How To Prepare the Body for Deeper Healing with Dr. Jordanna Quinn

Introduction to Healing and the Podcast 0:00

the power of healing is within. We are born, I've seen as a physician, terrible genetic disease and terrible whatever, but the Power of Healing is truly within, so much more than we give it credit for at least and so, much, more often. It's not easy. it's, not going to happen tomorrow. Our health takes work. And I think as physicians, if we could move mortards, being people's guides in whatever way. I mean, guides and their health and really help people, help empower our patients and help our patient recognize that they have the power of healing within.

And yes, medications are great, supplements are right. All of these things serve a purpose, but they're not the end all be all. If we could really empower patients to take their healing into their own hands, the whole world is going to be a better place. Welcome to the To Curious in Me podcast. And I'm Dr. Surya Rapan. With the wisdom from holistic, alternative, and these conventional medicines, we are here to challenge the status quo. We're curious about the connectivity and complexity between diverse fields of knowledge as a relief to consciousness, chronic illness, mental health, resilience, ambient.

Learning more about art and science of healing, or listening to stories of extraordinary healing. You're in the right place. Let's dive in. Hello. Today we're going to be speaking to Dr. Jordana Quinn and we are welcoming her to the Too Curious, MD podcast where medicine is more than science. It is story, art, and connection. Dr Jordanna Quinn, she is a DO and is physician and integrative health innovator and founder of Core, that's K-O-R-E, Regenerative Medicine in Golden, Colorado, where she specializes in longevity, regenerative medicine, psychedelic medicine.

With a deep commitment to evidence-based healing and the mind-body connection, she has dedicated her career to the understanding of how the body can be optimally primed for transformative recovery, from regenerative procedures to psychedelic assisted therapies. Recognizing a critical gap in how patients are supported biochemically through these powerful modalities, Dr. Quinn founded Quintessinal Journey LLC, a wellness company developing science-backed supplement protocols designed to enhance neuroplasticity and cellular health.

Her work bridges cutting-edge clinical science with a mission-driven philosophy rooted in the belief that true healing is both biological and deeply spiritual. We love that because this is what this podcast is about. It is kind of bringing in the integrative medicine, narrative medicine. This is story of medicine story, of patients, conditions, and the arts, as well as psychedelic medicine so welcome to our podcast Dr. Joanna Quinn. Thank you. Thank for having me. I'm excited to be here. So we're really excited talk to you about your own journey to this practice of medicine, from traditional medicine to psychedelic medicine.

Dr. Quinnu2019s Path to Integrative Medicine 3:00

Can you tell us a little bit about what sparked that shift and, you know, how you got here? Yes, it's a bit of a long story, if that's okay. We love stories. Okay. I mean, because I feel like it just encompasses my whole journey, right? I'm not going to talk about my childhood trauma or anything, don't worry. So I've always been more holistically medicine-minded. Even in medical school, when we would have to, at least at my school we'd have give presentations on every system. And I'd always give the holistic talk, like how acupuncture can help cardiovascular health or whatever.

That was just always my curiosity. As I have been an athlete my entire life, so I am a gymnast. I'm not a gymnast anymore, but I was a gymnast and just innate understanding of the body and the bodies function and this recognition of how food affects your physical health, how your physically health affects mental health. Like if I don't work out, you know, I am a psychopath. So, so I think just growing up that way and then always been more holistically medicine minded is the start. So, very soon after graduating residency, I'm board certified in physical medicine and rehab, which is anything that makes your body not move normally.

So I had learned about regenerative medicine, and I am happy to answer any questions along these lines. I just trying to kind of be quick. I learned about regenerative medicine, which is using your body's own platelets and stem cells to help heal orthopedic conditions. So I learn about that actually in residency. We never did it, but I did attend of grand rounds on it and we would send people in our community to other docs outside of our health system who did. And I saw amazing results and I was just like, the body is so cool.

It can heal itself. Right. So very quick in practice, I did not like working in Western medicine. It just didn't align like within my soul of what I wanted to do as a physician. I was just like sticking needles in people's spine. And I doing, you know, spinal injections and prescribing medications and people would come to me and like complain about their health. Meanwhile, for fun, I'm reading books on nutrition just because, oh, what, like, herb is going to cure whatever. So I was in regular medicine for only two years after residency, and I actually wrote a letter to a doc who was doing stem cells, And I, it was like you should hire me.

And long story short, took a year. I mean, shadowed him. so as a physician, was still like working for free, which is kind of our way, but I shadow him for a and he was a longevity at the time was called anti-aging medicine, But this was almost 20 years ago. Like shadowing him. I was like, I can do this for a living. Like this makes sense. This aligns, like talking to people about what they're eating and like lifestyle and doing genetic research and in the anti-aging world. Then I mean, so much has happened in past 16 years that I've been practicing, but it's just so cool.

The things we can to optimize our health, right? And that's all I really ever wanted to do as a physician was optimize health because I truly stop. think that if we are healthier, like if you don't have your health, that's all you could think about is you want to be healthy, right? When you're feel sick, you feel terrible. So if don' have you health you have nothing. And if yo have health then like everything else is possible right in the world. An if have yo health and you truly like healthy and yo feel good, I just think you uplift you know, yo show up as a better version of yourself and y uplift the people around you.

I mean, it's pretty simple. Through health we ar better people. S anyhow, i started along the path of anti aging medicine. i was doing his regenerative medicine procedures, like stem cells and PRP, and I did that for a long time. And then eight years ago now, probably, my friend, it was probably more like nine or 10 years, ago, My friend went down to Mexico and tried Bufo or 5-Meo-DMT. and he was like, It was amazing. We all laughed at him because it's 15 minute journey. 15 minutes doesn't change your life, you know, as a doctor, I couldn't believe it.

He kept going down. And then he eventually brought the medicine man here to Colorado. So my husband sat with him and my friend group, nobody could tell me about it. But anyways, now this medicine comes here every six months, but the second time he came, my has been was like, you should go try it, it's 15 minutes. And in my mind, I'm like I could do anything for 15. Like I had no idea what I was getting into. Um, But at the time I only less than a year into having opened my own business. And my husband was a stay-at-home dad.

So it was very stressful, a lot of pressure on me. Like, how do I make this business work? I had opened Core Regenerative Medicine. And so I was meditating for like a month before this journey, like, show me the way in my business. I would just literally sit on this couch right here for about five minutes every morning, maybe 10, and just like show, me, the, way, in, my, business, And then I went into 5MEO and it blew my socks off. Um, and in that journey, I mean, there's so many ways it changed my life, but there was such a small part of the journey.

I, mean there are so beautiful things I could tell you, But like, There was like there is no need to be afraid or anxious, right? And that was, like such, a teeny part in my journey the rest was I was one with the universe and pure love and joy and all of these amazing things. But then for two months after that, journey Like literally, as close to literally as possible, I couldn't feel my feet touching the ground. Like I felt like I was floating. I mean, didn't drink coffee. Didn't alcohol. My kids were toddlers at the time.

And my life was stressful and like nothing, nothing could get to me. Even my husband would be like, you're vibrating from across the room. He could just feel. It was so profound. The like energetic change within me that it was like finally I had this understanding of how these medicines Change your life, right? I mean so quickly in that it's not you know in Western medicine It's like oh this pill and it does this thing physiologically and so Anyhow, it was that and then that little voice of there's no need to be afraid or anxious.

Like I showed up to work, like I didn't know I had anxiety and I still like, you know, the diagnosis of anxiety is not what I have, but I think type A people are driven by the fear of failure and a little bit of like that anxiety. It was gone. I mean, I would show up at work and nothing, just it, was wild. Um, and still, still crave that cause I haven't gotten there again. But so is that realization of how powerful these medicines are. And then over the next year, and I mean, still now, like I did many different medicines, sat with many difference leaders, I've just realized the power of healing within these medicine.

Like I think psychedelics are root cause medicine, we talk about functional medicine being root-cause medicine like, i did one journey where it was like on the end of the journey. So I remember thinking that, oh, Like, not fully in, but I was in my blood vessels and i could traveling and begin to understand the energetics behind all disease. That's when I was like, this is root cause medicine. If we could get there, then that is everything in medicine, we can do the world. But the patients have to want to do it.

So that's kind of my long story. Yeah. I think we were, me and Simi were just preparing for a lecture. We're giving a lecturer to a residency psychiatry residency, you know, program. And we had so much to say about the narrative ethics of care in psychedelic medicine and ketamine treatments that we were like, we've got to talk about this and we got talk that and you've gotta talk the entropic brain hypothesis and how that can change. Is this the right option for this patient? What would be the criteria?

You know you have to be very careful around what patients, what emerges from their experiences, are they ready for that? Things change, you know, the whole brain wiring changes. There is the effect of kind of the psychedelic kind deep, like you said, root cause and getting to that root and how long does it take and does even happen and what's the story of that patient's illness? And not everybody's ready to see what they've been shown. I mean, there's some very significant things that can come up that people aren't ready for, they either want to deny or then they don't know how to process that or whatever it is and that is not in my skill set.

Nor do I know that it's in anybody's skill-set yet at this time. I mean, I fully am a big fan of sitting with the indigenous people and indigenous wisdom. I mean, they have lifetimes of experience with these medicines and there is, I could get really into the woo, but there are very powerful, so in longevity medicine, we know that there's epigenetics and genetics, right? So you're born with genetics but then you have the ability to change some of your genetics or switch them on and off depending on your lifestyle.

Give us our audience a little bit of that, because we're well aware of kind of the different epigenetic. We do some profiling at our center, too, and kind looking at the types of epigene people carry. But give us, our audiences, a foundation of how does that happen? How does the gene turn on and off? And how can psychedelic medicine affect that? Well, okay. So in general, like the one I always remember is obesity. I mean, there's like many genes involved in any process in our body, but you know, we always have been raised and taught and in medicine.

And in my days, is it nature or nurture, right?

Psychedelic Medicine and Personal Transformation 12:00

Like you raise your kids, Is it genetics or is that how you raised your kid, how they turn out? And the truth is, is it's both, but nurture is actually much more important than we thought. Like when I was raised in the medical field, you know, it was all nature. It was like, what did your family have? You're going to have that type of thing. So I say that, so that's kind of like genetics and epigenetics. I was born a white Jewish woman, I will never be anything else. I can never live my life a certain way and become a seven-foot black man.

Those genetics are not going to change for me. But I eat very healthy and exercise. And if I have a family history of having a heart attack at 50, then I could turn that gene off. There are many genes involved. like, without going too deep, you know, there are some genetic traits that put you at higher risk and lower risk, and all that. You can smoke cigarettes and be at a higher-risk to have a heart attack at young age. So, they're lifestyle things you can do to turn genes on and off. And so, that's epigenetics, really was maybe about 15 years ago.

I think there started to be a lot of talk about it and it's just we're discovering more and more. So the one like I always remember, the ones I learned, I mean, is like obesity. And again, there's more than one gene involved in obesity, raise a obese child or whatever. If you are obese, you will pass down that epigenetic trait for three generations. That's three-generations. so that's when you're growing the baby or if you were obese you had turned that gene on for the And then no matter what the baby does, I mean, they can eat healthy and it's going to change, but it is not going turn off for three generations.

Like that is wild to me. That is like wild. And so I don't know those. I haven't studied those exact things for psychedelics specifically, just like kind of some of the longevity studies I've done with other genes that would make sense that if you are altering your neurochemistry and your And rewiring your brain, you are passing those, like, because when you rewire your, brain you're also then stimulating different types of neurotransmitters, right? Like more serotonin, more dopamine, or like happy neurotrasmiters as opposed to like going down the depression and anxiety.

So I hear. Still the time I practice. Oh, well, my mom was depressed. So I'm gonna be depressed It's like, oh my god, no like a you can change your mind I mean, I am so nerdy but like your microbiome plays a role in like You know serotonin production and your neurotransmitter production so you couldn't eat differently You can just start like have a gratitude practice of like three things You're stoked for every day and it doesn't have you would have to be stoked You couldn if you're so depressed you could just be like I've grateful I wearing a t-shirt and not even feel that but over time that will actually change the that rewiring in your brain.

And so I would just assume that that is also passed down for at least a few generations. Right. So, and this past year there's been like, well, two years ago, there was a study in Ayahuasca that people who sat with Ayahusca, I think it was for like a month. I don't know how many journeys they did. It lengthened their telomeres, telomerase being one sign of longevity. And then there's another independent study on ketamine that came out this past year that it improves longevity and psilocybin in mice, like it improved their hair and their...

Skin so I must have just known like eight years ago like so eight Years ago also when I added it to my practice Well, so one thing that came out of my 5mEO journey was like you have to this is your calling and I sat with that for a year because I was Like I did not become a doctor to give people these medicines, right? Like this was not my path But it was as strong in every cell of my body as the day I knew I was going to be a doctor at 14 years old. Like it just would not leave me. And I didn't love ketamine because I early in my career worked with addicts.

So I mean, mostly heroin, but they were addicted to everything, including ketamines. I just like, I don't want to give people ketamin. So it took me like really a year of it not leaving me and just being like, okay, I have to do this. But I added it to my practice because if you can't get over, you know, this, You can heal any of this and so it's just been this beautiful marriage since then in my Practice. Yeah. I just, think it makes sense. And I think all of the medicines have their value and I can't imagine having to train residents because that's such a, you know, like trying to training someone in Western medicine that is so separate from the psychedelic space like this.

We could have a whole nother podcast on this, but I it's so hard because we're trained, whatever, I learned how to prescribe thyroid medicine. I don't think I need to take thyroid to be able to describe someone thyroid in medicine, But I have docs who reach out to me all the time for me to help them open ketamine clinics. And the first thing I say is you have to go sit with the medicine many times. Otherwise, I don't think you're doing it justice. You have to have your own understanding on a deep level.

I mean, personally I'm very biased, but I think trying it many times, if you can try many different medicines, altered states that are so vulnerable and like carry their spirit. I mean, it's not even, you are carrying so much there. You have to have sat with your own demons and your issues as well. Yeah. The ethical considerations are, there's so many. And I think I hear kind of the dynamic relationship that you've had and carried throughout your course of your training and understanding since you were 14 to now, and it really shows up in the passion that you describe your experience, but also with that connection to the questions.

I think, you know, I tell patients that You know, psychedelics are, you know they do alter your way of thinking, they can. And essentially you are able to tolerate, because the brain is a predictive analytical machine, it's constantly trying to make a prediction because it has to. That's a survival mechanism. It has be able predict what you're going to do next because you have to adjust all the physiological things to to ensure that that will happen. And having a model that's predictive ensures that reliability of that mechanism.

But what happens in this is that with psychedelics is your brain is able to tolerate predictive error. When you can tolerate the error, of something possibly that could happen, then you're able to have that neuroplastic change. Because you are able say, yeah, it could also be this other way. This could all so happen. And it doesn't have to follow that predictive analytical pattern. So I really hear how you describe that biologically, but also how psychedelics bring us to that rewiring possibility.

That's amazing. Thank you for describing that, Jordana, because I think that's where a lot of people want to know, like, how are these things working? And you just described so beautifully how it's nature and nurture. It's our behavior and our biology. I'm really curious, when a patient comes to you, first of all, who are they? When patients come to, what are the coming with? How do you approach a get them on board because this is a different kind of way of thinking about regenerative medicine. People come to me through a few different avenues.

I mean, I do work with therapists in a couple different ways. Some are to pre-op patients for psychedelic journeys for them to do. Sometimes therapists just send me patients with IM or IV ketamine. which is very different. Most of them, the other kind of category patients, I see like sports patients for stem cell procedures specifically. And then most of my patients however, fall into the wanting to optimize their health, like kind. So, and so either, you know, they're tired. I say a lot of like perimenopausal, menoposal women, middle-aged people that are kind ready to focus on their heath as a whole.

Like either they've lost their help through having kids and work and all of that are just like, they're really ready to focus on their health. So in my office, like 100% of our patients meet with our nutritionist. It's not even an option. If they are going to see me, then they will see our nutricionist, so diet is very important no matter what. Even if people are coming in for ketamine, and they still talking to our Nutritionist who is going talk to them about their importance of their gut health, we put them on our supplement protocol, which we can talk about in a little bit.

And then it's up to to continue the supplements. So we take a different approach in that we're not just going to give you ketamine, leave you alone, and then say, good luck. This is what I've heard happens in other clinics. You do two journeys there. If you don't cure all your things, they're like, sorry, I guess it's not for you. And then you go on your merry way, which I think is totally not doing the medicines justice and is a tragedy. I don't know if that answers your question, but that, so every patient that comes into my office, no matter which kind of avenue or what you think you're getting, we're talking about, um, I mean, asking you about like, what do you eat in a day?

I'm asking how does your mood day in and out? How are your relationships in your life? What do do for exercise? So no, matter whether it's you, you just coming for depression or you want to optimize your health or have knee pain. All of these things are important to take the whole human and not just the hole human what comes out of your mouth, but I spend time and I get a sense of the human. Like I think one of my superpowers is my ability to read people outside of what's coming out their mouth.

And so you can just really get sense the person and what they think they're there for. I mean, they know what they're there for, but it just, I just take a very different approach. And so then I tell them, you know, You're going to be in my office for six to 12 months. We have a few different programs that we put people on depending on their needs. and some people are resistant, But a hundred percent of the people, who go through our program and it's not the same program by any means for anybody, are happy with the fact that they did.

You know? Some people looking for a one and done, and I'll just tell that's just not how I practice medicine because I'm here as a partnership and really here to walk through this life with them. So does that answer your question? Yeah, definitely quite a diverse kind of, I think, indications for different options. I'm actually very curious about stem cell and the orthobiological therapies that you're describing.

Epigenetics, Neuroplasticity, and Root-Cause Healing 22:00

What do you think that, what do most people get wrong about how they work and what helps it make it a successful treatment in your experience? Well, I'm going to start the conversation with saying I am extremely biased because I've been doing it for a long time. So I have been since before you could buy stem cells in a vial. I think the number one thing that people get wrong, people being patients, get is they'll go to someone that may or may not be an actual physician who says they're doing stem cell, they come in the vile, inject them, and then they are like, that didn't work.

Right? So, in this whole world of Regenerative medicine, but even you know where we are with psychedelics and just in this world where you don't have to have like You know like I had to do a thousand knee injections before I could be you Know a resident in PM&R or you? Know whatever I to Do a certain amount of spinal injections and so there's no formal education in regenerative Medicine or requirements. There's plenty of formal Education so so anyways, so I'm very biased. I mean, I think what makes It's successful as, number one, a good injector.

So you don't know who's injecting you. I always tell patients, if someone is only offering you umbilical cells or a purchased product, they don' know what they're doing, probably. Or they do not know enough about regenerative medicine. They do know they know, right? So at least if somebody is saying, well, we can use your own adipose or your bone marrow. or I have umbilical cells as an option, let's talk about it, then that person is trained, right? You had to be trained to do a mini liposuction, you had be to tap into someone's bone marrow.

You've sat in a regenerative medicine training program. And if you still choose to use as a physician, allogenic stem cells like out of the person's body, not their own, that's okay, but at least you have education around it. Then at some point we practice medicine, how we see fit in our lives. So I think the number one is just knowing who you're going to, because there's lots of people who call themselves a doctor these days. And so that's kind of the Number One. I then there is a lot of noise I often get, cause I do mostly autologous, meaning mostly using your own, but I can give patients the option to use allogenic.

So plenty of times when I'm offering autologist stem cells or their own stem cell, then I mean, I always get the question, well, aren't baby stem Cells better? Yeah. My response has always been, you know, I think it's a numbers game, meaning we can get so many more of your own stem cells than we in a vial, or we could. Now we actually get expanded stem cell, so that might, make them more even. But it was a number's game. So I have used umbilical cells. I mean, been doing this long enough and there are patients who are like, just want to try it.

And I'm very honest with my patients. It's like so much of what I do is experimental, but I don't, not trying to sell someone something, my ego is also involved. So very honest with them, if I don't know if they're going to get results, but if, they still want to try it, then I'm okay with it type of thing. So I have tried umbilical pre-expanded and they were, I mean, you'll get, results but not the same results. Like I know that using your own stem cells are better. so people will ask me, well, aren't baby stem cell is better because there's so many, there are so, many podcasters and influencers and all these people who maybe had a great experience, But an N of one doesn't mean it's scientific proof that it works.

So I always have to speak to that. I think it's a numbers game. If you can get expanded allogenic or umbilical cells, there are more labs coming out that do get good results. Actually just got back from Columbia, the country, looking at their stem cell. So they only do allogenic, but they have a lab. They're very scientifically based. There's studying it. they know exactly how many cells are going to each of their patients and they're getting great results, Potentially doing it that way is also good.

It's just know who you're working with I think is the... Yeah. Well, I don't know much about stem cells, so tell us a little bit more about how you extract those autologous stem cell, what's the source and what would be the indications and how would you know where that should be applied I guess. depending on what condition. I mean, so I'm PM&R trained. So I do, you know, a lot of joint injections. And I was also trained in spine. so, I say this because there are other studies like in cardiology and in pulmonary, and I don't study any of that, So, i don' know those things.

i dont keep up with all of the kind of fields that are doing stem cells. But in my field of non-operative orthopedics, essentially, we use them to prevent knee replacements or shoulder replacements or hip or ankles. They work amazing. Any progressive arthritis, any sports injury, meniscus tears, rotator cuff tears. Those things are kind of big. What else? How we get them is we, so autologous cells come either from fat or bone marrow. I do both in my office. Some physicians do one or the other. And we just get like some fat from your flank.

We get about, I don't know, maybe like all of your fingers worth of fat. It's not a ton. or maybe one hand to fingers worth of fat and then we process them and we inject the fat directly. The fat has the most numbers of stem cells. Bone marrow, we tap into the back of your hip and again we extract maybe like a Coke can worth bone marrow. We centrifuge it a few times, extract the bone-marrow stem-cells and just inject it like you would, I mean a steroid or anything else. Well, fascinating. I mean, definitely.

A lot of the research was held back, I think, in the late 1990s, again, about stem cell. And what's changed since then in terms of stem-cell research? Well I, mean so when George Bush, which is right when I started doing stem cells, it was all about like, you can't kill babies to get stem, cells which was never happening. So that became a big, you know, exon stem cells was the George Bush era. And then we were doing stem-cells fat where I learned, and then you would use an enzyme and break them down and get something called stromal vascular fraction, which was just like a pellet.

and we we're doing these IV and literally reversing COPD. Like, unless you've seen this before your eyes, like I would not have believed it, but I don't know what happened then, But then we weren't allowed to do that anymore. So the FDA came and said, you know, your altering your body's chemistry, You can't do. That so for all this time, we've just been processing fat. so now there's so many regulations like it has to be minimally manipulated. You. Can't really change the structure of anything you take out of someone's body.

I mean, there are so. Many rules you have to. Do it in the same day. you can expand stem cells in this country. It's always like follow the money, right? There's probably someone who wasn't making money and angry about the fact that we could heal ourselves. or a pharmaceutical company wanting to make money. I mean, truly, because these things just worked. As a physician, again, all I want to do is help people help themselves, and it was working. And people were not being harmed, as compared to surgery or all of the pharmaceuticals with all the side effects.

I don't know because I didn't work in politics, but follow the money is always my suggestion and that's probably what happens. How is allogenic and autologous stem cells different? What would be the difference when you would use which one if you had to make a choice? So like I said, mostly people who are legitimately practicing in regenerative medicine in the United States are using autoligous. In other countries, they're using allogenic because they can, and it is assumed that allogenic are better because, you know, because in theory also your stem cells are your own baby stem differentiated and changed into anything else, so they should be comparable-ish.

So I know, like you would assume, right, if you have kids, you know when they were young, they would cut themselves and like the next day it would be gone and now as we age you cut yourself and it's like a month later and you still have a scar or whatever, Right? You can see the effects of aging, not only epigenetic changes, but also We lose a lot of our stem cells after about 35 years old. So you see that as you age. I understand how the assumption could be that baby stem-cells are better, but I don't know that it's true, no one's comparing.

For me, if I'm recommending allogenic, I am still a big fan of autologous just because I've been doing it for so long and now starting to sometimes incorporate maybe allogenic. It's just I give patients the option. There are patients who are like, I don't want such a big procedure because it's as close to a surgical procedure without actually being surgery as you're going to get, right? I mean, we're fully scrubbed in, were fully sterile, but we are in our office. You know, you are not in a Surgical Center and patients are under general anesthesia.

So it is still a very big procedures, so there are plenty of patients that are just like no way I do not want a procedure or kind of circling back. Outcomes wise, we, all of our patients meet with a nutritionist. We put them on a detox. I've created supplement packs through quintessential journey, like my other company to optimize cellular health. So I actually created. Supplement packs. There's 30 day packs designed to optimized cellular, health pre and post.

Patient Selection and Regenerative Medicine Approaches 31:00

stem cell journeys. I have studied, you know, like if you could optimize your own stem-cell quality and quantity in your body before... Let me go to a different room. If you can optimize you own cell quality in quantity before the procedure, that's going to improve your outcomes, especially if your using autologous, but even if can improve the environment that you're putting the stem cells into. Again, going back to the supplement packs I created, I researched all of this so that they decrease inflammation.

What are your supplement pack? Give me a little bit of an idea about that. I also have a question, would you use these in ketamine patients as well? This was an accidental business that I started a year ago. Specifically, and I'm going to circle back and answer your question. I started them specifically for psychedelics because like I told you, I was optimizing because I work in longevity and therapists send me their patients to pre-screen for psychiatric journeys. Then they would ask me, what supplements do you recommend for these journeys?

Some journeys, you can have a significant crash afterwards. So people would tell me oh, had this amazing transformation, but I felt so terrible after I'll never do it again. And I would just like... You had the most, the biggest transformation of your life, but you would never do that again because you felt so terrible. So I thought that was a tragedy. And so it's also recommending like $400 of supplements for a single psychedelic journey. I was like, this is too much money for like a simple journey, so I'll just create these cute little, I will buy the supplements and then create like week long packs for patients to use.

before, during, and after their journey so they don't crash and so, they feel good. And I'll just, you know, sell them to the therapist I work with and it'll be fun. Um, so I started, I have three different psychedelics lines now because they became popular very quickly. So someone was like, oh, can you create one for psilocybin, which has been decriminalized and legalized sort of in Colorado. Then I created one ketamine. I've three psychedelic lines. because I've been speaking at regenerative medicine conferences and I just, I'm known by other doctors in the field and trusted.

They were like, that's so awesome. You created them for psychedelics. Will you please create them? For our stem cell procedures. So that how I created the stem-cell line. I know they seem like different, but so I did, we actually launched officially two weeks ago, the STEM cell line, But what is in this stem cells one specifically? Um, let's see, creatine collagen, there's so many things. Fish oil, L-carnasine, quercetin, resveratrol, turmeric, all these things that I've studied to help increase stem cell quality, increase them cell quantity, decrease inflammation and really decrease, like promote appropriate stem-cell differentiation into like the lineage you want as opposed to, you know, either loss of, well, If they're put into a highly toxic environment, like a degenerative joint, which is when we're doing these procedures, they are going to be stimulated to either not differentiate appropriately or differentiate into other cell lineages or just die early.

So things like quercetin prevent cells from dying as quickly. So just studying all of those things was really fun. Wow. Fascinating, I think. And I tell patients, too, that when they do ketamine, it's highly metabolic, there's a lot of metabolic activity, and that depletion can occur. Of course it can, because your body is actually doing a lots of work internally, even at the mitochondrial level, which is what it sounds like your supplements are kind of supporting that metabolic activities. and kind of keeping that energy system as you described in the body when you're visualizing yourself in this, in their vessels, kind-of keeping the energy profile in a steady state, and a good, healthy place, so that it can do some of this deep kind work.

So I definitely agree with kind supplementing or preparing the bodies for whatever type of medicine that they're going to be receiving, especially with using stem cells to kind do that deeper regenerative healing and the ketamine or psychedelics or you know since you're in Colorado you get to do psilocybin I'm sure that spiritual energetic healing too. So definitely fascinating how you approach that. And you field, you know, when you're sitting with ayahuasca, the, I mean, depending on who you sit with, your going on like a one to six week diet, they call it, where you are eating very specific foods and your cleansing your body.

I, mean even you not on social media. Again, it depends how strict, who will you work with? How strict you, and we don't do that at all. And especially like in the in our culture, we still want to like bigger, faster, stronger, harder. We're still like working, working working. Then we drop it and then we want go do a ketamine journey and change our lives and move on. And so I feel like the supplements are at least a little bit of a way of honoring that tradition too. It's just like they're like morning and evening packs and you're at, you know, honoring your body and recognizing that you are going to enter something that's very big.

And specifically for ketamine, I've talked to therapists and therapists will tell me like, oh, my patients don't have a crash. They're fine. But then the patients will take the... Or like in my office, we started just, they come with our pack of six ketamine IVs that we do. And so it's automatic and I've had patients who were our patients pre-supplements and patients, who are patients after, and they're like, basically saying like oh, I didn't know I even felt bad till I feel better. Like I'm sleeping better and I don't have a headache or I have more energy.

And so I do think ketamine can be a little bit more subtle in the crash, but even that it's like, if you're optimizing your metabolic state and your cellular health and things like fish oil and B vitamins actually help like with those new neural pathways. So if. If you're nutrient deficient at all and not optimized, like even if you have these beautiful ability to form new neural connections, you need those nutrients for it. So it's designed to really, in a ketamine, only you only have a 48 hour neuroplastic window really like after that journey.

You want to be optimized. Like that window is so short with ketamines. If your not optimize going in, there's the potential to just not have the transformation that you want, which I think is tragic. Yeah, I love that there's so many different tools available now in medicine. I'm an MD and kind of trained in the same way you were. Kind of always asking those questions about why can't we do it this way and why that didn't make sense. And I think for our audience to know too that the way that conventional medicine is, there are definitely some issues with how doctors are trained to prescribe, basically to suppress symptoms and to block things that shouldn't be blocked and not allow for that true healing to be, you know, like even, putting in an artificial joint.

Why would we need to go to that level when we can try to apply something else that could even be much more impactful, Like stem cells, your own natural cells kind of healing. I do have a curious question, though, when it comes to that. So if I have joint disease and I so much pain coming in with that joint, why wouldn't my own stem cells not naturally heal that area to begin with? Why would it have to be reapplied in that direct manner as you would when you treat patients? Yeah, I mean, a few reasons.

First of all, joints and tendons and ligaments don't have a good blood supply. So I think of like your blood supplies as highways, right? If there's no highway to get there, you can't like deliver the goods, so they're known to have poor blood suppliers because our bodies, rightly so, mostly supply like our organs and our heart and lungs and things that are going to keep us alive with a very luscious good supply So that's one reason. As we get older, we have less stem cells around, so we don't heal as well as we got older.

So when we're taking, I mean, your platelets or we are taking your stem cell, even if you did have this wonderful blood supply, We are talking a lot more than you would ever bleed or send to an area and concentrating it down. Essentially what we doing is, not only are we forcing a blood supplies to area that doesn't have one. We're forcing very potent blood supplied to the area, that does not have on. So those are kind of the two biggest reasons. And then there's all of other reasons of those stupid things we do as adults that we don't treat our bodies well, you know.

I mean, one of my best friends right now, I've known her forever, she has arthritis in her knee and it's swelling and uh, hurts, you know, and she knows the work I do and we've talked about it, but she wants to make excuses as to why it hurts and blame something else as opposed to like exercise and stop drinking alcohol and eating healthier because it's easy and more fun to just, eat whatever you want to eat and live your life. So that is also a big part of it. Like even when we know better, it it a little bit less fun, to be uber responsible.

Yeah, definitely. So what would you want your, you know, to take away from this conversation? What is it the key points in the work that you're doing that would like to share to our audience?

Stem Cells, Supplements, and Preparing the Body 40:00

That's a great question. I mean, I think if your audience are patients, but even physicians, like the power of healing is within and not a hundred percent of things. so much more than we give it credit for, at least, and so more often. And it's not easy. It's going to happen tomorrow. Our health takes work. I think as physicians, if we could move more towards being people's guides in whatever way, I mean, it is impossible in the insurance model, honestly, but guides and their health really help people, help empower our patients and help our patient recognize that they have the power of healing within.

Medications are great. Supplements are right. I mean, all of these things serve a purpose, but they're not the end all be all. And really, if we could really help empower our patients to take their health and healing into their own hands, the whole world is going to be a better place. So I think that's kind of one thing I would really love people to hear and take home and the mind body connection. It's important. Like we can't just, you know, I had a patient, they did stem cells. They did platelets on his shoulder and he got better, not as better as he wanted to I don't know, therapist or someone, and he said he realized some crazy trauma and his shoulder pain was gone, you know?

So it doesn't have to be one or the other. It can be both, but we can't ignore the connection. And I think in this beautiful work with ketamine and psychedelics that you're doing and in training other docs, like just, we, can ignore that connection and if we even, I mean, i've heard patients say like, oh, when my doctor believed in me and my Dr. Told me I can do it. Like people don' know that they can. Yeah. You know, so the education is important. It is, it is. I love how you said that the connection to both are important, not to be isolated from one or the other.

That pain isn't just the only problem, It's actually the connections to that pain and the experience of that that's had that history to the pain that makes that healing occur. Yeah. Thank you. And I think the other thing is just, I mean, to give quintessential is the name of the supplement company, a plug. Those supplements are well studied and have changed lives. I'm mean straight up like people who have not been able to journey have been to do journeys because they take the supplements because their taking their body and their healing seriously.

Again, didn't intend to start another business, but I am so passionate about it now because I've seen the positive effects that it's had in the ability of people to transform their lives Yeah, in this podcast we usually ask our guests to ask a curious question, you know, maybe to support another question or another episode, but what would be a Curious question you'd want to Ask about, You know your patients or the work that you do or even to the next level type of science that may be incorporated into healing.

I'm kind of giving you all these different options. But what Would be A curious Question you would want To have? My curious questions is, I mean, it's kind Where does science meet like spirituality and indigenous wisdom and how can we bridge the two and go from there? Because it doesn't have to be one or the other, I think. But like, so how and where do we get there. Yeah, that's a great question. I think we're still trying to answer that. I mean, we are all coming together, all parts of the world as well, in psychedelic medicine to really answer the question.

And I don't think that we'll even have the answer. One day I was meditating on what does it feel like for that cell to get all these different signals from all of these options. It's got chemicals, it's electrical energy coming in, and it has these mechanisms that he has to, and it's working in a system, it is working with other cells and its one single model. And what is it imagining? What does it look like? You know, cause it, in medicine we're taught like, oh, this is the pathway to make ATP.

But there's so much more that sounds as happening in that cellular system. Have you seen the new, I mean, there was just like a very detailed picture of a cell that came out and all of its inner workings, have you see that? No, no. I will try to find it and like email it to you after, but you know, it's always like, are we ever going to know everything that's going on there? So your question about the spiritual component, no one has even answered that. Like, you know, because when a cell dies, what really dies?

Does the consciousness of that cell also die? I mean, I don't know. That's a question. Now we need a whole other podcast on the Consciousness of a Cell, right? Because, these are real, gosh, we should totally be on it. We should have another podcast about The Conscience of A Cell. Because there's, it's so, there's so much more than science. And I actually think innately by trying to study things and define it scientifically, which I love as a doctor and my brain works that way. I loved it. But I think we actually then lose this component of it because there are people, I mean, there telepathic people who just get it and on psychedelics you

Mind-Body Healing and Closing Reflections 45:00

sometimes just Get it because you feel it And so by trying to study it up here when we get further and further away from this like feeling and intuitive sense in our bodies so part of me thinks they're bitterly opposed and we need to just slow down and and rediscover our intuitive selves, right? Because plants are intuitive, animals are intuitively, and part of that's, you know, intuitive based on nature, but it also is this intuitive knowing, I mean, feeling all of those things. So if we could tap into nature more, we would be much more intuitive and knowledgeable in here and not up here.

Yeah. Well, love this conversation and definitely another podcast to answer that question. I think that would be great. Working listeners, find more, learn more about coral regenerative medicine and the quintessential journey that you talked about and get their hands on your supplements. Yeah, thank you. I mean, both are so separate businesses, but complicated spellings. Core regenerative medicine is with a K, you know, online. And core medicine and all of the kind of social medias and quintessential journey is quintessential with two N's because that's my last name just to keep it complicated.

So it's also a quintissential journey online that all the psychedelic, the three psychedelics and the stem cell line is online and we sell like wholesale to physicians or, you know, we have direct to patient, direct-to-consumer as well. And it's pretty much just me. So if you email you get me or my partner in business to talk to, if have any questions or I'm looking to partner, but I mean, I am very passionate about this work. I'd love to see your center. and I think next time I come to Colorado, definitely come and see if I don't know how far it is from Denver, It's so close.

It is 20 minutes. Yeah. Love to your Center. Thank you for being here. Yeah, thank you for having me. This has been fun. No problem. Thank you. Thanks for joining us on the Two Curious MD podcast. We hope today's episode inspired you to ask new questions and explore fresh perspectives. post or comment with a question or curious inquiry that you have and seek to explore or learn with us. Stay curious and we'll see you next time.