Welcome to the Chinese. With your host Marie Hopkinson Chinese medicine practitioner. Hi, welcome back to the Chinese medicine podcast. This is the place where you can come to get Chinese medicine easily explained and understand it and take away some stuff that you can really easily do for yourself today. I'm joined by dr. Ben Lotto O'Brien and he is an acupuncturist and a Chinese herbalist in Perth. Wa welcome Ben. Thank you. So today we're going to be talking about Ben's journey into Chinese medicine. How did you get into Chinese medicine? So and Some really cool stuff that he's got to share with us. You want to tell us a little bit about your journey in Chinese medicine. Yeah. Sure. So like most people that get into this field. It's sort of a roundabout way actually use the background was a panel beater and spray paint, but when I was 26, I had open-heart surgery and everyone in my family suffers from a very unusual genetic condition called Marfan syndrome in this is a condition that it's a genetic disease that affects connective tissue and collagen in particular. So assume dream means a whole different range of symptoms. It's not just one thing but one of the main things that we have to do with with my fans is weakness of the the the cardiac tissue and particularly the ascending aorta. So I had great aspirations to be professional musician. So it was quite devastating for me at 26 to learn that basically Only had a few months to live and I had to have this emergency open heart surgery. I had no symptoms before that that anything was wrong with my heart and I just ended up going for some medical investigations and then being told you've got a very very short time to survive. So that was kind of sprung on me out of the blue and what my biggest fear about that was that I was told that sometimes people lose limbs or which wasn't really that likely before but unfortunately for me, That's kind of what happens. So when I woke up from the surgery, they told me that everything was fine. Everything was a success and that went very very well. But when I tried to move my arms and legs, I could move my arms and my legs that wasn't really a problem that my left hand was basically a claw couldn't open my fingers and I had a hand that was a bit like a cerebral palsy kind of a hand so they didn't pick up on that and I obviously got very distressed about that and said, Everything's not fine. Something's Happened to my hand. So they you know in the Intensive Care they completely freaked out and thought it's brain damage has had a stroke something like that. They didn't really nice for the rush me out for a whole lot of Investigations and everything came back as inconclusive. There was no evidence of any brain damage or stroke or whatever so they actually didn't know and they basically thought it will get better over time. You just have to wait. Yeah. And that wasn't really good enough for me. I sort of wanted to If you don't get a diagnosis is very hard to know then how to fix a problem. So that must have been scary being a musician and having a loss of your hand like that was so that was quite obviously that was going to be in Korea and that was basically it so I went back to the Western people and ask them, you know, what has happened to hear what you tell me that everything went well, but that obviously isn't the case and they poked and prodded and did a few tests and basically No, this was the cardiothoracic surgeon and I went back to see so he said I've got a friend who's a hand surgeon. You should probably go and see him he'll be able to help you. So ik if I went to see this hand surgeon and he said to me look, I don't know what's happened to you. Obviously, you've got a problem with your hands and it was obviously caused by the surgery. He said surgery cause this is unlikely that surgery is going to fix it. But if you like I can operate on you and we'll see how we go. And I said, there's no way on Earth that you're going to operate on me. I'll just had open heart surgery which is a two-year. Yeah, and he said yeah, I sort of agree with our romantic surgeries probably a good option, but you've got a lot of numbness as well in your hand and you can't move your fingers properly. So this is a this is a neurological condition. You should go and see a friend of mine. He's in your letters and subiaco so off I went to see this guy. And he did the same sort of thing parts and pottery you did a whole range of testing against the vehicle and cranial MRIs. You did a shock test trying to find if there's a break in the nerve and everything came back as inconclusive and he said to me with investigated we found nothing so stop complaining basically got on with your lungs no more investigations to do but you're still left with the problem. He didn't say to me. Way been go and see bababababa. You just said that's the end of the story. Yeah, nothing else you can do. Yeah, right and that didn't sit very well. So I was pretty angry with that. I spent a lot of money on these investigations and I still had no answer what to do. So I was sitting around very very depressed for you know, a year or so. How old were you when this all this happened. I was 26 when I had surgery. So I was getting towards 2020 Yeah by this time so after that The surgery is a very very big Open Hearts that they basically give you a zipper and they have to break your sternum and your ribs and everything. I have to get in there and physically replace the aortic semilunar valve and the entire ascending aorta. So it's major it's not just well. Yeah, it's a pretty big procedure. It was nine hours of theater. Yeah. So I mean, it's miraculous that they can do that. Yeah. I got to live through it. So that was incredible, but the price was my hand. Mmm. So anyway, I sort of Out of options and I had a I had a friend who is who is occasion. He came around one day and said to me look Ben you've tried lots of different things because by now I had gone to physios icons on all kinds of different people to try and get a diagnosis. He said to me, why don't you try Chinese medicine. Hmm, and I said to him exclusive exclusive exploitive get out of my house that I want to hear that this is rubbish. Yeah, it's going to help me because this might be a reasonable form of medicine. I thought if this was worth trying Trying surely someone with all these letters after their name in all these medical degree. Yes suggestion been think about going from yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so and your family's very Western Medical and I've got three free monk whose were medical doctors and both my grandparents were medical doctors as well. So yes, I've got a big medical background but still no one was yeah. This is this problem. So anyway, I thought Well, I'll go and try acupuncture. It won't work. I know it won't work, but I don't know what else to do. Yeah, so I went and found this guy called Lawrence kulish was his name and he was a lecturer at Endeavor. Yeah, and he was the only one that I thought that I knew just from Googling is actually how I found him not so I went and saw him and I said, this is the problem. Can you help me? He said look, I don't know. Obviously there's some The wrong with your hand, but we can try and say and he said what I suggest you do is that you come in for a course of treatment you come in once a week for eight weeks and we'll know at the end of that time whether it's going to help you or not. Yeah, and I said to him no, I'm not doing that. This is a waste of time. Yep, and it's not going to work anyway, so I'll give you one. I have one session and if it helps me I'm coming back. And if it doesn't help me then I'm not coming back. Yeah, okay I said, okay. Bye. It's fine. Let's do that. So no pressure or anything. Well, that's right. Yeah. Well, you know, we'll give it a try. Yeah, I was out of options. Yeah. Yeah took me into the room explained to me a bit about Qi and blood and yeah all these things. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about feel the pulse and look at the tongue. I thought this is kind of weird. Anyway, I've got an invention you put up in June and he finished the treatment took me out to the receptionist, and he said I'll see you next week. It was long. I'll decide that he said yeah, okay, that's fine. So I've got in my car and I was driving back home. I was living in south from a natural at the time. I could move my left hand. My left arm. That wasn't a problem. It was a hand I couldn't grip on I couldn't really manipulate the fingers very well and for guitar player, that's kind of very devastating cause you're like, yeah fingering. How do you can't actually play anymore. So it's like driving back to my house. I remember feeling the steering wheel. And I don't know whether it was my imagination or not. But I felt like I had a little bit more movement in my fingers and just allow this was like within 10 minutes after the treatment and I got back into my driveway and I remember sitting in my car for probably an hour, huh actually getting some feeling back and I thought I don't know what the hell this guy's done but something is different in my hands and yeah, right and it didn't feel like that and a half ago so I couldn't believe that this I had actually done something that nobody else had managed to do more to the point. I was a I was the you know, I've completely a non-believer and yeah, it was a waste of time and money. Yep, and it was going to be joking wasn't gonna help me. Yeah, so there's no Placebo vote. I was like, this is I'm all right. I don't understand what he's done, but something has changed. So I went in and called him up and said put me in for some more coming in next week. Yeah. Wow, I went back once a week and every week I went in my hand got a little bit better a little bit. It a little bit better until I can Flex my fingers again at the end of the eight weeks. Now, there's still a bit of nerve damage and probably never going to completely recover but it's 90% so went from literally being like this to now being able to move and I can see why you're a guitar player because look at how long and beautiful along your fingers up from one guitarist or another having this condition, sir. I couldn't continue the treatment. So I thought you know, maybe I can go and learn stuff. Yeah, learn how to trick myself and known to pay someone to do it. Yeah, I didn't know what else to do with my life yet. I thought okay. I didn't want to be a part of it and scrape and in my whole life and you that wasn't going to be a good career. So that's what I decided to do. So I went on a long journey then awesome to study Chinese medicine and that's why I became a practitioner. Yeah. Wow, what a great journey. What an amazing story. Yeah, it's very common. I guess now that you're a practitioner. You probably see patients like that as well. That's a staff give you one treatment and like prove it to me. Wow. That's an amazing journey into what you're doing now. And so how long have been doing Chinese medicine for now? I am just about to start my seventh year of practice, but I studied for a very long time. I did I did the background was getting through acupuncture and nutrition. I sort of did a double degree together. Okay, I did some training in the body work as well. So I'm not tweeting out which is a Chinese physiotherapy. So that was a couple of years Western remedial diploma because become public because of my mother who's in ostia. I was very interested in learning some body work and I also sort of so clinically that the the students that were interested in Bodywork tended to be better at the tactile side of putting your hands on people people that didn't want to do that and just wanted to become a To contrast that were more nervous to touch people actually acupuncture is obviously a very handsome sort of a therapy. So that was kind of beneficial when I got to be into the my training and for some reason I still wasn't done with the painting of study. You know, why but I thought I needed to learn as well. So number two rmit and did a three years must well Chinese medicine, right? So you've done like probably what seven years of study then maybe yeah, but more than that. It's up to 30 minutes. Total but I did it in about nine. Wow. Yeah, I did I did that class is not classes and I'd managed to do a couple of degrees together. Yeah. Well, yeah. Okay. So you practice Chinese medicine acupuncture and herbs and nutrition like Western nutrition combining those things. Yeah, great. Well, and I guess that interest in Bodywork came from you wanting to heal yourself and being more interested in Moscow school idol stuff. Yeah, I think so. I think body work. I do try and utilize it a bit in the clinic as well. Less so now that I'm getting busier and I don't always have time to work on paper. But if it's a musculoskeletal case of soft tissue work, it's quite often important. Yeah, and I quite enjoy doing it. So yeah awesome. Yeah and what kind of special interest you have in your clinic now like any practice? Well, I work in Netherlands with my mother and I work in Scarborough so slightly different interesting different clinics, but I guess I'm very gone towards musculoskeletal conditions in pain in particular because that's mainly what I see with my mum or as mulatto in the Netherlands clinic so pain and musculoskeletal conditions, but I'm also quite interested. I noticed over the over the years of starting to get into clinical practice that certain conditions are not treated terribly. Well one of them is inflammation. So I do a lot of work on that with diet and it's obviously a Chinese medicine. Hmm. Viral conditions are also really really difficult to treat and Badly treated in really all medicine to be honest. That's a difficult thing to trade. So I that that is the best bit of a special interest often things where people would go to a GP or something and that's a well you got a virus just have to wait it out and yet my probably will run its course but there might be residual effects that happen in the body or they have this terrible uncomfortable symptoms to just deal with for a few weeks. And yeah, that's very common in practice to see those kinds of patients. Yeah, definitely. So I find that the the, you know, if you have a lot of heat Generated from a viable thing whether it's shingles or an outbreak or whatever that acupuncture can be quite good to help the pain but the herbal medicine side the internal medicine that patients need that really excels them forward. If you've got an internal condition, you can sort of need internal medicine. So that's where I find that the herbicide definitely sort of comes into its own in terms of yeah being able to help them treat that yeah, and the way we're that we Trader is by that individualized basis, right so looking at what's individually Out of balance in a Chinese medicine way and addressing that and then I guess you would use nutrition in that to I do I do I think I think nutrition is, you know, it's a very underrated form of medicine and it's incredibly powerful and you know with all due respect to Chinese medicine. I think that if somebody's nutrition isn't where it needs to be it doesn't really matter how good you are with acupuncture or Herb's it's very hard to get results if someone's not only properly yeah, and they need to learn a little bit specially for inflammation. Operation conditions that you need you can throw the anti-inflammatory herbs you like it a patient. But if they continue to put information into their body, then you don't really get the results. So they need a bit of Education in terms of because a lot of people just don't know what actually they can do is contribute to keeping themselves inflamed when tissue isn't healing that's what you need to um, so the combination I find works works incredibly. Well, yeah, okay. So for people watching at home that might just have a general they could have any kind of inflammation. What are the general diet things you'd say to them? Try to reduce the information. Well, there's a couple of main things handouts that I give to patients in clinic. So to be aware things that cause acidity in the body of things that promote inflammation. So these are things like coffee and sugar alcohol processed foods are really the big ones the the fifth one that nobody really talks about that. Very relevant is stress. Yeah, and when someone's got a very clean diet and they, you know doing all the right things in there might not drink coffee or whatever. Oh and they still got these chronic inflammation. Then you have to look at what is going on with this individual. Where is this coming from? Yeah, right because there is always some reason why you know inflammations. Our normal process is when it gets out of hand. That's when you have pathology and that's when you get into trouble. So and people quite often tell me being an online a very good diet. I when I go through an analyzer, it might be a good diet, but it's not the correct diet for them for their constitution. And this is why they're not healing from whatever it is that they're they're dealing. Yeah. The constitution in a Chinese medicine way so you mean yep I do I do so, you know someone can be on what they consider a very good clean organic diet, but you know might be too much cold food. It might it might be too much raw food just teaching patients to pay attention to their body and how they feel is a very big part of my clinical practice. I think patients need to ultimately become a bit responsible for their own health. And I mean sure one that because they're going to pick up on this faster than I will or you will orgy. EP will because they experience that first so when you educate them, then that's certainly important and then they can they can see they think that you know that they're eating the correct things but yet they've always got stomach noises or regurgitation or acidity or their bowels don't work properly or whatever it is when technically you know, they've Googled and I've said this is good. This is a good dive. Yeah, but it's not the right diet. Yeah, that's I mean that's a big difference and lot like most of the viewers in the listeners and to this podcast are here because they want to help. Those and what I get a lot of comments and people saying, you know, they're on they just want that extra bit of information. So they are a bit more engaged in helping themselves. That's why they're watching there is but there at that is the main difference I guess for people to understand between you watching a video and take saying well, I'm just going to cut those things out. I'm going to add this one thing or Googling it and getting that information. Whereas knowing a practitioners going to be able to give you the exact specific right thing for you. I mean even seasonally right so at the right Time of the year, what's right and what's not right definitely and I think you know, I'll just reiterate that again that that you know health comes from within and people like, you know, you and me Marie where the professionals to give people advice but ultimately, you know, it comes down to the individual doing the right things and seeking out People Like Us for the added assistance of a knowledge that we have to help them get their health to where it needs to be. Yeah. Yeah cool. So I want to ask you a question that my you probably I don't know what you decided. Like you hear a lot about tumeric. There's a lot of turmeric turmeric turmeric everywhere, right mix of flavors. And yeah, so you can what's the and turmeric is a Chinese medicine as well. It's a Chinese herb, please tell us about James so too much as a lot of quite incredible things Eugene is what it's called or Hong jinyoung in the Mandarin depending on which part of the plant but really it's one of the same so it's it is the hot her but the moment because it is such a good General anti-inflammatory. And I mean, there's tumor can this to mixer when I when I prescribe it for people to go and buy I'll always say it needs to be organic whether you're using it fresh or powder probably doesn't really matter. But you know, the master foodstuff is not medicinal grade to mix it. Don't buy from Coles and woolies or somewhere tell you a little bit more money. It's not very expensive to get a good quality. Organic tumeric and you know doing things like putting something in that's going to actually activate the turmeric and draw it into cells. What is that? What is that? So black pepper? For example, so turmeric has a compound in called curcumin which is the active ingredient that gives it the in the anti-inflammatory properties is a lot of different medicinal compounds in turmeric, but that's the main one that people beeping almond. Thank you. And yeah, so what does it mean to activate it then? So what that means is that if If you have it in the in the raw form without something to activate it, you only draw about one to two percent of that coke human into cells. Okay, so you're not absorbing very much into the body. So you might be having a lot of it in the diet, but it's not actually going to cells and reducing inflammation. So if you put something like black pepper with it's about absorption that metabolism of that that particular compound goes up to about 14 or 15 percent. Okay. So it makes it considerably stronger just by normal black pepper just by so people can save money on the train wrecks up. Like I said, I can yeah, so that's one of the main things but you know to make has a lot more effect on the body. It's not just an anti-inflammatory. For example, it also gets deliver working much much better and and energetically in Chinese medicine to mix a cold herb. It's cooling. That's why it's anti-inflammatory. So there's no such thing as inflammation in Chinese medicine. We talk about cold or heat or Darkness or what window whatever it is. These are these are pathogenic factors. So Clearing the heat is the main action of turmeric but from Western medicine. What it also does is gets your liver working better in terms of the phase 1 and Phase 2 detoxification. So IE if you have too many wines or to me beers the next day you can have a bit of trimming because actually this is liver working better and helps reduce the effects of the alcohol which is obviously a very Yang substance in very heating. Yeah, very Pro inflammatory. Mmm. So that's that's another really important aspect. Act of tumeric and I've also read that tumeric is a very very good herb in terms of stimulating apoptosis, which basically means program cell death. So if you think about cells that are start going wrong in the body like cancer cells for example, right? She makes a very very good herb to be able to promote apoptosis the natural spontaneous death of a cell when it starts going wrong Jim. It will enhance that okay Billy. Yep. So what like let's say for an average person that like they don't have a massive chronic inflammation condition. They I just want to be healthier and they might have the few wines on the weekend of the few beers on the weekend. And let's say they're going to the gym and they get a bit of soreness. They've you know, maybe that kind of thing how much you make sure they have I would normally prescribed half a teaspoon three times a week of an organic powder with a grinder black pepper and whatever you're cooking and going rice dishes or soups or casseroles or whatever it is. That's probably enough. You don't need to have huge amounts of put the turmeric in the food in the casserole my food. And cook with it. There's something about heating it up the tends to be better for inflammation then, you know having a cold or just sprinkling on food at the end. Yeah. We'll put a smoothie or something. Okay, so hate it up put it mix it in with the food. Right? What if someone's got like a chronic problem and they have pain every day and they're managing that to they need to see a practitioner don't know how much time I would that would be helpful. I mean that there is there is certain nutrients or herbal formulas that we can use that uses tumeric along with other. An anti-inflammatory herbs and that would be beneficial but I would certainly start with doing something as simple as just getting some organic tumeric. Yeah, starting to utilize that and you know, see see how you respond to anyone with with, you know arthritis or just general muscle aches and pains, you know chronic Mouse neck computer work these office type working people Mouse and quite hunchbacks. Yep. Well, just if you just hold your phone or find your naturally hunching if you hold your phone, you can't help it. Yeah, so that would be helpful. And if you need more, you know specialized advice you come and see someone like practitioner anyone to assist you with that but you know nutrition I think a bit like some of the better herbal formulas and point prescriptions. Sometimes the simple stuff is much more effective than trying to be clever and really the simple stuff with nutrition the best dishes on the planet can be two or three ingredients. It's much more than that if it's fresh and it's organic and it's done. Well, then that's all you actually need. Yeah, right. So it's not about Reinventing the wheel. It's just about working out. You know, what's right for the individual getting the basics, right? And you move forward in Leaps and Bounds awesome. Yeah, great. Oh, that's so that's really great. That's amazing information to help people to understand how much they should use because that's sometimes people think the more the more the more they use the better the better the better, but in Chinese medicine, we kind of know that like it's at Taxing your body more and more to digest and if you don't put the pepper with the with the shumate, then you might be having to ingest more and more and more and just wasting your body's resources trying to digest it that you can't even absorbance. Oh, no, that's definitely relevant. And I just point something else out to the viewers. Tumeric lattes don't count. That's not that's that's very popular at the moment. But when you think about what that is that generally is quite a lot of heating her because they generally put the might put cinnamon with their then I put nutmeg in. There that might put whatever else is in there and that you know, you can't you can't clear heat and reduce inflammation if you keep putting heat in the body so drink that if you like the taste, but don't use that as medicine because it's probably not going to be terribly effective. So people often say to me in clinic but I have two or three to make life as a daisy. Yeah and probably the quantity and the actual quality of that tumeric. Like you said, it's if it's not organic and yeah, so so they shouldn't be having just the supermarket shelf to make it might not be the same quality what they're putting In the Cafe's it's not a medicinal quality of no, it's not an additional grade. So I would strongly advise people to Source out slightly better quality turmeric. Yeah, definitely that's important. And like I just mentioned to make Lighthouse. They don't count. Yeah, you can't you can't have that in think that that's going to help you reduce inflammation because they have a lot of heating herbes in them. Generally as well like nutmeg or cloves or cinnamon or whatever and the balance it's always about the balance and so Not going to be truly cooling for the body because you've got to put a whole lot of heating herbs in there, which will negate the effects of each turmeric and therefore you won't see the the benefits so just used to make by self with black pepper in cooked meals. That's really the best advice. Yeah, great. Okay. And so if you got any other diet things for inflammation that people might be able to know about I yeah, so there's some things available on the site so people can go to the website and download that for free. What's your website? So the website is Netherlands Osteo a cue.com will put it down there and we'll put a link down the bottom and there's a whole different range of articles that are written on that and if they have further questions, I can always find me through the email or give me a buzz if they want to when I have it just have a phone conversation. I'm more than happy to do that. But the the simple stuff that I'll so like is the things that people can do a home in their Garden. So there's a lot of benefits that you can get from literally just growing some culinary herbs if you know That's pretty simple people often say well, I don't have the room. But really I mean, you know, if you have a square meter or you just have a windowsill in the sun. If you have one bedroom flat you can actually grow quite a lot of medicinal herbs like lemon balm or time and and utilizing that simple stuff that you have daily is really really beneficial. So what sort of people are thinking about I'm going to go get a little herb garden. What would be the top five once ago and popular five? Well, those two time is very very good. Because antiviral and lots of good oils in time. I like lemon balm for the same reason. That's also a really really good herb majorem. And oregano. I both very very good simple herb people. Just think about the Italian side and having them on Peter and that kind of thing very simple to grow grow weary. Well in pots that's all quite basic and even something as simple as parsley utilizing that, you know, having a little bit of parsley once a week on top of a pizza is not going To do it, but if you can have it daily and you can actually pick fresh herbs put them into your stomach, you know, 20 minutes after you've actually picked them that gives you a lot of Vitality a lot of energy that you don't get from buying food from the supermarket that were picked days ago herbs with very very quickly and they lose their medicinal qualities very very quickly. So it's not difficult to just have a little herb garden at home be growing some of those things medicinally in there's a lot of health benefits you will get from yeah. I started doing that a few years ago, and I'm like Like why did I do this before but I had so much coriander growing. Now, there's coriander growing out of the cracks of the pavement Quarry and is around it grows out. Like if you liked it a lot of people don't like it. I love it. I just make the curry recipes with coriander. That's a really good one to particularly for viral conditions. That's that's very very useful and a lot of these things. I think that we didn't touch on with the inflammation side is understanding acidity and alkalinity. So, okay so poor that inflammation is always promoted in an asset in Environment so the whole premise behind getting your body more alkaline is super super important that you do this with green leafy things. This is the most important thing and you know, some supplements like magnesium will be very good to alkalize the body. So, you know, you quite often hear people say things that aren't terribly accurate like everyone over 60 is going to develop arthritis. That isn't true arthritis comes from acidity. It's inflammation is creative in an acid environment. So if you can get your blood and your body more alkaline, I've got patients in their seventies. I've got patients in their 90's that have no problems with arthritis. Yeah, and these are people that have eaten very very well and done that their whole life and maintain that they don't each lots of sugar. They don't eat processed foods. They might have a bit of coffee or alcohol or whatever but they're you know, I do that as well, but I love green leafy stuff. That's really really important. And that's how you keep your tissue alkaline, and that's super important and if you look, At the chemistry of bloat and the chemistry of the body blood has a pH of 7.35 to 7.45 7 is neutral and Below 7 is acid. So naturally the body wants to be alkaline. That's really what the science is telling us and it's kind of what we know. So the body always repairs better in an alkaline environment. If you're having problems with recurrent muscle strains, or you know tissue not healing properly the chances are your blood chemistry is too acidic and you know, Change that and just by having this little bit of an understanding of how you actually get rid of inflammation and treated that's super important and that goes back to the things that we talked about the simple garden stuff culinary things green leafy things. These are things that alkalize the body and the blood and allowed issued. Oh, yeah, right. So if people are recovering from a surgery or they've had like a lot of chronic illness and just finding that it's like in Chinese fans. We haven't caught lingering pathogens like things are lingering around there. Like I just can't get better or you know, every time this happens. Burns, I'm just like in this cycle of constantly being sick. The diet things is the best idea is to try to move towards an Alkali and alkaline diet remove the acidic. Yep, definitely and having a bit of Education about what that actually means. So there's four main signs of inflammation. If you're wondering what that means is pain, it's redness its heat and it's swelling. Mmm and when it gets really really severe the fifth one is a loss of function, but you have to get quite severe but generally if you've got pain or redness or heat or swelling In your body, you've probably got some sort of inflammation condition. So, you know that can be quite useful for patients to be aware of and you know, trying to put some emphasis into getting their body and their blood more alkaline. That's just a super super important thing to do and learning a little bit about the nutrients in the herbes and a lot of it is simple. It's not it's not overly complex. I'm a vegetarian I don't promote that in the clinic. I don't push that for me that works because that's the way I was brought up and I was very very disappointed. Disappointed when I read that all grains are acid forming Foods. I didn't know that. Yeah, so, you know people that oats or barley or wheat or rice or whatever these things are all mildly acidic on the body. So do you think that has a following sorry to interrupt? Mr. But a lot of people on this channel like to talk about dampness felt operating videos. Do you think that that is related to dampening because all those all grains have a damper Effect and dampeners in Chinese medicine is like this accumulation of stagnation and you in substance and not like a lack of Yang a lack of movement through that. Do you think that's got to do in that like it's got a correlation there? Yeah. Sure. I mean it certainly it certainly plays A Part dampness and heat tend to go together quite often. So when you find stagnation, he generally gets generated for liver cheese trying to move and it can't then, you know, it vibrates and heat is given off. Yeah. That's angry. It's so and this is this is the other issue with people that suppress emotions and wonder why you know, they have inflammation problems. Yeah, if you sit on something it's a bit like, you know boiling a kettle and not letting the steam out. Yeah, it's going to boot up and build up and build up until eventually boom. It's going to explode. Yeah, and so, you know, that's that's a very odd sort of Chinese medicine theory about not sitting on emotions and not letting them fester and build up heat of the stop your liver Qi because that's going to generate heat and that that isn't going to be a good thing. So you gotta flick that out-of-body you got Find ways of whether using dietary stuff or whether you're you're going for a walk on the beach taking your shoes off and walking on the earth. It's something that I try and do at the end of every week when I finish Clinic is take my shoes off getting to the Garden. Yeah play with my clients because I love doing that and that's really important to help Earth and ground and just help make you more, you know stable inner peace and get rid of a lot of that negative energy that you might pick up from if you know if you're in a working environment, And there's a negative energy around your workplace. I think most people know what I'm talking about that negative people surrounding you is another way of actually generating heat you want to raise every positive people not people that are all doom and gloom and everything's terrible on the worlds of our place. Yeah energy transfers and so that's important to have some way of actually getting rid of that that energy and people do that in different ways for me, you know, it's spending time in nature or taking my shoes off and walking on the earth that's important. And I highly write that as a therapy. It's simple it's free. Yeah, it's easy to do and you feel good after yeah get into it. Yeah, sometimes like we think I've got to go to the beach. I've got to go to the forest. I've got to go to the bush or something and it's like it's such a long thing that's going to take I mean, it might not be that long might be maybe a half hour drive or something but or maybe an hour drive or whatever, but then you just don't do anything because you put it off to think so hard. There's like I think in our society, we got to find lots of easier ways to connect quicker with those things that release the stress. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And I think I think it's important to not have this just like an ant gods and actually thing I have to try and fit into the week. It should become part of your weekly routine to not become a chore. Yeah, it should be something that you automatically do because you feel good and you know, the first couple of times might be a bit difficult to get going but once you do that and it's part of your routine and you seen the benefits from it you much more inclined to stick with it and keep it up. Yeah fantastic. So that's great. So people can jump onto band's website and Check out the other additional foods that he's got for inflammation. And there's a lot there's like loads of other self-help stuff. He's got on his website articles and things like that. So, yeah. So wow, so exciting interesting to like hear about your journey in Chinese medicine and the way you got into it and that how you really have that special interest in helping people that may be nuts. There's no other options for them. Are there any other conditions that you'll really love trading so something that And I have gotten to only in the last few months is visual health and you know people with eye problems. These are quite a lot that you can do about that which you don't hear about from ophthalmologists or optometrists that people they basically just say, you know, your eyes are the eyes that you get and you just have to manage them whether they're good or bad or indifferent. That's just what you get and that actually isn't the truth. I've had visual problems my whole life and I'm just starting to work on that now and realize that there's actually quite a What you can do in terms of natural medicine there is certain hubs that we use for the eyes of certain acupuncture points that we use for the eyes, but there's also just quite simple techniques that you can utilize to improve your visual health. So if eyes are a problem this sort of came about because I had several events of visual issues myself in the last three months it started with waking up with a lot of pain. I'm almost blind in my left. Left I'd say it's a ma fence thing. It's another one of these are symptoms that I have to deal with from this condition. I was always taught that there's nothing you can do. You know your eyes are what you're born with and that's really all you can do with so I started to have quite a lot of pain in my left eye. So when I wake up it's got a blinding pain in the morning and I was quite concerned about that. So I went and saw a western doctor. My uncle actually is a GP and he sent me to an ophthalmologist and at the same time. I had I had a little cut over my right eye which I really wasn't very concerned about because I wasn't causing me any visual problems my right eye is my good eye but it was the pain in my left eye but send me to this this guy so he diagnosed me with a thing called recurrent corneal erosion syndrome or what that basically means is that when you sleep at night your eyelid sticks to the retina the front clear part of your eye actually tears the fun of it off when you open your eyes. Or I now ice here very very quickly. So it's quite blinding pain, but you do get over it quite quickly sounds really painful. It wasn't ideal. You explained that it wasn't great. But anyway, that's that's why I went to Serious ophthalmologist and I happened to say to him. Look. I've got this kind of strange cut over my my right eye. What do you think? That is? He said? Well, I'm not too concerned about that. It doesn't doesn't appear to be anything, but he told me what this thing was in my left eye, but Other condition that I had with it was a very swollen painful gland right next to my jaw. And so when I was telling him about this thing this weird cut I have over my my my right eye. I said, I think this is a viral or bacterial. Hmm. What do you think about that? He said well, it could be maybe maybe not. I don't really know he gave me a script for an antiviral. He said don't take it because we actually don't know what it is. We did some blood pathology and we Sent this thing off. My instinct told me that I said well, why is my immune system reacting with I got this painful swollen glands if this isn't a viral or bacterial thing, so when soon as I got home, I decided to go and get on antivirals immediately some herbes and I just did that anti-inflammatory as well turmeric based anti-inflammatories and the next day. He called me and said been the pathology reports come in. You've got a shingles outbreak and it's going into your eye and I didn't I've never had one before so I didn't actually dealing with at all but I had chickenpox is a kid. So it's very common with shingles. People don't know it's shingles. They just don't know and what I didn't know about about the I usually you see the lesions over the back, you know got the neck or whatever. But what I didn't know is that if it goes into your eye it can be fatal you can end up with and capillaries which is brain inflammation. Yeah, and this can be an You could be dangerous condition. So on Instinct, I just decided to take this is Herb's the next day. I woke up 80% of this was gone the swelling islamization. This is without taking his antivirals just the yeah, it's medicine one because you didn't know it was shingles. Yeah, just wait just I didn't know but I thought I'm not going to take the chance. I thought I can read the symptoms. I have the knowledge I understand is so now I did actually take the the medication that he prescribed because I won't go and see. Our Western practitioner and then ignore his advice you told me to do it. So I said, okay, but what I really think helped me was the the the change manager list. Now, the reason why this all sort of ties in is because he wasn't saying to me is anything that you can do about your eyes, I can't have surgery because I've got the weak connective tissue and the the lens in my eyes not quite in place. And so if they replace it, then I risk going from Paul. Into night vision and I'm not willing to do that. So he basically said was only in do you just have to manage it? So I started to investigate Eye Health and saw that there's actually an awful lot that can be done in terms of learning some very simple techniques to improve visual health and I've started that probably for about 6 or 8 weeks and you know, you probably need to get the advice off of someone but a lot of these theories go back to quite a famous eye doctor called. Dr. Bates who was around in the very early part of last century practice from 1900 to 1930 when he retired and he managed to cure hundreds of thousands of people with visual products basically got them to get rid of their glasses. Yeah and not use the the glasses anymore. So if you need some help with your eyes and you like to learn a bit more about that than I encourage you to get in contact with me and we'll have a chat about that. Hmm. Great awesome. That sounds amazing. Cool. So been so informative. And I've learned types of stuff today, and I'm sure the viewers and listeners have learned, you know stack load of things about inflammation and self-help eyes and just hearing your journey about how you got to Chinese medicine, you know, it's a loss for the music industry, but it's again for Chinese medicine. So I look I really appreciate you having me on sir. Thank you very much for Talking Stick. All right. Well, you can get in contact with Ben will put his link to the to his website below and thanks very much for watching if you Listening to on this on Apple podcasts or Google's Google or Spotify. Thanks very much for listening. Don't forget to write a review. If you love the podcast you've been you've been enjoying the content. We would love you to do that. And if you're on YouTube, don't forget to like And subscribe. Thanks very much for watching and have a great day.
Talking inflammation and pain, eye health and Dr Ben's amazing journey into becoming a Chinese Medicine practitioner after a life changing surgery gone wrong. In today's episode we discuss inflammation, Pain, Turmeric & Eye Health are key topics we talk about  with Dr Ben who also studied a degree in Nutrition. Tumeric - how much, how often and how to make it's active ingredients  more available in the body. We also talk about Dr Ben's special interest in eye health and keeping  your eyes healthier  Chinese Medicine   About Dr Ben Latto O'Brien (Acupuncturist & Herbalist)  Benjamin O’Brien comes from a long line of practitioner’s of both  western and natural medicine. Ben completed a double degree in both  acupuncture and nutritional medicine and is also qualified in both An Mo  Tui Na (Chinese massage) and western Remedial massage. Part of Ben’s  acupuncture training involved completing an internship in China at  Guangxi Traditional Chinese Medical University in Nanning, Guangxi. Ben  has personal experience in the healing capacity of acupuncture and  continues to be inspired by what Chinese medicine offers to millions of  people around the world. Ben’s other great passion involves using food  as medicine for the incredible health benefits seen in both the short  and long term for his patients and himself when the correct foods are  regularly consumed. Ben has completed a master’s degree in Chinese Herbal Medicine. He  strongly believes in the vast healing power of plant medicine and the  lack of side effects often seen with the use of many modern western  pharmaceutical medications. CLINIC / Contact Dr Ben via: https://nedlandsosteoacu.com.au/  IMPORTANT: This video, as with all our content, the The Chinese Medicine Podcast episodes are NOT a replacement for a health professional diagnosis. While  Marie may answer your questions, all answers are not of a professional  consultation level - it is impossible to check your pulse through the  internet, hence Chinese medicine cannot be practiced properly through  the internet. If you have any undiagnosed symptoms, or changes in your  health condition The Chinese Medicine Podcast urges you to see your own  doctor, GP, Chinese medicine practitioner, acupuncturist or other health  professional as appropriate. If it is an emergency call 000 in  Australia. If you are unsure if this advice is appropriate for your  individual situation ask your own practitioner before applying any diet  or lifestyle techniques /concepts discussed in this video. We wish you the best of health in your own journey. 