There are these moments in life, moments that completely alter the trajectory you’ve been on.
Some moments are more obvious- like the birth of your first child or the news that you’re not having one
baby, but you are having two! And then there are moments that have this hidden power to change your
life- like making friends with a colleague who later becomes your husband.
Pursuing integrative medicine was one of these hidden life altering moments for me.
I completed my Doctor of Medicine at the University of New Mexico. The daughter of a licensed
mental health therapist, and with a strong curiosity to de-tangle the truth, I first pursued psychiatry. But I
soon fell in love with internal medicine with the idea this would allow me to treat the “whole body and
mind”. Next, I unexpectedly sharpened my skills by pursuing teaching. I became actively involved with
the medical school curriculum, advocating for change for my fellow students. As I approached
graduation, I felt optimistic for the next chapter in my training as a doctor.
And then reality hit! I was now a scared intern working in the COVID ICU, surrounded by death,
or those inevitably near it. The trauma I experienced at the most impressionable part of my training was
compounded with a new awareness of the disappointing pitfalls of the western allopathic healthcare
system- a disease centric system, “one pill for one ill.” My mentors in hospital medicine told me this was
just residency. This was just the pandemic. But I knew in my heart something wasn’t right. This was not a
model of medicine that I could thrive in. I needed to get off the hamster wheel.
On that first day of my integrative medicine fellowship, I listened to the stories of my colleagues
and was relieved to hear I was not alone in my thinking. While each story was unique, we all shared
identical themes of wanting to find a new way to practice medicine- to discover the root cause of disease,
to restore vitality, to simply listen and be with our patients. We weren’t pursuing a fellowship in
integrative medicine because we have a passion for healthy foods, or love yoga. We chose this fellowship
because we shared a certain philosophical approach to health and healing. To us it isn’t “integrative
medicine” as a field so much, but “integrative medicine” as a state of mind; as a way of practice.
During my first year of fellowship I had my first miscarriage. We were devastated but we
immediately tried again. Then just seven months later we lost our daughter who was 14 weeks gestational
age. Desperate for answers, we went to doctor after doctor asking why this happened. We did the standard
genetic karyotype testing and they checked me for clotting disorders. But mainstream medicine didn’t
have an answer for me. I was told “there is nothing you did, miscarriages just happen and we don’t know
why.” I wasn’t going to accept this as an answer.
Then during Dr. Bridget Briggs fascinating lecture on our body’s methylation pathways- a
lightbulb went off- What does my MTHFR gene look like, I thought? In simple terms MTHFR is an
enzyme controlled by our genes and influenced by toxins, stress and what we eat. It has multiple jobs and
there are over 300 enzymatic reactions in our body rooting back to this one enzyme, YES 300! But it is
most notoriously known for regulating folic acid metabolism in the body, specifically turning folic acid
into a form that the body can use. If you don’t have full function of that gene, or if it’s been damaged by
toxins, stress or lack of micronutrients, then your body will have a difficult time supporting a pregnancy.
So, I had myself tested. I waited anxiously for my results. Then there it was- after countless
painful hours of wondering, worrying, and reading, I had my answer- I had a 50% loss of function
mutation in the gene that regulates folic acid production. And not just that, but I was severely lacking in
the micronutrients that drive the reaction of folic acid to its usable form, specifically B vitamins.
Now that I had found a cause for my miscarriages, I could take back control. With a drastic
change to my diet and supplementing with active forms of folic acid- I changed my body’s biochemistry.
I changed my genetics. The result- two healthy and thriving twin baby girls.