Are you tired of being defined by a diagnosis? In this powerful episode of The Real Health Podcast, Ron Hunninghake, MD welcomes Mark Sherwood, ND, to explore why symptom-focused care is failing patients—and what true healing really looks like.
Mark Sherwood, ND shares how he and his wife, Michele Sherwood, DO, guide patients through a whole-person, functional medicine approach rooted in compassion, lifestyle transformation, and deep listening. From gut health to PTSD, chronic illness to emotional trauma—this conversation dives into what it actually takes to reclaim your health.
Thanks to This Episode’s Sponsor
Riordan Clinic Nutrient Store: https://store.riordanclinic.org/
Links
Learn more about the hosts:
Ron Hunninghake, MD https://riordanclinic.org/staff/ron-hunninghake-md/
Mark Sherwood, ND & Michele L. Neil-Sherwood, DO: https://sherwood.tv
Learn more about Riordan Clinic: https://riordanclinic.org/
Interested in becoming a Patient: https://riordanclinic.org/request-an-appointment/
Disclaimer: The information contained on the Real Health Podcast and the resources mentioned are for educational purposes only. They’re not intended as and shall not be understood or construed as medical or health advice. The information contained on this podcast is not a substitute for medical or health advice from a professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation. Information provided by hosts and guests on the Real Health Podcast or the use of any products or services mentioned does not create a practitioner-patient relationship between you and any persons affiliated with this podcast.
Read the Transcript
00:00:02:21 – 00:00:18:07
Narrator
This is the Real Health podcast brought to you by Riordan Clinic. Our mission is to bring you the latest information and top experts in functional and integrative medicine to help you make informed decisions on your path to real health.
00:00:18:09 – 00:00:34:17
Ron Hunninghake, MD
So welcome everyone. I’m Doctor Ron Hunninghake and this is the Real Health podcast again. And I have as my guest doctor Mark Sherwood who is a functional medicine doctor. You’re down in Oklahoma. Is that right, Mark?
00:00:34:19 – 00:00:35:22
Mark Sherwood, ND
Yes, sir. Tulsa, Oklahoma.
00:00:35:22 – 00:00:44:02
Ron Hunninghake, MD
Tulsa, Oklahoma. And your your area of expertise. Is functional medicine, I understand.
00:00:44:04 – 00:01:02:05
Mark Sherwood, ND
Yeah, I would agree with that. We, my wife and I, doctor Michelle, who could not be here today. I want to acknowledge her. She’s my, spare ribs. She’s my prime rib. So I just like to address you. Is that right? Yes. But, yeah, we’ve been in this space for the better part of the last 20 some odd years, and, have been doing a long time.
00:01:02:05 – 00:01:08:05
Mark Sherwood, ND
So we’ve been trained in functional medicine, you know, hormones, peptides, age management, the whole bit.
00:01:08:07 – 00:01:11:14
Ron Hunninghake, MD
Yeah. And and you’re. You went to naturopathy school?
00:01:11:16 – 00:01:12:12
Mark Sherwood, ND
I did, yes, sir.
00:01:12:12 – 00:01:13:22
Ron Hunninghake, MD
Which one?
00:01:13:24 – 00:01:34:17
Mark Sherwood, ND
Well, I did mine overseas because I was older. And so, I started school when I was 42, believe it or not. So some people say it’s too late to learn, but I didn’t think so. I was like Forrest Gump in the movie. You know, Forrest could not be studying and studying and studying and never stopped. Well, our.
00:01:34:17 – 00:01:46:12
Ron Hunninghake, MD
Daughter did a year of naturopathic school, and she probably would have finished, but she, she met her husband and they moved back to Atlanta, and there was no naturopathy school, so she became a chiropractor.
00:01:46:14 – 00:01:48:01
Mark Sherwood, ND
Well, there you go. So.
00:01:48:03 – 00:02:17:17
Ron Hunninghake, MD
So. And I’m, I’m, I’m a family physician myself. But I was fortunate enough to meet Doctor Riordan, who was very instrumental in starting functional medicine back in 1975. And so, so the whole concept of functional medicine was, for me, the missing piece in regular medicine. It’s great. I mean, I’m I’m very much into integrative medicine now because we our other son is, he’s an MD, but, you know, you really need a little bit of both.
00:02:17:23 – 00:02:29:17
Ron Hunninghake, MD
And so in order to make sure you get by, because this is a really tricky world these days. And what are some of the patients that you’re seeing and what are you doing to kind of help them function better?
00:02:29:19 – 00:02:43:05
Mark Sherwood, ND
Well, again, I couldn’t agree more. We have to really blend the best of all worlds at this point. You know, that’s that’s called wisdom, you know. Yeah. Well, you don’t need to say this is bad or that’s bad. It’s all good. I think our knowledge is great, but we don’t know how to apply it. That’s a lack of wisdom.
00:02:43:05 – 00:03:13:21
Mark Sherwood, ND
So, the bottom line is we see people that, I think as a, as their general vibe, Ron, that have came to us that are frustrated, they’re frustrated in the, in one side or the other, and they’re looking for someone to bring it together, to put it all together, to integrate those principles in one. And, a lot of them have probably been as they stay, you know, missed, misunderstood, perhaps in conventional medicine.
00:03:13:23 – 00:03:35:18
Mark Sherwood, ND
And on the other side of that, when they went to the all quote unquote, all natural route and they haven’t found their questions all answered, you know, so they it’s it’s the combination of both. And we’ve been able to sort of listen to them as the whole person. And, and like a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle, start putting it together where they could begin to have the idea, the vibrancy of life and really understand who they are.
00:03:35:20 – 00:04:02:09
Ron Hunninghake, MD
I think that idea of just listening to patients, you know, I remember back in my early days I wasn’t doing functional medicine, and it was a ten minute appointment, and you really could only get to what was the problem? What was the problem? Okay. And so doctors become symptom problem solvers. But not necessarily the root cause, problem solvers.
00:04:02:09 – 00:04:09:02
Ron Hunninghake, MD
And so how do you and your wife navigate to the root cause of a patient that when they come to you.
00:04:09:04 – 00:04:31:13
Mark Sherwood, ND
It’s very interesting when someone comes in and we don’t start out with what’s your main complaint? And we purposely do that because I don’t want them focusing on the negative. It’s like, okay, in a system of humanists, humanity, whatever, you know, the human body, there could be 1 or 2 things that are not functioning right, but there may be 99 other things that are.
00:04:31:15 – 00:04:34:24
Mark Sherwood, ND
And so we sometimes focus too much on the wrong.
00:04:35:00 – 00:04:35:17
Ron Hunninghake, MD
Yeah.
00:04:35:19 – 00:04:54:21
Mark Sherwood, ND
And missed the right. So in our initial conversation we start the conversation interaction out with tell me about your life. Tell me about your family. Tell me about your kids. Tell them about your dog. So tell me what you like to do, what you don’t like to do. Tell me. How you live your life. One on a typical day in the life of Ron, you know.
00:04:54:21 – 00:05:21:12
Mark Sherwood, ND
And so that helps us understand who the person is. And it’s interesting in that initial dialog there, Ron, where they you see the barriers come down. And it’s fascinating because they begin to sort of perhaps experience trust and good things happen in a trustworthy environment. And then we’re very careful about how we phrase what might not be going so well.
00:05:21:12 – 00:05:47:22
Mark Sherwood, ND
And that’s kind of how we set. So could you tell us of all the things that you’ve got that are going great? Give me a couple things that don’t seem to not be going great. And we kind of like soften the blow of that. And then we come back when we hear that, we’ve rephrase it back and then we sort of reframe it back by saying, well, when you get this corrected, what would that do to your life at that point?
00:05:47:22 – 00:06:01:10
Mark Sherwood, ND
Give me that vision. So we went from here to the low side, and then we finished up with that vision. And so that’s been kind of our flow through that initial patient interaction. And it sort of sets the tone for the rest of the interactions and hopefully the experience.
00:06:01:12 – 00:06:24:09
Ron Hunninghake, MD
Yeah, a lot of people approach doctors from a perspective of fear. Just what you just said. Yep. And when you’re in that, you you tend to feel inadequate. And that’s why I think a lot of doctors seek out are a lot of patients seek out doctors is because of their own feeling of inadequacy as to what to do about this or that symptom, or this or that diagnosis.
00:06:24:09 – 00:06:41:05
Ron Hunninghake, MD
Diagnosis is even scarier because it’s almost like you’re stuck with this. Now you’re labeled. And so I really like what you’re saying, that you’re beginning to look with the patient as to what resources they actually have that they’re bringing to the table. So then then where do you go?
00:06:41:07 – 00:07:01:04
Mark Sherwood, ND
Well, obviously we will draw the diagram of the visual picture in their head. You know, like here is systems biology and here’s conventional medicine. And when conventional medicine is here’s your group of symptoms going through the algorithm. And here’s your medication. Right. Yeah. We’re going to look upstream. We’re gonna look for the root causes of what what might not be going so well correct that.
00:07:01:04 – 00:07:28:13
Mark Sherwood, ND
So therefore the symptoms go away. And then the diagnosis becomes irrelevant at that point. Right. And so we start off with the lifestyle pieces and make no bones about that. We start off with nutrition sleep stress management movement perhaps supplementation and perhaps what they’re missing. And just bring it all back together because we’ve seen this too many times, whether it be functional medicine or or whatever, the foundation is not correct.
00:07:28:13 – 00:07:51:13
Mark Sherwood, ND
And then you start stacking on the foundation, and it’s like trying to build a build a house upon inadequate or imbalanced or cracked or improperly laid out foundation. So we start off there and try to establish good groundwork, good habits, a good plan that’s personalized to meet them where they are. And we know that, lifestyle change is not that easy, for some people.
00:07:51:13 – 00:08:10:07
Mark Sherwood, ND
But we also celebrate the victories. So depending on who they are, how they are, some people can go, you know, 100 miles an hour and some point we have to go like five. But we set a tone and set a plan with benchmarks and, some of the benchmarks we use the same pretty basic, but we’ll look at comprehensive lab work.
00:08:10:07 – 00:08:33:11
Mark Sherwood, ND
But I like to look at body composition. We’ll use our in body and body and Dexa scans because we don’t want to have excess visceral fat or even excess fat period. You know, we want to have, maintenance of bone and muscle and, and, and good ability to cognitively perform. And so those are our benchmarks to be able to do what you want, when you want, how you want, as much as you want and not hurt.
00:08:33:13 – 00:08:40:24
Mark Sherwood, ND
And so if we can get that established, that’s kind of our initial, process. And we go upwards from there, of course.
00:08:41:00 – 00:09:05:07
Ron Hunninghake, MD
Yeah. The way Doctor Riordan did it and the way I tried to do it, too, is that we refer to our, our patients as co learners. Yeah. And, and when I first ask them about well what does that really mean. And he said, well, as a doctor we may know a lot about something of that this patient is concerned about, but we don’t know how that affects this patient or.
00:09:05:07 – 00:09:37:03
Ron Hunninghake, MD
Right. And so, opening up to understanding the patient and then delving into, okay, what are root causes? What are the factors that could be perpetuating symptoms? You know, the symptom is really oftentimes just a cry for help. But if you just treat the symptom you may be missing the cause. And so what you’re saying is you’re using resources to investigate deeper into what’s what might be underlying causes of why the patient is experiencing what they are.
00:09:37:05 – 00:09:58:11
Mark Sherwood, ND
Yeah, certainly. And I think that one of the things that we probably try to do consciously, we don’t say it all the time, but we do all this time consciously is is we try to love them. I mean, that word love goes a long way, you know, it’s like loving them enough to listen to them. And I figure that we’ve been given two ears and one mouth for a reason.
00:09:58:13 – 00:10:24:13
Mark Sherwood, ND
And we as doctors, we’re we’re very well studied people, sometimes too much so in a sense that we want to communicate how smart we are. But yet sometimes we can be more intelligent by just listening. And you’re right. And when you know that person and you find the the bridge of communication, you know, I teach the staff this and my wife and I do this.
00:10:24:15 – 00:10:44:12
Mark Sherwood, ND
The first question we ask to them when we see them is, is how’s your dog? Or how’s your latest fishing trip? Or how’s your husband or wife? Or how’s your kids? Or how’s that, how’s that father of yours doing? You know. And so we build those bridges right there about caring for them as a human being. Before we get into the, you know, the nitty gritty stuff.
00:10:44:14 – 00:11:11:19
Ron Hunninghake, MD
Yeah, it’s it’s it’s funny, sometimes, in, in medical school, I was just thinking back, I don’t I don’t remember hearing the word love too much in medical school. And, and I think it’s I understand that because, as doctors, we have a, a bit of an awesome responsibility in terms of how we work with patients. And I know doctors want to do a good job.
00:11:11:19 – 00:11:37:14
Ron Hunninghake, MD
They want to help the patient get well. But, but that’s scary. It’s scary when you’re dealing with someone with cancer or with another life threatening illness. You got a lot of a lot of responsibility in your hands. And so I think there’s a certain fear that doctors have of maybe not being able to be up to whatever that particular patient has to deal with.
00:11:37:16 – 00:11:57:12
Ron Hunninghake, MD
But I think if you start with the common denominator of, hey, we’re human beings, we’re doing our best we can. I’m as a doctor, I’m going to do my best for you. I know you’re going to. You’ve come to me for help. But I hadn’t really thought about that. You know that maybe, of course I. There’s some patients always says, boy, I love you.
00:11:57:12 – 00:12:18:16
Ron Hunninghake, MD
They just get up and go out of the room. But. But you’re saying it’s not that. It’s not just saying it’s it’s it’s feeling it that, compassion and an identity that we’re all patients in a sense. We’re all trying to discover what we can do to heal our our ailments. And so but I like I like what you’re saying.
00:12:18:18 – 00:12:55:14
Mark Sherwood, ND
Yeah. It’s very important that they experience and feel that, feeling that love. And it’s more about what you do than just saying the word it, it’s, it’s it’s giving in my contact. It is open hands versus sitting with closed arms. It’s the body language. It’s the environment. It’s the whole, ambiance of the moment. And if they sense that, and I think we all would agree that when a person’s in a, in a position where they’re not feeling well, they want to get heard and they want to feel like and believe in their heart, not just a feeling.
00:12:55:14 – 00:13:19:04
Mark Sherwood, ND
They want to believe that you care and whatever means that we do that to make them believe that we do care, even though we do. We just got to work on the the vehicle or the, language, if you will, to get them to understand that that’s the biggest win you can get with a person. And I get it that that that overwhelming burden that we all have, we don’t want to mess up.
00:13:19:06 – 00:13:42:22
Mark Sherwood, ND
We don’t want to make the wrong call. We want to do the right things. We don’t want to lose one patient. We don’t. We want to see every one of them get completely, utterly healed. And it’s heartbreaking when it doesn’t happen sometimes. And that just rips your heart out. But I think that makes us who we are, gifted people in that area of quote unquote, being a healer.
00:13:42:24 – 00:14:04:00
Ron Hunninghake, MD
What, what would you say is the the biggest challenge you’re facing these days in terms of patients coming in and talk to you? There’s so many things going on right now. The the escalation of chronic illnesses, I think unprecedented. Yeah. But what what, what are some of the things that you’re dealing with.
00:14:04:02 – 00:14:32:14
Mark Sherwood, ND
Are illnesses, chronic illnesses such as type two diabetes, such as Alzheimer’s, dementia, such as autoimmune conditions, I’ll call it obesity. I think that’s a chronic illness as well. Right. The cancers, these are the place and time right now in history where I don’t think it’s ever been even close to match before. And I look at our society and what we’re doing is not a very good job, and so we can do much better.
00:14:32:16 – 00:14:59:21
Mark Sherwood, ND
And I think that’s the kind of persons we’re seeing a lot, you know, and we try to get them in a place, a belief that things are reversible, things are curable. And you mentioned diagnoses and I think that’s important to be a good diagnostic diagnostician. But they’ve been labeled. And when they become something then I am type two diabetic or I am they that’s that changes who they are inside.
00:14:59:23 – 00:15:20:18
Mark Sherwood, ND
And so that whole system that we have wrong it needs to change. And so my wife and I have been out there on that edge for a long time, you know, and trying to change that because I don’t want them to say, for example, I’m a I’m a diabetic. I don’t want to hear those words. And sometimes I correct them.
00:15:20:20 – 00:15:47:07
Mark Sherwood, ND
Hold on. Let me just help you with something. I am living a life conducive with healthy blood sugar, you know, and that shift like that helps them sort of in their own world, take charge of their health again, because you’re right, they’ve been they’ve been disempowered or they have had their confidence ripped up underneath them because of a system that wasn’t really bent on correction, but with bent on management.
00:15:47:09 – 00:16:16:17
Mark Sherwood, ND
And I think that’s a real delineating factor there between, you know, what we do and what the system does. We need the best of both worlds. Don’t want to throw shade at one of them and dismiss it because it’s not right. But that’s the kind of persons we’re seeing. But our clientele has really morphed, I would say, over the last 8 to 10 years into this, 45 to 65, 75 person years of age that, that want to do better.
00:16:16:19 – 00:16:35:23
Mark Sherwood, ND
I want to get a hold of their health that are more of the, aggressive, like, tell me what to do, tell me how they can do this. And my wife and I, I’ve taken it very personally since that we’ve got to be a good example for them. And it’s become more of a more or less of a community, a community of people that, really want to walk the talk, be the hope.
00:16:36:03 – 00:17:00:16
Mark Sherwood, ND
And we, we wear these little bracelets that we give out called hope dealers. And so I think people really enjoy that, you know, got them on right there. And, people really enjoy that. They become part of dealing hope to somebody else in their families. And and I’ve also understood to my wife and I that if we do our job well, physicians, as teachers, the students become good teachers.
00:17:00:18 – 00:17:20:16
Mark Sherwood, ND
And you really have to get a hold of that one, because I want the citizenry now. I don’t want them to be just a lay public that doesn’t know about health. I want them to be the lay healers that know a lot about health, that are studying it because information is not proprietary anymore. It is out there everywhere.
00:17:20:16 – 00:17:25:11
Mark Sherwood, ND
Misinformation as well, quite frankly. But they need to know the difference.
00:17:25:13 – 00:17:47:13
Ron Hunninghake, MD
We have, three naturopathic oncologists on our staff, which we are very blessed in that regard. And one of the one of the things that’s come along with naturopathy, oncology is this idea of terrains within the body. And I find that to be really helpful with patients because they’ll, they’ll if they have a diagnosis, you’ve got cancer. Okay.
00:17:47:16 – 00:18:11:10
Ron Hunninghake, MD
Yeah. And they can even tell you where it is, which organ it is, but that they can’t tell the doctors can’t tell them why they have it. And more often than not, people will kind of like, blame themselves for, for having the disease. And, that doesn’t help. I believe in being responsible. Take responsibility for what you’re what you’re working with.
00:18:11:12 – 00:18:40:09
Ron Hunninghake, MD
But, our job really is to help them find ways to improve their likelihood of getting well. If instead of just treating the problem, what we’re going to do is help you build your health. And, and and with the idea of terrains, it gives you some specific target areas. The gut microbiome, for instance, is an example of a terrain that, I think people are really starting to understand, you know, what you eat.
00:18:40:11 – 00:19:06:24
Ron Hunninghake, MD
The whole idea of probiotics, all and there and how different foods have different effects on the gut microbiome and how you can start to make better choices in a way that empowers your gut microbiome, and that so much of your health depends upon that. But that’s something you can do. You can’t give yourself chemotherapy. You can’t, but you can sure take better care of your gut microbiome.
00:19:06:24 – 00:19:14:19
Ron Hunninghake, MD
So helping people get grasp of these different domains within the body, terrains within the body can be really helpful for people.
00:19:14:21 – 00:19:41:11
Mark Sherwood, ND
Yeah, I’m a big supporter in that concept that the idea of the environment in which you, you are in the environment in which even when you look at the idea of cancers, you know, what is that? You know, in a sense, it is it initially, is it the cell that has become cancerous? Is that crying out to the environment, the terrain that it send to say, come fix me, correct me or kill me?
00:19:41:13 – 00:20:08:17
Mark Sherwood, ND
Or is it that the terrain went bad? And because the terrain went bad, the cells became able to become dysfunctional. So, you know, we’re always talking about this with our patients. And to your point about the gut microbiome, there is no question in my mind that the greatest border security we need to have today is right here at our mouth, right behind that, you know, our eyes and our ears and our hearts, you know.
00:20:08:17 – 00:20:29:03
Mark Sherwood, ND
And so when you put stuff in here, it’s no wonder that our systems are constructed of the majority of our immune system being around our, our gut, because that is the area that has to make the decision. Do I like you do or not like you? Are you waste products? Am I going to keep you? And what am I going to do with you and so we’ve got to get that right.
00:20:29:03 – 00:21:04:12
Mark Sherwood, ND
And so we’ve kind of taken a no nonsense, no compromising approach to that. Because if a gut is dysfunctional, if I got is I specifically leaky? I mean, you’re talking about leaky gut, leaky brain, leaky system, leaky cells, you know, that kind of thing. So I want that got to be right. And we’re always working on that, whether it be through looking at various testings to determine, what foods are creating the most nightmarish, inflammatory action, right now, how like, is the gut looking at markers like inulin and things like that, looking at the gut microbiome, the stool testing?
00:21:04:12 – 00:21:22:04
Mark Sherwood, ND
You know, I’m a big believer in that, too. The same time we we’ve got to look at the emotional component of that because of stress. We know when stress goes up, cortisol goes up. One of the effects in our gut is we get more leaky. You know, we see athletes that I’ve got a few NFL guys that we work with.
00:21:22:04 – 00:21:45:03
Mark Sherwood, ND
And I see athletes have notoriously predictable leaky gut. And it’s because of the intense exercise they have. So this is a big deal. And so we are always talking about the terrain or the environment in which we live. And we always talk about how that environment in which we live affects our, metabolomics, you know, our genetic expressions.
00:21:45:03 – 00:22:06:06
Mark Sherwood, ND
And so putting that all together is, is, is more complicated than any chess game I’ve ever played. And the more we learn, I think we both agree, the more we know we don’t know. And that’s that’s the curiosity behind it. And we sort of got this idea a long time ago that the curiosity is what really brings healing into the human.
00:22:06:06 – 00:22:09:03
Mark Sherwood, ND
And I, I think that’s probably true.
00:22:09:05 – 00:22:23:01
Ron Hunninghake, MD
Another big terrain is PTSD. I see a lot of patients who are carrying heavy guilt, and they think their disease, whether it’s cancer or whatever, is a kind of punishment. And,
00:22:23:03 – 00:22:24:18
Mark Sherwood, ND
I don’t.
00:22:24:18 – 00:22:43:04
Ron Hunninghake, MD
Always get around to this. Sometimes this is the last thing that comes up, but maybe still the most important is a kind of, hey, forgiveness. I mean, you know, this almost sounds like it’s a religious experience, but it’s not religion. It’s body forgiveness. You know? Yes, we’ve all made wrong choices and done things and things have happened to us.
00:22:43:06 – 00:22:58:21
Ron Hunninghake, MD
But today is a new day. Let’s, let’s let’s start. Let’s start by, you know, don’t punish yourself by making wrong choices. Make better choices so that your body will be healthier. And so you can have that kind of healthy kind of forgiveness.
00:22:58:23 – 00:23:20:07
Mark Sherwood, ND
Yeah, that that’s an area that we’re passionate about. You know, I happen to be a Christian, but it doesn’t make me superior to anybody else. Right. And so and I’m sort of anti-religion because I look at religion as man’s best attempt to reach God. Good luck with that one, you know. Right. But the bottom line is, you know, we’ve point a phrase a long time ago is is frauds.
00:23:20:07 – 00:23:26:12
Mark Sherwood, ND
It’s an acronym fear, resentment, anger, unforgiveness, disappointment and shame.
00:23:26:12 – 00:23:28:15
Ron Hunninghake, MD
Wow. That’s you also lose.
00:23:28:15 – 00:23:54:05
Mark Sherwood, ND
Who you are. You forget who you are. You become your disease. You become the disease. And we live in this perpetual cycle. And this is previous career. I was in law enforcement for 20 years and ten years in the Swat team. So I’ve seen people die in front of me, and, that’s hard. You don’t forget the images, you don’t forget the trauma you go to go through.
00:23:54:07 – 00:24:07:14
Mark Sherwood, ND
Know, even from a personal standpoint, I’ve dealt with suicide times two in my life, you know, and and so everybody’s got a story. And I think that people need to know that even the clinicians have a story.
00:24:07:14 – 00:24:08:08
Ron Hunninghake, MD
Yeah.
00:24:08:10 – 00:24:47:10
Mark Sherwood, ND
But that whole idea of post-traumatic stress disorder or trauma disorders or the infection of trauma in our lives, it it wherever it became a root, it needs to be extracted. And we need to get the idea of that. We don’t have to live in that. We don’t have to become that. Even though and this is one of my criticisms, if you will, of that section of medical care, is that we put these psychological diagnoses on there, and it almost becomes an excuse.
00:24:47:13 – 00:25:13:15
Mark Sherwood, ND
It almost becomes the reason it almost becomes a hook as to why they can’t, you know, and so we’ve got to sort of restructure that. And so it’s not unusual for us to do a fraud assessment, you know, and I might not go through there. Fear, resentment, anger, unforgiveness, disappointment, shame. But but I’m sure going to go through those questions about what I hear them saying.
00:25:13:17 – 00:25:42:10
Mark Sherwood, ND
And I’ll just give you one example. You know, you have, a mom with two daughters, one skinny and one’s not, and one comment by a mom or dad one day, like, can’t you be more like your sister can set the tone for the bitterness, the anger, the behaviors that keep the person holding an excess fat tissue in their frame, much like a well, it’s like a protective blanket.
00:25:42:12 – 00:26:04:08
Mark Sherwood, ND
You’re not getting close to me, and it can destroy everything they do. Not just the relationship with other people, but relationship with herself and food and life, etc. so we’re very passionate about that. And so we’ve been very, some would say probably too much. And I would say that’s fair, but we we are not afraid to bare our souls.
00:26:04:10 – 00:26:26:19
Mark Sherwood, ND
You know, a little bit sometimes to people. My wife, you know, interestingly enough, was kicked out of modern medicine because too many people got too well. And she’s a board certified internal medicine board certified sports medicine, a very intelligent, she’s smarter than I am and more beautiful as well, you know. But how do you get past that? And we tell them that’s the birth of the Functional Medical Institute.
00:26:26:21 – 00:27:00:20
Mark Sherwood, ND
Exactly. It’s like when one door gets slammed in your face, are you have one traumatic event or two or 3 or 10. That can be the end of something. I get it. But if we look at it in a really cool way, it can be the beginning of the rest of our lives. And so I think that’s a super important subject to get, because you go back and look at Chinese medicine principles, which is got some awesome things about unforgiveness and how that can affect detoxification and anger and all that and cancers.
00:27:00:22 – 00:27:07:11
Mark Sherwood, ND
I think there’s probably something to it that we probably don’t fully understand at this point.
00:27:07:13 – 00:27:32:06
Ron Hunninghake, MD
When I first started with Doctor Reardon, you know, he was one of the there was about eight psychiatrists in North America that broke rank with psychiatry, and they were doing what was called, or molecular medicine because they found they could use molecule, you know, nutrients at higher levels. But the first thing he had me do when, when I started with him is go to a course on holistic medicine.
00:27:32:06 – 00:27:55:18
Ron Hunninghake, MD
So I’m a board certified holistic doctor. And that was a real eye opener to really understand that if you’re if you’re dealing with the whole person, you have to deal with the whole person, you know, not just their Bios medicine component, which is fine. We are a biology, but we also we also have, we also have feelings, and we also have, a spiritual dimension.
00:27:55:18 – 00:28:18:09
Ron Hunninghake, MD
Even even an even an atheist can be spiritual. Yes. So, so, so the spiritual dimension is not a religion. It’s dealing with that part of ourselves which, which understands that there is something bigger than us. And when you can connect with people on these different levels, you find out that oftentimes the roots of the illness go that deep.
00:28:18:11 – 00:28:35:03
Ron Hunninghake, MD
And and I admire the fact that you and your wife do take the time to carefully. You can’t you can’t, you can’t push it. You can’t force yourself into that. But but if people are open and they’re interested, it definitely can get to that level. Yeah.
00:28:35:05 – 00:29:02:05
Mark Sherwood, ND
And we don’t. And I echo your clarity with that. We don’t push that window. But if somebody you got to when you listen like you’re talking about when you really listen, that perhaps that spiritual component, that essence of who you are will will help guide you on what to do and, and it’s like the little voice that says to you at 2:00 in the morning and it’s dark and you’re in a place you don’t need to be.
00:29:02:05 – 00:29:20:23
Mark Sherwood, ND
I don’t need to be here. I need to get out of here. You know, everybody understands that. And I think we as clinicians have a have a gift in that area. If we’ll just listen to it, we can guide that person down a pathway. And our mission statement that we have within our institute is leading people down a pathway of true healing.
00:29:21:00 – 00:29:38:14
Mark Sherwood, ND
And that can be in various things for various people. And that’s okay. But I want them to experience life in a way that they perhaps haven’t had an opportunity to. And we’re all about increasing healthspan and decreasing sick span. If that means longevity, so be it.
00:29:38:16 – 00:30:06:21
Ron Hunninghake, MD
Well, Mike, thank you so much. Mark. I’m sorry. I’m I’m so glad that we had this opportunity to speak. And I think there’s a definite resonance between what you’re doing and what we’re doing here at the Riordan clinic. And I’m hoping there’ll be more and more. I think there are more and more doctors that are looking for this more broader type of medicine, because physician burnout is pretty common these days to, given the structure of, how medicine’s practiced.
00:30:06:21 – 00:30:26:16
Ron Hunninghake, MD
And so a lot of doctors are saying, you know, this isn’t what I signed up for. I think what we’re talking about, if more doctors would investigate it, they would find this is what they signed up for. This is where people can actually, be healed and the doctor can feel like they’re really making a huge difference in that patient’s life.
00:30:26:16 – 00:30:33:03
Ron Hunninghake, MD
So but thank you very much for what you’re doing. And thanks for for being on our program. Keep up the good work.
00:30:33:05 – 00:30:36:04
Mark Sherwood, ND
Thank you. And thank you so much for having me, I appreciate it.
00:30:36:06 – 00:30:56:13
Narrator
Thank you for listening to The Real Health podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. You can also find all of the episodes in show notes over at Real Health podcast.org. Also, be sure to visit RiordanClinic.org, where you will find hundreds of videos and articles to help you create your own version of real health.
