W/ DR. AVI RAMCHANDANI

BIO 

Dr. Avi Ramchandani is a practicing physician in Santa Rosa, California.

He specializes in pain management, with a focus on lifestyle and nutrition to get to a painless life.

He also holds an MBA from Cornell University.

"Diet has really changed the way I look at things and the way and the way I feel. So I incorporate that with the way I tell patients to do things. I say hey, I had pain every day. I used to have headaches. Guess what? I don't have them anymore. Just because I change these things."

"Things like oils like canola oil, soybean oil, those are things that are terrible for you. And they're processed using chemicals. These chemicals come into the system and cause more inflammation for us."

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Allison 0:19
Hello there and welcome back to the How Do You Health? Podcast brought to you by MSW lounge here in the beautiful but a little bit chilly Austin, Texas. I'm Allison and I just got a few announcements for you guys real fast. First off, I wanted to read one of our comments when we record this podcast. It's also recorded as an Instagram Live and a Facebook Live and we just wanted to say shout out to Melanie Tung for saying, This is quite informative, great job to all on our episode four with Anne Marie garland from grass fed salsa so thank you Melanie, for tuning in live. If you guys want to catch us live we are up every week on Facebook and Instagram Live whenever we are recording this if you follow us at MSW lounge on Facebook and MSW underscore lounge on Instagram. We do begin the live video and it should send you notifications when that video begins so that you can tune in and catch us while we are recording and catch us in all of our crazy live glory as you might call it. Real quick guys, this episode is brought to you by Cinderella bliss. It has been described by clients as a natural Prozac and some who are on depression medication have not needed to take their depression medication after taking a shot of bliss. It's literally a drink shot not an injection shot. We carried it MSW lounge we love it and even if you're not depressed, it makes you just super happy and giddy and overall more productive throughout the day. We are also brought to you by flabs to fitness specializing in custom nutrition and 20 minute workouts you can do anywhere. We are also brought to you today by roots nutrition, that's our Oh Tz nutrition. They make paleo protein powders and energy powders and just both of those things tastes great. Since they're paleo that means they are naturally gluten, soy and dairy free as well as refined sugar free. The only little bit of sweetener they have is stevia which is non caloric and very, very natural. If you go to our OTC nutrition.com you can use the code word flabs to fitness all one word FL ABS to fit n e s s at checkout and you will get 10% off of your entire purchase. I do use roots nutrition energy drinks specifically, I'm sensitive to egg whites. So I unfortunately don't take their protein powder even though I have tasted it and it's delicious.

But they're their energy powder has been described as a pre workout. Although I do know plenty of people who will use it just for a little bit of energy in the afternoon rather than drinking more coffee. So it's a superfood blend lots of good stuff in it besides the energy and yeah, love them. So definitely check out roots nutrition, and use that code word flabs to fitness at checkout to get a nice little discount on your order. Alright guys, today, we talked with Avi, he used to be John's supervising physician here in town at a pain management clinic. avi since leaving that position, now lives back at home in California, where he specializes in painless nutrition is what he calls it. He uses nutrition as his forefront of treatment for paying clients. And he and john are clearly really good friends. And it was awesome to see the two of them reconnect and talk about this nutrition thing that both of them are now very passionate about. The two of them kind of discovered nutrition as a medicine at the same time. And they apparently used to geek out in the lunchroom where they used to work and talk about why they weren't eating bread anymore, and all that Goofy, geeky nutrition nerd doctor stuff. But it's super cool practitioners like Avi and john are on the forefront of medical treatment. And we're super lucky to have gotten Avi on a Facebook Live to talk with him and we're luckily able to record the audio and throw it on this podcast too. That being said, the audio might be a little bit weird. I edited as much of it as I could so that the levels are great, but if there's a weird spot, it's because this was recorded off of a Facebook Live so bear that in mind, but it is some really good information and and he and john had a great time. So everyone, please enjoy Dr. avi Ramchandani. Hi everyone. How y'all doing today? This is Jonathan Mendoza with the MSW lounge. How do you health podcast we have Allison with us as well moderating and we have a very special guest

Jon Mendoza 5:00
Today Dr. Avinash Ramchandani joining us live from California. Hi, say hi everyone. Dr. avi. Hi. How are you? Hey, good. He said y'all. He says a little bit of text him texting him a little bit. So we wanted to bring him on the show because we wanted to talk today to other health care practitioners about how they're incorporating health into their everyday life and what better way to talk about it and with the physician who is been incorporating not only nutrition but other aspects into his own practice, and so I wanted Dr. Ramchandani to talk to us a little bit about that, but I wanted to give some information on him right now. So I'm Dr. Rumson. Donnie is a physical medicine rehab physician, and he also has his MBA from Cornell University. And we actually work together in Austin. And he moved out to California where he's originally from and and doing a seven in a row. Right. Is that correct? Some neuro rehab. I'm saying you're also doing some neuro re rehab in education correct out in California? Absolutely. I actually run part of the rehab unit on weekends here. And I was running a rehab unit up in Dallas for a little while. Awesome. Awesome. stroke. Yeah. And spinal cord injury me at that type of thing. One. Wonderful. So you're making a huge difference out there. Tell me Are you loving? I know you. You moved out to California recently? How are you fitting in back back home again?

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 6:29
Oh, I love it. Except we almost got scared away with fires recently. Yeah, I understood. I saw that you checked in you're okay. The family's good. So I'm glad to hear that. So. So tell me right now, you're have been in practice how many years now practicing as a doctor. And I've been in practice after fellowship about seven and a half years, seven half years. So do you practice the same way now as you did when you first came out? Absolutely not?

Jon Mendoza 6:56
No? Okay. All right. So what so what's different about practicing now, as opposed when you first came out?

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 7:02
several things. One is I met you, john, which is really a big influence on the way of practice. One of the things that I do very differently is I introduce nutrition, I introduce things that I really find as a pathway for the patient, rather than just going one by one. So if there's something I know that's going to help them out, you know, later down the line, and it's a little bit of a bigger deal, I'll introduce to them earlier. And most of the time with patients, I introduced the nutrition thing immediately. That's something that's really important for them. That's wonderful. A help their lifestyle. And, you know, I've seen patients go from the point of being, essentially not active at all to being very active because of their nutritional

diet, I mean, their diets and just, you know, training them to be active.

Jon Mendoza 7:50
Right, right. It's, it's a different concept in traditional sense. And so when you talk about the way that you practice differently now, as opposed to then, I mean, you weren't really taught nutrition in medical school, where you

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 8:04
I had one course of nutrition, and it was an open URL. There was no real classroom sessions. We were supposed to read the book and answer test questions, which was an open book test question. Okay. formal training. One of the things that I've done is after doing nutrition in medical school, give me a second, let me show you something in my office, actually, in this book here. It's called nutritional biochemistry.

Jon Mendoza 8:31
That's awesome. I probably want to read that book, actually.

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 8:36
Great book. Yeah. Started, it seems to be an amazing,

Jon Mendoza 8:39
good, good. So tell me like I know, before we get into what you're doing, as far as nutrition goes, I know that you have your own nutritional story, right? Because when we first met, our diets were very, very much different. But then we started changing our diets, right. So what did you do differently.

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 8:56
So very, very, very different. I was initially, I was overweight, and tried to get active and kept eating the same way I did all the way cut down on the carbs. But what I didn't do was in incorporating anti inflammatory diet with that. So when I did my first real diet, as you may, I went from about 200 pounds, which was way overweight for me, and went down to about 175. But the way I did it was I just stopped eating carbs, which wasn't very healthy, and I didn't feel great. And then eventually what happened was, I realized that I was gluten intolerant, or at least gluten sensitive. So I read a little bit more about it. And what I found out was gluten was causing a lot of inflammation in my body, therefore, cut that out. And ever since then, I can pretty much eat anything and not gain any weight. That sounds

Jon Mendoza 9:53
like an awesome diet.

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 9:55
But the main thing was I cut out gluten and then I actually made things a lot more A lot more healthy as far as inflammation is concerned, I try to eat more. If I'm eating meat, it's going to be, you know, believe it or not red meat, which is better for you than like me. More organ meat, which I tried to try to eat, but it's hard to find that. Yeah, I try to cut out all the oils like canola oil, soybean oil, those are really terribly inflammatory. The least processed is awesome. Right? That's right.

Jon Mendoza 10:27
That's the key

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 10:30
things that are not processed. You're good.

Jon Mendoza 10:32
Yeah, that's, that's it's simple, right? Like, eat something from nature. And hopefully, it's not processed if it is minimally processed. Right. But, but that's good. So I mean, is this the kind of talks that you have with your patients, because this helped you? Absolutely. It start with a what's causing your pain, you know, usually my patients, the ones that I'm going to talk about nutrition are not the 85 year olds with spinal stenosis, but they're going to be 25 year old with joint pain all over and they're miserable, and they're just inflamed, and you can just see it in their, you know, overweight. And what I'm going to talk to them about initially is, hey, what's your diet like?

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 11:10
And usually they're telling me, yeah, he pretty well ate sandwiches. And, you know, he processed me and I'm like, hold on. Yeah. What are you eating? You know, what's in this stuff that's causing the inflammation right there? Which is in the American Ada? Does that you know, eating? Good for you? Oh, no, not really. The amount of inflammation that each brain has is amazing. I mean, especially the, um, especially gluten. Gluten is awful.

Jon Mendoza 11:43
Right? Right. So when so when you say inflammation? Can you tell us like what you're referring to? Because I mean, we hear inflammation? Could it be like, you know, my guts irritated? I mean, you obviously talk about the gluten, but is there other forms inflammation that you you're treating?

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 11:58
Absolutely. People have everything from skin diseases, eczema, acne, that's all inflammation related to, you know, gut related things, to joints, to spine to everything, including ms things that we wouldn't even think are inflammatory, they are extremely inflammatory, right? Ms is an autoimmune condition, which is actually something that's doing inflammation. So by cutting down inflammation, people have actually, I don't actually have any patients that this has happened to them, they actually get better from their ms, which is amazing, or at least it doesn't get any worse.

Jon Mendoza 12:37
Right? It helps them manage the symptoms a little bit better.

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 12:40
Right. So I think that, you know, by incorporating the nutrition, we can do a lot for many of these patients.

Jon Mendoza 12:48
Right? And I mean, one of the things you you love to try to really attack is pain, right? I mean, you have pain, and so many aspects of life, whether it's arthritis, which is inflammation, or maybe even are herniated discs and things like that, as well. But, you know, if a person has chronic pain, I mean, do you believe that treating pain is the main issue we need to focus on? Or is it a side effect? That is something else is going on?

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 13:15
Absolutely. It's a side effect for sure. When we look about looking at pain, as a general symptom, it's usually due to some sort of arthritis, or is it due to the patient's, you know, the way they're sitting, you know, their posture? Or is it due to something else that they're doing their life and overuse injury. So the pain is a symptom of something bigger going on. And one of the symptoms that could be is inflammation, or one of the diagnosis could be inflammation from the what they're eating or what they're doing. So that's really important to avoid. Right.

Jon Mendoza 13:51
Right. And so, so tell me a little bit about your, your, your treatment when you're in there with a patient, right, like you're, I mean, how many patients do you see in a day?

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 14:03
Depends on the day, of course, right? Anywhere from 15 to 2515 to

Jon Mendoza 14:08
25. Patient day, so that is on a that's almost like a typical patient load for most physicians. Right. Right. So so in that timeframe, when you see 15 to 25 patients, how long do you actually have face to face with a patient?

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 14:23
With a new patient? We'll spend probably 45 minutes to an hour. Yeah. And then follow up patient in a 1520 minutes.

Jon Mendoza 14:31
Yeah. And so in that timeframe, I know that you talk about nutrition, but in that short timeframe for some people, it's very easy to get lost in everything that's going on and not even talk about something else like nutrition. It's very easy to get lost in translation, right?

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 14:47
Yeah, but what I do is I usually, I usually have a list of things. So first, I talk about, but this is what we're addressing. Why Why are we having the pain so someone with joint pain, for example, I'll talk about Okay, why do we have that Paint, you have a rheumatological condition to have something like that. And then I, then I talked about the symptoms, okay, this is what we're going for. And then I say, why do you have that condition? You know? Is it because you have a genetic predisposition for that? Or is it because of something like, you have inflammation in your diet, you know, you're eating, you have a gluten sensitivity, your sensitive to lectins or something? So is there something else that's causing this? Right? Let me talk about that. And then we'll go from there. And we go to how we're going to treat this. And that's where you go to things like, okay, we can do non invasive things like physical therapy, or chiropractic treatment, or we can do when faced with things which could involve injections of some sort that may or may not involve steroids. Now, steroid has side effects. So I always warn them about that. So what I try to do is avoid anything that is going to have any potential side effects. So I try to do things like branch blocks, which block nerves to the joints, and then I tried to come up. So sometimes what happens is these patients have joint pain in their back, and they're doing the anti inflammatory thing, but they have so much disease in their joints, that makes them much better. That's when we do something like that where we actually treat. Right,

Jon Mendoza 16:10
right. But diet, but diet part of the treatment plan, right? It's inclusive. Correct.

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 16:16
That is one part of it. It's one, at least one cog of it, if not a big cog of it, because I think patients really need to know that their diet affects their overall lifestyle and overall health. Right. And that's why we're here. Yeah,

Jon Mendoza 16:30
but the funny thing is, is that Dr. Ramchandani here might be the first doctor to start addressing nutrition as a form of medicine as a form of treatment, right? Because a lot of times, and I mean, most people will hear this from a doctor, they'll go to a doctor and say, guess what, you're diabetic, you're overweight, you're overweight, it's caused you to have back pain, because you have nerve pain, go home, exercise and eat right? And you're saying, wait, I'm taking it a step further. Not only am I telling you to do that, but I'm sure that you even tell them exactly some things to cut out from their diet and what not to eat. Right?

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 17:03
Absolutely. Just like we were talking earlier, you know, things like oils like krill oil, soybean oil, those are things that are terrible for you. And they're processed using chemicals, these chemicals come into the system and cause more inflammation for us. I also tell them to avoid any gluten and, and any, any grains, for sure. Yeah. We talked about, you know, what type of meats to eat, and what to avoid. And usually I'm talking more like, okay, let's eat more red meat, which they're like, what? Like, it has less omega sixes. That's why we read me, it has less omega sixes, chicken and other more, more cook things has more omega three more, more omega sixes, sorry, yeah. And red meat has less omega sixes. So just doing that patients can have a great improvement in their overall symptoms and overall health. Yeah,

Jon Mendoza 17:56
yeah. I mean, when people talk about treating food as medicine, Hippocrates, which was I mean, the godfather of medicine today, as we know, it was the first one to say, Let food be thy medicine. And I mean, you feel so strongly about it, that you even created a business and an idea called painless nutrition, that where you basically have said, All right, I've seen the results, where somebody comes into the office, and I've worked alongside you have seen this myself. So when patients come in, and they have low back pain, and they're not getting better, you've tried different methods, they've been the chiropractor, and they've gotten injections, you're saying, Hey, why don't you cut out that bread that you eat every day at lunch? And see if your back feels better? I mean, what a concept, right? Like, that's, that's incredible.

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 18:42
Right? And I mean, it makes a huge difference. It made a huge difference in my life. And that's part of why I even believe in it further, where, you know, I had a lot of joy being you remember, we used to prick my neck all the time. And I don't have that anymore. Just because I've changed my diet. I've added some supplements. And these things have really changed everything I don't have. I really don't have any pain whatsoever. And the person that I used to come to work every day and be like, john, please.

Jon Mendoza 19:13
Alright, I remember when I was in between injections, in fact, yeah, that's right, right.

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 19:18
Yeah. Nice. I take some alpha lipoic acid, I actually had an MSc cysteine recently, probably about six months ago, nice and things together, along with some other vitamins. And again, as I said, diet has really changed the way I look at things in the way and the way I feel. So I incorporate that with the way I tell patients to do things where, you know, hey, I had pain every day. I used to have headaches, guess what, I don't have them anymore. Just because I change these things.

Jon Mendoza 19:49
See, and it's a simple approach. You don't have to write another prescription. You don't have to recommend another john out therapy. It's just changed the way you eat but me Why Why? Is it that we don't hear this more often? Is it that the tide is turning? We haven't heard about it yet. Is it that doctors really don't want to talk about nutrition? I mean, here we are. We're talking about it right now. I mean, I know we've sat down and looked at menus together and be like, you know what, I don't think this is a good choice for you, our, our doctors out there not talking about this.

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 20:19
Yeah, they just don't talk about nutrition, I think one of the things that they really have issues with is sticking to the program, and sticking to the same thing that has been tried, tried and tested. So they're, they're using anti inflammatory drugs and using drugs. And, you know, as we say, if a surgeon gets a gets a knife, they're gonna stick you with it. Yeah, the doctors are gonna use the tools that they know and not look outside of their outside of their comfort zone. All right, let's talk about nutrition because they're not comfortable with it. None of us have had any training on it as we talked about it. That's true. That's just me. Yeah,

Jon Mendoza 20:57
I mean, you get bombarded with all these different types of options. And it's incredible, because some of the most simple ones could be the ones that make the most difference. Now, I know we, we had many conversations about the medications, they're involved in treatment plans and protocols, but we know that medication is not necessarily an answer, but we treat it like it is the answer, right? Like, here's a pill, just take this, everything will be fine,

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 21:22
right? Oftentimes, that's what doctors are doing. You know, in the old days, these mean, just years ago, doctors are giving opioids left, right? And that's what causes opioid epidemic. And we're turning away from that, because guess what? It's not right. It's just putting a bandage on patients is not the right thing. That's the same idea here, if we can fix the thing from the start, and why would we use the I would we use a band aid board? Right? Sometimes, you know, someone was high cholesterol. Okay, why don't we change your diet, instead of giving you a status, or you know, someone with joint pain instead of, hey, let's give me a non steroidal anti inflammatory. Let's change your diet and see if that that helps first. And I think that makes a difference with patients. And they actually respect you before.

Jon Mendoza 22:09
I think so too. And it's not I tell people this all the time. It's not that people are dumb, it's just that they weren't given another option, right to say, Hey, take this opioid, and there's going to make you loopy, you won't be able to drive every night for your back pain, or cut out bread and dairy. And maybe that will cut down on the on the number of injections, you get having your back. I mean, obviously, they'll love you for that. I mean, you know, it's it's a simple approach. But doctors don't know this stuff. Right. Like they because they don't practice it themselves. Right. I mean, that's the other thing. How many? How many healthy doctors do you actually see out there? Right, if they're following the same type of protocol that they're preaching? Right, then?

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 22:47
I mean, I don't see many of them are overweight. Luckily, not most of them. Most of them don't smoke anymore. But yeah. The doctor that be smoking and overweight, like, Okay, what can you preach to your patients? Yeah,

Jon Mendoza 23:05
I mean, I do. Now, obviously, I'm not old enough to ever go to a doctor's office that had that. But I do remember, like, you know, seeing movies and stuff, there'd be a doctor in a white coat, maybe smoking a cigarette, even maybe hand one over as an offer to one of the patients here. Do you want us to hand over lab results? You know, and that was 50 years ago? You know,

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 23:22
that's the whole reason why we're in the situation that we're at, is because a lot of times these companies have paid off the big associations like the ADA. And you know, what happened was, in the olden days, guess what smoking was supposed to be good for you? Well, guess what? It isn't. The same idea is a breads Good for you. You know, that's what the FDA says. And why probably isn't we need to, we need to really look at this and look at this with the different, different perspective. And I think, I think that physicians eager, have a little bit bigger in your eyes and look at the bigger picture.

Jon Mendoza 24:02
I agree. I agree. But like I said, I think it's I think it's moving. I mean, even even the doctors that we worked with, they started being more aware of the diet, and you would see after a while, because we would have the reps that would come by and bring us food. And we'd say, no, we're not going to have that because that's just not good for me, I'm not going to put that in my body.

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 24:21
Right? Right. And then you know, use a bowl of vegetables or fruit or something like that,

Jon Mendoza 24:29
just something else. But it was funny because most people never thought about incorporating food as medicine. And so in a traditional sense, even the farm reps and the med reps never thought, hey, maybe I should bring all these doctors in these healthcare practitioners a bunch of healthy food rather than lasagna, and processed pizza and all that stuff, too. And I mean, it's funny because you and I both would stop eating that because we're like, that's just not good for me. I can't I can't practice or I can't practice this and then preach something else to another, another patient that I'm doing. Something different.

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 25:01
Right? And you know, it's supposed to the office and then you know, like, if you guys have pizza, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It affects it affects the way I think and the fix the way I moved to write a lot more, I feel like I move healthier when I'm not eating that stuff.

Jon Mendoza 25:18
Yeah. And that's the thing, you just feel better. I mean, just think about how you felt when you were, you know, 200 pounds, and then you even went low carb, and that diet still wasn't right for you. You're like, something still is off? It doesn't feel right. So I mean, it brings up a good point. You look at everyone's diet, right. And I know that one diet is not right for one person, because it worked for someone else. I mean, it sounds like if you understand the patient, and you look at them, and you see them, and you understand where they're coming from, and you actually talk to them, you will probably figure out a diet that's right for them. Right. Yeah. And that that's a huge thing, too. But going back to the supplements, you said that you're taking some now. So are you incorporating supplements into your practice as well?

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 26:00
Yeah, absolutely. And many of my patients have been saying, alpha lipoic acid, it's really, I think it's a great supplement for pain, as well as it was a small study about neuropathic pain in diabetics. And alpha lipoic acid was a positive influence towards decreasing neuropathic pain. Yeah, so just for that perspective, I say, okay, might as well try it, you know, really low harm with that, right? That's one thing. The other thing to do is and acetal cysteine, which turns into glutathione in the body, and that's really made a huge difference for me. And I recommend that to patients as well, especially patients that have been on Tylenol for a long time. They don't think about this, but Tylenol is a is actually an inflammatory medicine. Weirdly enough, it decreases pain. But if you take enough of it, it actually depletes the stores of glutathione in the body, and the way they the way doctors do in the emergency room, get rid of an overdose. townlong is good ns ecosystem, right? Because we've split it down and then takes helemaal out of the body. So I say anybody that's been on Tylenol for a long time, guess what, let's replete. You're good at time. Isn't it?

Jon Mendoza 27:10
Yeah. And and and to take that one step further. I do remember, if they were taking a lot of Tylenol for pain, one of the things that Tylenol does is it harms delivered in overdoses, right. And so, and you know, cysteine is also a huge if not the biggest liver detox, or you can find, so you could recommend that to someone who has been chronically taken Tonto for so long, and it would help detoxify the liver, which is great. So yeah, that's But see, the thing is doctors don't know about any subtle system. I mean, how did you even hear about nacdl? cysteine?

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 27:42
Well, I mean, research, right? You do some research. And initially, I was thinking, like, was tying these inflammatory and to acid. And I'm thinking, Okay, how do I get glue found in my body? And then I'm doing some research on Oh, mssql sustained? Okay, that works. So that's how we kind of did that. And I'm like, wait, that's mucus. That's what we use me in the ER, yeah. You know. So

Jon Mendoza 28:01
that, Betsy, that's incredible that you know, that mean? Most doctors will probably say that, um, maybe I've heard of it a little bit, but I'm not going to apply it to anything other than something severe, but there are no way I'm going to ever recommend any sort of system for lowering inflammation for a guy with back pain.

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 28:18
I mean, that just doesn't happen. It doesn't make any logical sense in a weird way. But I mean, the other thing that I've noticed, is that okay, with the mssql system, if I accidentally do get some gluten, my diet or purposefully, whatever that may be, it doesn't affect me as badly as it used to. And I don't understand why that happens. But there's something about the liver and the inflammation, and maybe have to do more research. But that's really an interesting thing that it doesn't affect me nearly as much.

Jon Mendoza 28:46
Yeah. Well, I mean, it's, it's been incredible, because when you talk about a gluten intolerance, intolerance, it's not necessarily the celiac that everyone thinks it is. I mean, it could be like, you're talking about, Hey, I just maybe don't have acne anymore. Maybe I don't have nausea or something. You know, that means so that's, that's the key thing, but I mean, it but you have to be in tune with your body like you are in order to say, Hey, I'm picking up on what I eat affects me in my everyday life. So if I eat a sandwich at lunchtime, maybe that's the connection of why I'm tired at two or three in the afternoon. Right. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So huge. That I mean, that's, that's, that's wonderful. I'm glad that even though we weren't able to get to Costco, again, we got it. I love it. They want to talk about nutrition. I didn't know we had a hotline, but that's cool. Um, you know, as far as everything else that you've been doing, it's been incredible to see how you continue to grow and thrive in your practice and want to integrate these things. Most people will go and do functional medicine or they talk about I'm going to do an integrative medicine. You're still doing traditional medicine, but you're bringing nutrition back into traditional medicine when guess what people capacities was saying food is medicine. That was the original medicine you were giving hundreds of years ago.

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 30:05
Exactly. Yeah, you know, all the medicines, love it, most of the medicines have a natural source to them. You know, they're not just chemically made in the, in the or somewhere have a place that comes, you're not making live there, they come from somewhere. Sure, you know, all came from a tree, you know, aspirin came from a tree, you know, things are made from someplace. So if we think about it, really, what are the medicines, they're, they're extracted from plants and plants and animals. I agree. I gonna use for, you know, for example, one of the biggest things for an opioid is opium, right, that comes from the PVC pipe, which then becomes morphine, which then can be transferred to other things. Right. Yeah. You know, I mean, all these things that are natural, some seminar have a natural area of upcoming. So right? He talked about that. You know, that's what food is. That's where we get it.

Jon Mendoza 31:07
Yeah. And it's the process that the aspect of being processed, you take white willow bark, it turns into aspirin. But that process somewhere along the line where they add fillers, they add this to it, our body's like, you know what, I could take the regular aspirin, but this fancy duty souped up version of it? I can't do that, you know, and it's all about how we metabolize things, right? How do you metabolize the red meat and the gluten in your body for certain people like me, and you, we don't metabolize it? Well, so we're going to cut it out, you know, it's amazing, you've had prescriptions for people, and they have a side effect. It's supposed to help with pain, but then the side effect is like blurry vision, and continents and, you know, weird dreams. And now it's like, well, here's a pill for that, too. You know, it's like, just remove what's causing the issue. And maybe things are gonna get better, you won't have to take more things. And so by you saying that with nutrition, incorporating supplements, like any pseudo cysteine, alpha lipoic acid, now what you're doing is you as a doctor, not just treating symptoms, you're giving back health to a patient who needs it. Right? And that's all that's exactly what doctors signed up for as an oath, right? Do no harm to the patient, give them benefits, give them back health. And you're doing that. Right. I mean, that's, that's incredible. And so I, how can we spread the word to other doctors to start looking at the idea of saying, hey, something as simple as food as your medicine? How can we start, you know, teaching other people to start talking about that, too. We have

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 32:31
to have some real, real data, we have to have some really good studies, I think, and we're working on it. We're trying to get some studies in order to figure this out. It's just that the problem is that there's no industry sponsor, because they're not going to make any money from this. So somehow, we have to come up with money to sponsor studies. And I think that's the key thing. And, you know, the National Institutes of Health, that's probably where we need to go and start. Start making a ruckus about that. Yeah,

Jon Mendoza 33:01
I agree completely. And, and Dr. Thompson 19, proves the point, because he's a published researcher. And so he knows what it takes in order to get the message across and stir the pot and make a change. But I think it's coming. I think, wonderful doctors like Dr. avi here is exactly what we need in healthcare nowadays. And it gives us hope that there's still wonderful people out there who work wake up and go to work every day, like Dr. Ramchandani and says, I'm going to make a difference today, in my patients lives. It might not be with this approach. It might not be this might be the most simplest thing. But I can sit there and tell them, there are some options other than just medications. Right?

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 33:39
Absolutely. That's incorporate that every day. We're um, honestly, I usually don't start anybody on any medications. Unless, if there's something that I have to treat a candidate, right. But most of the time, they've already been on their medications, and just continue. Yeah, giving them alternatives to get off the medication. So that's my key.

Jon Mendoza 34:01
Well, I can tell you this right now, even though technically, it's a new school way of thinking. You're a very old school in a traditional sense. That's exactly what a family doctor would do back in the day, or a rural doctor there was in the middle of nowhere. So I applaud your efforts. I want you to continue to do what you do and thrive and keep doing more research because Dr. Ramchandani is going to be the change that we need in healthcare, and the movement starts with people like him. And so you know, if you are in California, you do want to see him. I mean, you know, go to his practice, you know, if you look and search for painless nutrition, you can find him online. But I mean, if not, we're gonna have to probably have you on for another podcast, another video to keep talking about this good. We just got started with the tip of the iceberg. But this was really to introduce you and to showcase that there are wonderful doctors out there who were really thinking like, what's the best idea to help my patients get better, what's not going to be the, you know, the least damaging thing I can give them you know, so, so So like I said, Thank you so much. I know your time is valuable. Allison, did you want to chime in with anything?

Allison 35:03
I just wanted to say thanks for your insight. It was very interesting to hear your take on these things.

Dr. Avi Ramchandani 35:08
Thank you.

Allison 35:09
And thanks for joining us today. It was a lot, a lot of fun. A lot of interesting stuff.

Jon Mendoza 35:13
Yes. Thank you. So Dr. rajdhani. Thank you for joining us from California. This is Jonathan Mendoza with MSW lounge and thank you again for joining us on How Do You Health! take care.

"Doctors are gonna use the tools that they know and not look outside of their comfort zone. They don't talk about nutrition because they're not comfortable with it."
 
"I usually don't start anybody on any medications, unless there's something that I have to treat acutely."

You can find the How do you Health? Podcast on Twitter @HDYHPodcast, and use #HDYHPod to submit speaker ideas, health questions, or topics you want discussed!

SPONSORS:
MSW Lounge
Slenderella® Bliss
Flabs to Fitness, Inc.

CREDITS:
Hosts - Jonathan Mendoza, MSW Lounge
Guest - Dr. Avi Ramchandani
Podcast production - Allison Wojtowecz (Flabs to Fitness, Inc. - www.flabstofitness.com), Andy Havranek
Guest coordinator - Baldo Garza
Intro song - Benjamin Banger