Terrain-Based Approach: Your Menopause Roadmap

Sharon Stills, ND

Hello, hello. Welcome back to Mastering Your Menopause Transition Summit 2.0. I’m your host, Dr. Sharon Stills. I am thrilled to be here with you and have another informative, amazing interview to share with you. You know that I am grabbing all the experts from all the areas and I was just talking with Dr. Christine before we came live saying I tried to get her for last year and our schedules didn’t match and we made sure it happened because I also wanted her to be a part of this. Many of you probably know her, and if you don’t, you’re in for a real treat. If you do, you’re going to learn something amazing. Outside the box now, Dr. Christine Schaffner, is a Naturopathic physician like me. We actually met at a bar in Germany. We’re both on this journey. We both have been studying terrain based medicine and European bioregulatory medicine since we were baby neophytes in medical school. So, we actually met in a bar in Germany, maybe drinking a German gluten free beer.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah. I think that happened.

Sharon Stills, ND

And toasting Proust. We’ve been friends and colleagues ever since. She’s really a pioneer and does so much. She has an amazing network of Clinton’s clinics called Immanence Health, and she has her own podcast. She’s just a visionary and a luminary and one of my dear friends and just a tireless advocate for all of you to really help heal and, like me, searches all ends of the Globes to bring you the things that really matter that you might not be hearing about. So we’re honored to have you.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Thank you so much, Sharon, for that really warm introduction. The feeling is so mutual. You were, I always looked up to you while I was in school. It’s just very like kismet that we are soul sisters on this journey to bring this medicine to mainstream. 

Sharon Stills, ND

Yes, absolutely. So let’s just start, tell us your story. Because, I mean, I know you could spend the whole interview telling us your story, but maybe just like little tidbits because your story is quite powerful. 

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah. Well, thank you. So, I have my story leading up to being a naturopathic doctor, which really, I wanted to really go to root cause medicine and I found that this was the best venue for my training. Then I’m up in practice 13 years and I have seen a lot of chronic illness. We were dealing with Lyme and co-infections and all the stealth pathogens out there and then culverts on the block. Now we have that terrain issue. We’ve been busy. About a year ago, I actually was diagnosed with a brain tumor, which sounds so intense. Pituitary tumor. I was benign. But as a macro adenoma, so is 3.2 centimeters. I’m in the middle of my third eye and the sella turcica where the pituitary gland sits and it was squishing my pituitary and putting stress on my optic cables and I was, two days later talking to a neurosurgeon and how I found that I had this tumor was my menstrual cycle actually was interrupted. So, our hormonal system, our endocrine system as women is this beautiful parameter that is a messenger. 

If we see irregularities a lot or symptoms around shifts in hormones, I think as women, especially in our culture, we’re like, “Oh, that’s just normal. Just put that under the rug and get through it.” But that, I was listening and I didn’t know that it would lead to this. But again, I was meeting with a neurosurgeon here. I am a naturopath, talking about train work. But, it was my path and I learned a lot and surrendered to that process. Two weeks later, I was actually going through surgery and brilliant people have figured out how to go through your nose, through the sinus and take out the tumor. But what I did during that time was a lot of my train based work and a lot of modalities. I mean, I only had two weeks to prepare that were probably more in the realm of what we’re calling probably quantum physics, where science and spirituality are meeting and intersecting. 

It really was around leveraging, group healing, energy healing, intention thought and my whole experience was quite validated when I went to my follow-up in Dr. Ferrara. I asked him like, “Okay, what are the pathology report say anything you want to know? He was like, actually, I want to study your tumor for a long time. I’m like, “Okay, why is that?” I want to know why it came out so easily. He does 400 of these areas so that to me was a huge validation because a lot of the work that we were doing was focusing on this to be easeful and for this tumor to be removed easily. I’m a mom, I’m away from, I have a doctor, I have a whole life ahead of me. Even though this was, quite a, routine for him, it was still a quite based surgery. So I come to this conversation as I become increasingly more passionate about is that we are just really on the precipice of kind of this knowledge that’s really ancient. But, we’re having a renaissance of this time and how can we really integrate our bioregulatory medicine, which holds space for these concepts already? But, really bringing the forefront of the healing conversation, like how do we work with these principles of how to work with our thoughts and our emotions and energy, and this connection that we have to what we call the fields around us and within us, and looking more from a biophysics level? So, I’ve been through quite a transformation. So I was just kind of one part of a three year kind of cycle that I’ve been through. But really, when we are through these experiences we are so afraid, I believe that it strengthens our faith in the medicine and our trust of the body and also gives us more to share with our patients, which, of course, is extremely valuable from my perspective.

Sharon Stills, ND

Absolutely. I was just talking about that with one of my patients and I was telling them what I’ve been going through healthwise and they’re like, you suffer so others can heal. It’s like, we kind of learn and grow and then we share it. That is very powerful. I think it just also brings home like there’s a time and a place for everything. Like you didn’t call me and say, “Hey, we got to shrink this tumor. Give me some. Homeopathic or sticks needles with me.”.

So, you know, it’s like a beautiful puzzle. But when you put those quantum pieces together and when you’re really focusing on the terrain, I think as our time goes on, it’s like you said, we’re kind of spending new information. It’s just like we’re cycling back to it. But it’s something that has been coming up and I knew it would come up talking with you, but it’s really interesting. Every single person, pretty much who is an expert on this summit, even if we’re just talking about something physical like exercise or blood sugar or some of the more, just real biochemical physiology like it always ends up getting into, it’s your mindset, it’s your brain, it’s how you think. It really it’s like I should have called it the mind body menopause.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah. Hey, I love it. That would be year 3.0. 

Sharon Stills, ND

So yeah. Thank you for sharing that.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah. Absolutely. I’ve come to this conversation very in touch with the hormonal system. So I have a lot to share.

Sharon Stills, ND

So tell us, like when it comes to the hormones and menopause, be it perimenopause or menopause, like how do you view that and how do you kind of approach that with a patient?

Christine Schaffner, ND

I think there’s still so much confusion, right about hormones and how to support women through this time. I go back to, of course, always my foundational treatments and how we approach a patient is very similar. So we’re always looking at what we call our terrain based modalities and kind of how we support somebody from that perspective. I’m always looking, of course, at the lymphatics, at the organs of elimination. When we think about hormones and supporting the woman during this journey, we really focus on the lymphatic system and also the liver and the biliary system. I feel almost like a broken record often in my office because I’m like, how do we get your limbs flowing? How do we get your bile moving? I think that’s a really great mantra in this journey. For all the reasons we know our liver is such an important part of the breakdown and processing of hormones. When the liver is taxed with modern life, we have so many environmental toxicants we’re all up against. 

Do you have mold exposure and or even past mold exposure? Our mycotoxins are also competing for those same pathways. Do you have other infections that have pyro toxins that again, go through those same pathways and then the onslaught from P-plus, to plastics, to mercury, lead, all of these things are overwhelming our detox processes. So we use a lot of drainage and different types of herbal methods and supplements to get that liver and bile system moving. Then in concert with that, the lymphatic systems. I could talk all day and I know you could share because of our patients. Our patients have taught us this is such an important part of the healing journey. It’s also a transport process for our hormones, especially progesterone. If we have congested bile that can affect a lot of estrogen metabolism and if we have congested lymph that can affect a lot of progesterone shuttling in the body. 

Those are again, two very important reproductive hormones in the orchestra of everything else: fibroid adrenals and, pituitary hypothalamic orchestration. So I’m happy the deeper dive in any of those, but that’s kind of my first start because you cannot throw in bioidentical hormone replacement. When it’s done methodically with the right support at the right time. With all the right information, I think that women have been really misguided. They don’t need hormones or that all hormones are created equal and there are significant risks. If our hormones are low as we go through life to our bones, our brain, our heart, and so forth, but all hormones are created equal either. Again, if you throw them on top of a body that’s still struggling and congested that  can create problems. I’m thinking I’m just a patient the other day who was a dear friend and you kind of shortcut things for your friends because you’re like, “Oh, they know and this and that.” Now I did not follow my process. This backfires because,  like the terrain, you need to be supportive before you really come up with a prescription, in my opinion.

Sharon Stills, ND

Yes. That’s why so many women that I’m sure you see and I see, even if they’re on bioidentical hormones, they might not be getting the benefits from them or the side effects from them because their whole body has been looked at and been looked at. The terrain is queen.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yes, I love that. The terrain is queen.

Sharon Stills, ND

It is the queen. I actually want to because there’s something I’m thinking about that you do a lot of that. I do a lot of that we haven’t talked about on the summit yet, which is scar therapy.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Oh, yeah. Not actually that patient that I’m thinking about. You know again that your friend is very involved and she just hasn’t done a lot of this before. We needed to inject her scars. That was a really big kind of opening for her to be able to move through this process and to be able to receive the hormones. So I would love to talk about scars.

Sharon Stills, ND

Right there of therapy. Scar therapy.

Christine Schaffner, ND

This is a wonderful treatment that is really a foundation by regulatory medicine, which is the medicine that Dr. Sharon definitely teaches us all about. It came out of Austria, Germany, Switzerland. It’s like a combination of so many healing modalities. But we’re always coming back to the principle that the body knows how to self-regulate and heal. When there are obstacles or roadblocks in that, in the way of the body’s communication that works, then that’s where we see breakdown of communication, and that often leads to disease. So with scar areas and scar therapy, I always turn to the pictures of Dr. Jean Claude Guimberteau who was a French hand surgeon who really studied human living, the fascia rather than the dead fascia that we all study in cadaver lab. You could YouTube this and see these beautiful pictures of what a living fascia looks like. In his book The Architecture of Human Living Fascia it almost I’d already been doing neuro therapy for years but it kind of brought this point, and I’m about to share to really illustrated it, that we have this beautiful fascial fabric and then when we get injured or we have a surgery or a traumatic event, the body’s job is to plug that hole. It’s not going to be similar to the beautiful original fascia. I mean, thank goodness the body knows how to heal us, but it’s usually more dense, irregular, less movable. It can create a kind of stuck energy and this really continuous fabric called the fascial network that really is a highway for information in our body. So what happens when we have a scar? It can be a disturbance in the local tissues so it can affect the limbs and the fascia and the autonomic nervous system communication and the local tissue. But because we are highly interconnected and if you can think of Saran Wrap, right, like we have a crinkle in one area, it kind of crinkles the other area. So it creates tension and affects, tenses everything and all these beautiful properties of the body and this denser, more irregular scar tissue can also hold and store toxins. It can also be kind of like a safe home base for more pathogens like known lyme and co-infections and others that gravitate to collagen and all of that. Then because of the structured water in the fascion, it can hold memory. So there is something called fascion memory that many people are trying to describe and understand the mechanism. But as clinicians, we observe it all the time. This treatment called neurotherapy, is using injections to inject scars, also ganglia or doing other segmental patterns as well. But when we actually inject a scar we use something called procaine. Procaine is a local anesthetic. 

We get it compounded, it’s preservative free, it’s 1%. You can also combine homeopathic and if you’d like as well and you actually almost thread and inject that scar tissue and procaine has some magical properties like bringing blood flow and circulation and also helping with the cell voltage and the membrane potential of the cells in the scar. So it has this kind of like flushing of the tissue where like all of a sudden the tissue reconnects with the neighboring tissue in a different way. There can be a release of not only getting the blood flow and circulation and then getting more movement in that tissue that can help reduce pain and all sorts of wild phenomena. I remember always injecting like a melanoma scar in one woman on her shoulder blade and her heart palpitations went away.  So there is this kind of unwinding, unraveling that happens in the body but also one of the biggest, I think, benefits of this treatment is the release of emotional trauma that can be stored in that tissue from why that scar was created and that letting go, that happens in the body it creates so many downstream positive effects right there. 

There’s now less stagnation and congestion in the tissue and more movement flow. Life is complicated. Health is complicated, but it’s really simple. Like we need to unblock congestion and stagnation and get more flow and movement in a safe way. That’s not going to be too fast. and furious. But so we do a lot of scar therapy. So you can kind of take a mental note, like, do you have any scars in your body? Have you been through any traumatic events? Have you had any surgeries? Not all therapy can be a very brilliant and rewarding treatment to pursue. Unfortunately, there are not enough of us who know how to do this yet, but there are many people. Then I can give you some hacks too. If you don’t have a neural therapist near you, how to at least start to do some at home things as well?

Sharon Stills, ND

I  want those hacks. But before I just want to say, like with the scar is especially for women. One of the things I see where a lot of the emotions are held are in the C sections. 

Christine Schaffner, ND

That’s a really important thing to do.

Sharon Stills, ND

Even if you’re menopausal and you’re like, well, that was 30 years ago, a lot of times we have our birthing plans and they don’t go. Birthing plans typically don’t go as planned because that’s your introduction to motherhood. Now learn to speak of flow, go into flow and maybe guide the way. Even if it’s something that was a long time ago. But it’s a way when we’re talking about clearing the field. That’s the first thing I do. When I look at a patient, it’s like, “Okay, what’s going on in your mouth? What do we need to clear there?”

Where are the scars on your body? Just because that’s going to set the tone for healing. If you have a neural therapist near you, that’s amazing. There aren’t enough of us, but if you don’t, I would love for you to share some of yours at home. 

Christine Schaffner, ND

Absolutely. So a couple to start is obviously identifying the scar and there if you don’t have a neural therapist, there’s often acupuncture, it’s available and they know how to thread the scars. So that wouldn’t be quite like neural therapy, but it’s a start to start breaking down scar tissue, creating more movement and awareness in that tissue. So just FYI there. Then, I’ve created a few products that can be used topically and they can start creating movement. So one is called Lymphflo that I created with Dr. Ruggiero. That can be applied topically to the scar. That can be really a great tool. I know traditional natural therapies have always used wheat germ oil, which is not about gluten. That’s more about the vitamin D content that can help break down that tissue. You can massage the scar. We have all sorts of different tools now, like those gua sha, that you can get at home that can create some movement. We have vibration, I have  one, but I don’t have it on my desk. There are so many things on my desk, but not that one. You can create some movement there.

Sharon Stills, ND

MIne are in the mail.

Christine Schaffner, ND

They’ve been so popular. We’ve been having so much fun with them. Then, I’ve also created some plant stem cells that you can take orally, but you can actually apply the lymph one topically. We know that the skin is such a great route of delivery downstream in the body. You can do that as well. Light can be helpful, red or infrared. Infrared can penetrate more deeply into the skin. So if you have an infrared light or a red light or a combination of both would be ideal. You can apply red light and infrared to the scar that can create more movement and blood flow. So the goal is how can we create awareness and also how can we create some regular ritual that, we tend to the scar and we tend to this tissue to help create more flow in that area that can have some energy.

Sharon Stills, ND

So I always think it’s interesting as I’m interviewing you, the recycler, I don’t know if you could hear it, but the recycling truck just came. You’re done like. Yes, the recycling they’re creating is pretty loud. Memory level.

Christine Schaffner, ND

I know, right. Totally. 

Sharon Stills, ND

Fantastic ideas. So let’s talk about what you said because I know you also have a product for the spleen. And I’m like, “Oh, the spleen, somebody, the spleen love.” Because are there summits on spleen health? No, we talk about the liver, the bile, getting it;s day lately is coming more. But if you could explain, first of all, like, what are plant stem cells? Then second, like, what’s up with the spleen? Why is it a remedy for the spleen? 

Christine Schaffner, ND

So when we think about plant stem cells, they’re a form of botanical medicine. So a lot of our modalities and by regulatory medicine is to get the body moving and draining and draining space is called the extracellular matrix and the lymphatics. In these areas of the body that can get congested and again, that’s where disease starts. So plant stem cells are these beautiful remedies and how the ones that I work with get made are that we work with a supplier in Italy. These beautiful people tend to these plants and the plant stem cells use the freshly buds of the plant. So they’re going to have different properties than the foreground mature plant, in that there is a lot of embryonic information and this like full vitality, like a life force potential, like in the buds of the plant. So the woman I work with, Jennifer Pear, she often talks about like, think of a baby. A baby gets a scratch and they’re healed in like an hour. There’s like all this stem cell activity and fresh energy to heal. What we found about the buds of the plant, they have specific extracts and properties that can also help to not only drain different body systems, but regenerate different systems as well. So they’re very healing for the body and the people who pick them are very mindful of the plant and don’t pick them. Then they put them in what we call glycerin and alcohol macerate. 

So they’re getting extracted from not only alcohol, but glycerin. Then the remedies that we use, they burn down the plant matter that’s left through a process called Spagyrics. Then that is full of minerals. And so they add those back to the plant stem cells. So the end of this whole combination is a very vibrant, vital, nourishing, regenerative mix. I had worked with plant stem cells when I was younger, and I always had this idea of adding phosphatidylcholine into them, which is I’m making them a liposome, because that can make them more potent for this time, because people are really toxic and drained and sick. We’re kind of amplifying in the power plant stem cells with adding versatile collagen, which helps to yeah, just get them better absorbed into lymphatics and go into tissue where they are needed for support. So, I’ve really focused on creating a product line for the lymphatics system because we have all these beautiful lines that we work with and I’m just kind of finding the holes of where I feel we need some good support and so I have one for the lint, I have one for the gallbladder because again, I feel like you can’t really complete lymphatic drainage without bile movement. 

So I did that. Then one for the spleen. The spleen is like this unsung hero on the body. It’s this forgotten organ often, and it’s part of the lymphatic system. So we have different organs and glands that are part of the lymph. What happens is our blood gets filtered through complex processes in the spleen. The spleen has a big job of saying, okay, do any of the plasma or red blood cells and blood are infected? Are they damaged? Are they not adding health to the system? Can we filter them out? Not only take out the trash, if you will, in the blood, but also if we have any pathogens that are circulating in the blood, we can mount a proper response. We often think of the lymph system as a detox and drainage system, but it’s a really big part of our immune system. When you have swollen lymph nodes, if you have a viral infection, there are even extreme cancers that are like lymphomas and there are activity in the length. A big part of that, having a healthy body is to get that lymph moving and draining and circulating. Then also that our immune system can recognize itself. It’s not so much foreign and actually has a proper response so that we don’t have infections go chronic, or if we have chronic infections that we can actually heal our immune systems. Not a proper response. So that was my inspiration around the spleen to just get the blood and the lymph moving, give some love to the spleen. Because when you’re dealing with chronic infections all day long, the spleen often comes up because you name it Epstein-Barr, to Babesia, to Covid long haulers, all of these things have really put a lot of stress on their spleen these days.

Sharon Stills, ND

Yes. The unsung hero. No one talks about this.

Christine Schaffner, ND

I can see it’s forgotten. Like, you can’t really palpate it unless it’s inflamed, it kind of fits in.

Sharon Stills, ND

Yes, it totally is. The lymphatic system, like we all become obsessed with the lymph because we ran a thermography. Is that actually the lymph is consulted once it’s inflamed. So I know it’s so important to give the spleen some love and it’s funny because in my acupuncture training in Chinese medicine, the spleen is everything, deep sleep, dim sleep, you don’t know what to do. If everyone has a dim sleep, you’re going to get better if you drive that spleen out. So the spleen is such a central figure there.

Christine Schaffner, ND

I don’t know many acupuncture points, but I know like spleen six three nine, right? You can do neuro therapy in those points too.

Sharon Stills, ND

I mean, the spleen point is like the meeting of all the major meridians down by the foot and  there’s so much importance that explains itself. Great. So you mentioned and I think I’d like to touch on because we’re talking, we’re here because we’re worried about menopause. But hopefully by now, you know that I look at menopause as, yes, this time where we need to balance out hormones. But also this time where we need to pause and kind of just evaluate our health and how we’re doing things. And, Christine’s story from the beginning shows that like even a brain tumor, like, look at her, she’s vibrant and healthy and beautiful and doing so much like and so nothing has to, there’s always an answer. There’s always a way. Maybe, like, if you’ve been struggling with whether it’s chronic infections or autoimmune disease, like opening up to this whole new way of looking at the terrain and dreaming and moving things and your limbs and your spleen and your scars could really be this huge as you’re stepping into your sacred second act of menopause, like, “Oh, my God. I’ve also, like, developed this new way of looking at how I can heal and I have.” So I would like to talk because you have a machine and you work a lot with Lyme and chronic infections and you have an EBOO, which is kind of a new kid on the block. I’ve been getting personal treatments from and I’m going to put one in my new clinic when it opens. Of course you’re already on it. You’re already doing It. But I think, I’m sure a lot of the women listening are like EBOO? Is that your pet dog? What’s an EBOO?

Christine Schaffner, ND

Absolutely. I think it’s such a great time during the menopausal transition, too, because again, as you said, you take stock of where you’re at and how to make that transition smooth. We know that we’re only as healthy as we’re able to eliminate. We bioaccumulate toxicants for a lifetime. So it’s good it’s an amazing gift for yourself. So EBOO stands for Extracorporeal Blood Oxygenation Ozonation and it’s a beautiful treatment where you have two venous accesses so you have to have decent veins for the treatment and somebody will take, have a catheter here and then the blood travels through a filter and it also gets ozonated. There are many schools of thought of why this is so powerful. But when the blood goes through this filter, it’s creating more surface area for a large amount of ozone to come into contact with the blood. We’re doing about, I believe, two liters of blood through this treatment. So it’s a significant amount. What happens, though, which I think is part of the magic, is that we have to have a lot more research because there is just as anything an alternative medicine. We don’t have the big research institutes to measure everything that we’re doing. We have to just try to get our patients better. 

So the filter actually creates the filtrating. And it looks different compared to many people there. I think one group has demonstrated that it removes beta 2-microglobulin, and that’s an inflammatory protein. It’s this form, it can be a different color, there can be different amounts depending on the person. I think there is kind of a filtration effect that it’s almost like a super spleen. It’s filtering your blood. You were excreting toxicants. We are hypothesizing and inflammatory byproducts that we need to get rid of. So when the blood returns to the other arm, it’s bright red. That can be the effect of ozone and also the filtration. So you’re getting this like healthy, the oxygenated blood back into your body. So this has a huge effect on inflammation. As to why we started paying attention to this treatment. I give a lot of credit to my friend Dr. Yoshi Rahm, who was one of the pioneers. He kind of made one in his office and he was treated like a long hauler. 

I referred and I met a handful of patients, and I just saw them get better. Dr. Sharon and I both know about the heinous racism that races in Europe that we’re not able to have in the US yet. It’s kind of this happy medium of the tool that we can have for I think again, one of the most elegant ways to get off of the body is through a treatment like this, because our bodies could be leading the healthiest lifestyle. But none of us are immune to the things that are in the air we breathe and we can filter our water. But, there’s going to be just exposure that we just are on the planet at this time. It’s perfectly imperfect. I feel like EBOO is just such an important therapy to watch. It it resonates with you. Please pursue it because it really can reduce inflammation. I believe it’s reducing the body burden of toxicants. We don’t know yet again I’m hypothesizing, but it’s kind of what I see and it’s a really beautiful tool. Most people feel like energy reduces brain fog, less inflammation, and it’s a statement on treatment. Some people feel better from one, especially if you’re relatively healthy. People who have more chronic issues, they might need to do a satire series or have a tune up every so often. But it’s been a really fun treatment to have in the office. We’ve been really seeing some really great things. We just got ours this year as well. I think for this time, like every clinic like ours, Sharon, it has to happen. We need to have these in every clinic to support the needs of our patients right now because it just shortens the time of detox detoxes. It takes a long time to detox. I feel like this can create a little bit more of an elegant path for that.

Sharon Stills, ND

Yeah. Again everyone is listening, we’re concerned about our hormones and rightfully so. But we’re all exposed, as Dr. Christine is saying. This time is also like, “Oh, how am I going to care for myself? So I can age gracefully and I can feel good and totally B.S. that old menopause. Now I’m going to get sick and fat and cranky and tired of these things like that doesn’t have to be if you have the right tools and lifestyle and mindset implemented. This can be a beautiful time. By the time you’re going through menopause, you’re in your forties and fifties beyond, you’ve probably bio accumulated quite a bit because that’s just like you said, the perfectly imperfect. Well now, I know and you know this as physicians, what we’re dealing with, there’s a new normal. Having dealt with COVID and whether you’ve had the disease process and you’re dealing with ramifications or long haulers, as it’s called, or you’ve been inoculated and have had side effects, we’ve had to retrain the way we think and diagnose as physicians. This is what we’re dealing with as society. Our hormones are not in a vacuum. They exist in the body. Totally supports them and detoxes them. I really hope that you’re taking a lot from this talk, but that you’re really taking that my hormones to be balanced live in a terrain and that terrain is the foundation, just like we build a house, we have to have a strong foundation. Just as we’re building health and vitality in this new stage of our life, we have to have a flowing and open foundation.

Christine Schaffner, ND

As I mentioned, all the assaults, some kind of our blood flow and everything EBOO, it really does help to reduce vascular inflammation, which is so key and foundational. If your lymph is tied to your blood. I can talk for an hour. How that all works. But, healthy blood flow to have healthy lymphatic flow and all the things. I’m so glad that you’re receiving the treatments. I’ve had a few myself. I had some after my surgery, I had treatment. So if there’s somebody out there having to go through surgery, again, I’m not a medical person. So I heard you earlier, I should say. I don’t tend towards medicine. I’m not the person to take ibuprofen, Advil, you know what I mean? I’m taking my herbs and all that. So I had to go through things like getting a gadolinium, MRI and a shot and I had to have some painkillers. My liver enzymes went slightly up. I’m just in the high thirties, which are higher than my liver enzymes tend to be. I did an EBOO with my friend Dr. Sarah before I got one. And for me, I had my first one before I knew about all this and before I had a surgery and my liver enzymes went down and I felt better. So if you’re somebody who has to dance between conventional and alternative medicine and go through conventional procedures, this is like a really good tune up afterwards. I wish that the hospitals would embrace them one day.

Sharon Stills, ND

I was thinking that. You’re saying like, “Gosh, we’re just at the beginning, we got to get them in all the clinics, but oh my gosh, if they were actually like in the hospitals, it’s like, they do dialysis for the kidney.”

Christine Schaffner, ND

I mean, this would be easy for them to do. I know that being a patient and going through like some hospitals, a place that I stay out of. Going through that gave me immense gratitude. Again, I’m grateful that I had a neurosurgeon who wants to operate on brains like, thank God there are people who love to do that. So grateful. You know what I just thought like, “Wow, what if we can really join forces? Like, the pre-op room is like this sterile, really a comfortable place where you’re about to get in a Salacia like, we should all be having acupuncture, meditation and getting a glutathione shot before, we’re about to have our liver is like, overwhelmed. So there’s a vision that I think many of us who are optimists hold one day, maybe ask where I believe the future of medicine is beyond that. Looking at the bioenergetics, I think there’s still such an opportunity to integrate more and that might be a silver lining in COVID, because you can see there were even frustrated medical providers because they didn’t have as many tools as they needed. We had a lot of tools during this time.

Sharon Stills, ND

Side project, we’re going to start a hospital.

Christine Schaffner, ND

I know, nations are doing that. Maybe we could be on the board. I know, but it’s true. At the new hospital like that, I actually you know, again, my dream into kind of what I’m feeling too. During the COVID time, I was just like, we need a new hospital, like even just like they don’t have to go down the blue rabbit hole, just like hyperbaric. Maybe some vitamin C IVs. That alone, I don’t know. It would be like, so transformative, you know.

Sharon Stills, ND

If you’re listening, help us transform that. If you will. Yeah. Oh, that hospital or M.D. Yeah. Pretty blue.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah, totally. Totally.

Sharon Stills, ND

That’s how I learned about a number of things, especially when I was earlier in practice. Patients would come to me. I was fresh, a little puppy at a medic school and patients say, I mean, that’s how I got into practicing bioidentical hormones and helping women through menopause. I was only in my thirties at the time, but a patient came and said, “Hey, have you heard about this?” When we ask our doctors, it opens, hopefully they’re open minded enough to say, yes, I have or no, I haven’t, but I’m going to go learn. 

Christine Schaffner, ND

Totally.

Sharon Stills, ND

Well, as we’re just wrapping up, do you have any last words of wisdom for women during this time that you’d like to share with them?

Christine Schaffner, ND

You touched on it. I think that society paints all these different pictures of women during this time and how it has to be hard. You have to suffer and you have to give up things and you’re not going to feel and look your best. But I think I would really like to seek out an amazing provider, whether they’re naturopath, a functional medicine deal that really listens to you and that you can work in collaboration with to not settle. This is an amazing opportunity to get into this next chapter and have you feel good, during this time and it can open up this whole other tool kit for you that actually will almost be a whole opportunity to prevent any future illnesses down the road. So it can be a really important time to increase your longevity and your life if you embrace, but sharing and the Maya teaching today and I think that’s what we want for everybody with healthy, vital lives. There’s so much wisdom.You’ve gone to this point in your life, you have so much to share. I think just don’t lose sight of that.

Sharon Stills, ND

Emphasis on the opportunity for prevention. So you are everywhere. For those of you, which hopefully is all of you who are like, oh my God, I need to know more about this by regulatory medicine, about this beautiful Dr. Christine, where can we find you? I know you’ve hosted your own summits and your podcast and clinic.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Yeah, thank you. Sharon. I have a few sites, but I have a clinic in Seattle. It’s called Immanence Health. Immanence means the Divine Within. And so, we do all the things we talked about today by regulatory medicine and we incorporate a lot of cutting edge modalities and really, treat you as an individual. So we’re in Seattle and we do a lot of telemedicine as well. I have a podcast called The Spectrum of Health showing on the podcast and I also have a supplement store, it’s called ipothecarystore.com. You can learn more about lymph flow and the plant stem cells and all that good stuff.

Sharon Stills, ND

Yay. Well. I love you and thank you.

Christine Schaffner, ND

Thank you so much for having me. It’s always so fun to connect with you.

Sharon Stills, ND

It is. Thank you, everyone, for being here and opening your minds and learning new things. That’s what we’re here for. That’s what this summit is about, to help you today and tomorrow and for you to think about things for the younger people in your life. We share this wisdom because as Dr. Christine said, this is not a time when we have that feedback from our cycle. It’s our bodies saying some things out of balance. It’s not normal for menopause to be a diagnosis. It’s not a disease. It’s a natural transition. So thank you for being here. Thank you for listening and thanking you for caring about your health and making a difference so that we can be a vital tribe of postmenopausal women who are rocking the world and making things happen. So thank you and I’ll be back with another interview. So stay tuned

Christine Schaffner, ND

Bye.