying to remove the isolation component is a huge part of lifting up the health of the seniors. The seniors in our community and it’s been amazing, and that group is something that can be implemented in other hospitals, other towns. Absolutely, and so that’s our next step is actually we would like to start branching out and showing other people how to do this group because we have just had years and years of success and experience with it. So it’s wonderful. It’s a great group. And so that’s also online, sorry, on Facebook at Journey to Happiness Seniors Group.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
34:25
And these days that is very important because the isolation that we have to have based on the COVID circumstances, everybody is hurting by it, but senior citizens even more because they have kids that are living away from them, because they move forward or/and they’re by themselves didn’t have anybody to meet with and this is a very good way and I’m serious, I never seen happier looking, walking. The way that they walk is a happy walk, which is interesting because you don’t think about stuff like that, but they’re so happy Then I’m like, I want whatever they’re taking. And they were not saying anything. Right?

Dr. Megan Stone
35:04
It works. It works. Yeah, they’re just coming every week, and we’re doing our group, and it’s awesome. Especially Daryl, I mean, he really, he really gets them hyped up to be alive. So it’s awesome and to learn new things and try new things that it is a group like no other I’ve seen in the country, and so I would really love to see this take off and go to some other places for sure.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
35:30
I do too, and so if you are an elder person, if you’re over 55, which I know I’m very close to that, but that’s what it is, and you need to find a group. This is a wonderful idea. If you need a functional medicine physician and you have not done this before and you’re curious and you want to see how it could help you. Then you have Megan available. I just want everybody to think that the fact that you are in Indonesia, in Hungary, or in Sri Lanka, doesn’t mean that you don’t have access to this for first world medicine. You do now, thankfully, technology you do now. So don’t tell me as Megan says that you can’t afford it.

Dr. Megan Stone
36:08
Yeah, yeah

Marilena Grittani, RPh
36:08
You can put it in your mind. And that is the part that you need to work on.

Dr. Megan Stone
36:12
When you open your horizons to not I can’t afford it, but how can I afford it? Or how can I find the time, then you start to attract the time, the people, the money, whatever you need in your life to get better it will, it will come. But not until you open your mind to it. That’s where the meditation comes into. So you can actually manifest these types of changes for yourself.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
36:34
Absolutely, and that’s what I think the majority of our listeners are, and if your doctor says don’t meditate, and don’t go on this crazy cuckoo people that are doing something different, think about it twice and think of what Megan said, and evaluate it, put it in your mind. Think about it and then make your own decisions. Don’t go by whatever other people say, just make your own decisions. That is what I want to close this with. Megan, thank you very much for your time, and for the education that you provided today, all the resources that you mentioned, your website, your Instagram, your Facebook, the seniors group led to happiness. Yeah, it’s going to be in the website. So you just have to go there and click on it, and then you will be having access to it. I totally recommend that not only because what they do is wonderful, but because they’re great people, and that is something that I always want to support and give them a platform in my little podcast for them to be known, and they’ve been in my house to have eaten my food, and they haven’t gone running with my husband. So this is a great family system that they have, and I would love for you to be part of it. So thank you again, Megan for it. I’m honored and I had a great time talking to you, and I hope that this is not the last time.

Dr. Megan Stone
37:49
Thank you so much. Yes, anytime I’ll be back.

Marilena Grittani, RPh
37:52

Wonderful. Wasn’t she wonderful? I had so much fun with it because she was saying so many things that I already saw that we already discussed in other interviews, and that are part of the online conference that I’m bringing to you now in September, and if it’s after September 2020, you can still have the information because it’s on my website, you just have to go to takingcontrolofmyownhealth.com, everything is there. So it is very interesting to me that a physician that sees the world in a different way because you know, doctors thinks different, she decided to see it in an even more different way, and it’s more integral, it’s more seen different areas and alternatives that regular physicians don’t see, and I truly want you to take a look at this and learn a little bit more. That’s why everything that Megan mentioned, is going to be in the show notes. You just have to go to our show notes. In the platform that you’re listening to this podcast, you will have a link and that will take you to the website with all the information would be, and you will see pictures of Megan there too, and you will believe me that now she’s that pretty. So that is it for this episode. I thank you for your time and I thank you for the attention. But also I want to let you know that next week we’re going to be talking to Kimberley Kallio. She is quite a different person. She’s awesome. She is an engineer, but also she is a pharmacist and she practices pharmacy in a functional medicine way. She is going to be talking about how functional medicine can help you with your overall health, and she will focus specifically of course on what we pharmacists do, but she’s also going to talk in general what it is that functional medicine focuses on and is a continuation of our series that are focused on functional medicine, and it will complement what Megan said today. So I cannot wait to see you next week when we talk with Kim Kallio about how functional medicine can help your overall health.

This episode was brought to you by the takingcontrolofmyownhealth.com where we empower you with education to take control of your own health from doctors and health insurance companies. Look me up at The Legal Drug Dealer podcast in Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions and send them to helloatthelegaldrugdealer.com. So that is it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. Please subscribe to our podcast. Give us a review, if you have a little time for it, and if you have a question, or a topic for a future episode, send it to me to hello@thelegaldrugdealer.com and I will respond myself or maybe you will have an episode with that topic in the future. Also, don’t forget to visit thelegaldrugdealer.com. Look around and see what I have there for you, and while you’re there, join our community so you will not miss a thing. With that I’m done, but before I go, just in case no one has told you today, I wanted to remind you of how awesome you are and how lucky are those that have you in their lives. Thank you for being the awesome you that you are. Have a wonderful rest of your day. This is Marilena Grittani, The Legal Drug Dealer. Bye for now.