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December 26, 2023 31 mins

Merry Christmas, happy new year and have a relaxing holiday season!

We talk about seizures and continue our backstory on how we got to this point.

Come be part of the festivities!

Graphic credit: Kori Brandimarte

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
If you ain't trying to get well, you're in the wrong place.

(00:04):
You're listening to Only the Best Herbs with Ryan Boulder.
Hello and welcome to Only the Best Herbs, the podcast where we dive into the world of
natural remedies and explore the power of plant-based healing.

(00:29):
My name is Ryan Boulder, your guide on this journey through the fascinating world of herbal
medicine.
Today's episode is particularly timely as we navigate the festive cheer and the occasional
stress of the holiday season.
We are focusing on a topic that resonates with many – migraines.

(00:52):
Yup, the unwelcome guests that often choose the worst times to visit.
However, here's some uplifting news.
In the spirit of giving, we're unwrapping a recent study that sheds light on a remarkable
finding.

(01:12):
Turns out, when it comes to managing migraines, sometimes the more simple, affordable, easy
solutions outshine their pricier counterparts.
That's right, we're talking about alternative medicines like Only the Best Herbs, right?

(01:33):
So this is the perfect time.
Grab your favorite herbal tea, find a cozy spot, and join us as we dive into the intriguing
study.
We'll explore how these cost-effective natural remedies are making a significant impact and
why they might just be the perfect gift for your well-being this holiday season.

(01:55):
Stick around because on Only the Best Herbs, we believe in the power of nature's pharmacy,
especially when it offers us a gentle, yet effective way to enjoy our holiday's headache
free.
Let's get started, but first, a word from our sponsors, Surgeon's LLC.

(02:16):
Sure, you may have heard of THC and marijuana products before, but have you heard of any
of the 540 additional cannabinoids in addition to THC?
We're talking cannabinoids like CBD, CBN, CBG, HHC, THCO, THCP, THCA, CBC.

(02:46):
The list goes on and on.
That's what we focus on here at Surgeon's LLC.
Whether you want to grow your own cannabis or get the medicinal properties, you have
found the right place.
Visit our website, surgeonsolution.io, and you will quickly see that we are much more

(03:09):
than just a hemp seed, glass, and nutrient distributor.
Sign up for our loyalty program and get an additional 200 vibes, which is loyalty points,
right on the spot for entering your email address.
This equivalent is spending $200.

(03:33):
Don't pass this up.
If you have any questions, talk to our AI and get answers to all the questions you have,
or even schedule a time to speak with us, and we can get you in going in the right direction,
because at Surgeon's LLC, when you're Surgeon, you're living.
Now, getting back to our story about migraines.

(03:56):
Migraines are more than just a headache.
Often, the pain is accompanied by nausea, vomiting, light sensitivity, and even sound
sensitivity.
Chronic migraines can be disabling and may prevent many, especially women, from contributing

(04:16):
to the working life or their own working life.
Still, it often takes a long time for migraine patients to find a treatment that works well
for them.
Researchers at the Norwegian Center of Heddeck Research, quote, unquote, Norhead, have used
data from the Norwegian Prescription Register to look at which medicines best prevent migraine.

(04:43):
Professor Martin Helen Bejork at the Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Bergen,
says, there has now been done a lot of research on this subject before.

(05:03):
This may weaken the quality of the treatment and increase the cost of treatment for this
patient group.
Three medicines had better effect than the first choice of medicines.
Researchers used the National Register data from 2010 to 2020 to estimate treatment effect.

(05:25):
They measured this by looking at the consumption of acute migraine medicines before and after
starting preventative treatment, which they also investigated how long the people with
the migraine used different preventative treatments.
A total of over 100,000 migraine patients were in the study.

(05:49):
100,000.
When the withdrawal of acute migraine medicines changed little after starting preventative
medicine or people stopped quickly on the preventative medicines, the preventative medicine
was interrupted as having little effect and discontinued.
The preventative medicine was used on a long uninterrupted period and we saw a decrease

(06:16):
in the consumption of acute medicines.
We interpreted that as the preventative medicine was having a good effect.
As a rule, these so-called beta blockers are used as the first choice to prevent migraine
attacks, but the researchers found that especially three medicines had better preventative effects

(06:44):
than these.
The CGRP inhibitors and a tryptoline and Symbastium.
I'm not sure how popular those are here in America, but the two latter medicines are
also established medicines used for depression, chronic pain, and high cholesterol.

(07:06):
Respectively, while the CGRP inhibitors are developed and used specifically for chronic
migraines.
Another topic that we have is for epilepsy.
This one hits home for me because I have had epileptic seizures before and I haven't
had a seizure in a while, but this one really does resonate with me.

(07:33):
This is from the American Academy of Neurology.
For people with epilepsy, doing yoga may help reduce feelings of stigma about the disease,
along with reducing seizure frequency and anxiety.
According to a new research published in November 8th of 2023, the online edition of the Medical

(07:56):
Journey of American Academy of Neurology.
People with epilepsy often face stigma that can cause them to feel different than others
due to their own health condition.
And that can have a significant impact on their quality of life.
Said study anchor Manjari Tripathi, MDVM of all India Institute of Medical Science in

(08:24):
New Delhi.
This stigma can affect a person's life in many ways, including treatment, emergency
department visits, and poor mental health.
Our study showed that doing yoga can alleviate the burden of epilepsy and improve the overall
quality of life by reducing this perceived stigma.

(08:46):
And I completely understand and I completely get what they're saying with this because
I felt this way.
This is exactly how I felt because you feel different.
You're like, why me?
Why do I have to have this disease or why do I have to have this condition that makes
it so that I have no control over my body?

(09:06):
My brain can at any moment spaz out and I won't have any idea what's going on.
I've crashed a few cars as a result of these seizures and I honestly shouldn't even be
here.
That does throw you into a depression and makes you not understand.
It makes it scary to do anything because you're not in control.

(09:28):
So I understand.
I get where there comes from where other seizure patients would feel that way.
Yoga does seem like it would be a good alternative.
I can't say that I do yoga, but I do meditate.
I sit there and I reflect and I'm very conscious and I go through things in my head and I visualize

(09:50):
and I guess maybe it's not a type of yoga, but I am practicing on my breathing.
I am visualizing and seeing and making goals and evaluating things I've done in the past.
Practicing mindfulness has been very beneficial to me having the seizure condition because

(10:15):
when you have one there's no reason to look back in the past and look back on it and be
mad about it because there's absolutely nothing you can do.
After you had a seizure it feels like you got your ass beat.
You're confused.
Now you can't drive all of a sudden.
You have no idea why.

(10:36):
Now you can't drive.
Everyone's concerned about you.
Starts pissing you off because everyone's asking how you are and you're fine.
You just had a seizure and you don't know why.
Then I get it.
Practicing yoga, I would definitely, yoga or some type of meditative practice would

(10:57):
be good because I think that also even helps train your brain, the synopsis in your brain.
Maybe you can calm them down a little bit with some breathing exercises and getting
some oxygen to your brain and whatnot.
Again, I'm not a doctor, I'm not claiming to be a doctor, but I do know some things
and I try to give my opinion the best I can.

(11:18):
If you agree with it, then agree with it.
If you don't, then I'm dumb.
I can't really do any better than that.
But I do know I have some valuable information when it comes to seizures because that is
something I have had to deal with a lot in my life.
Stars are always in line sometimes because this is a very key part of my life.

(11:39):
That's just sad to say, but it did take over my mind for years because I didn't know how
to cope with it, I didn't know how to deal with it.
That started a lot of negative things that happened in my life.
Yeah, seizures does.

(12:00):
It does diminish your mental health and your quality of life until you can get a hold on
that and it is not easy.
Let me be the one to tell you, listen to my voice, listen if you are having seizure issues,
if you know somebody who is having seizure issues, in any way, practice mindfulness with

(12:24):
them.
Calm, be calm, talk about your thoughts, close your eyes.
A very long healing process because the more often you have a seizure, the better chance
there is of you having another one.
You've got to keep it under control, medications.

(12:47):
This is going to sound counterintuitive to what we talk about, but this is nothing to
play around with.
Seizure medications, if you are on a seizure medication, stay on your seizure medication.
Withdrawal effect from these medications is that you will have a seizure if you discontinue

(13:07):
taking your seizure medications.
I found that out the hard way.
You cannot take your seizure medication and then abruptly stop.
Even if you think, hey Ryan, I want to get off of this man-made prescription and transition
to something else, don't do it.
Don't do it right now.
Talk to your doctor, talk to a physician, explain to them what you want to do, tell

(13:31):
them I'm doing this, I need your help, please guide me, please give me some tips or something.
A lot of doctors will probably not tell you to just stay on your medication.
If it's working, it's working.
However, if you are having problems, that is probably when you might want to take this
approach or add something in or start working with your doctor.

(13:53):
I am in the process right now of working with my doctor to try to get off of this prescription
right now.
But there's a lot of tests they have to do.
You got to go through a sleep test to make sure that you're not having seizures in your
sleep.
There's an observation.
There's so many things you need to go through to make sure you can safely and comfortably

(14:17):
switch to more natural medications or substances or plants.
It is a long process, but you have to be patient.
You are in control.
If you got time under your belt and not having to seizure, for example, and you want to take
the next step, I'm rooting for you.

(14:39):
I'm not telling you to do it, but if you do it, be safe.
Be safe and mindful, every decision you make can impact the rest of your life no matter
how big or how small the decision you think that is.
Be careful.
Getting back to this article, the stigma can affect a person's life in many ways, including

(15:01):
treatment, emergency department visits, and poor mental health.
Our study showed that doing yoga can alleviate the burden of epilepsy and improve the overall
quality of life by producing this perceived stigma.
For the study, researchers looked at people with epilepsy with an average age of 30 in
India.

(15:21):
I would qualify for that in India, being 29.
Researchers measured stigma based on participants answered to questions such as, do you feel
other people discriminate against you?
Do you feel like you cannot contribute anything in society?

(15:45):
Do you feel different from other people, all of which I imagine I would answer yes to those
questions up until I started my business and I started this podcast.
I would have answered yes to all three of those questions.
Researchers then identified 160 people who met the criteria for experiencing stigma.

(16:10):
Participants had an average of one seizure a week and on average took at least two anti-seizure
medications.
Researchers then randomly assigned participants to receive yoga therapy or sham yoga therapy,
which I am not 100% what sham yoga therapy is.
Yoga therapy included exercises in loosening muscles, breathing, meditation, and positive

(16:36):
affirmations.
Here we go.
Sham yoga consisted of exercises that mimic the same yoga exercises, but participants
were not given instructions on two key components of yoga believed to induce a relaxing response.
Low and synchronized breathing and attention to the body movement and sensations during

(17:01):
practice.
Each group received seven supervised group sessions of 45 to 60 minutes over three months.
Participants were also asked to practice sessions at home at least five times a week for 30
minutes.
They tracked seizures and yoga sessions in a journal.

(17:25):
After the three months of therapy, participants were followed for another additional three
months.
This is extensive.
Researchers found when compared to people who did sham yoga versus people who did yoga,
they were more likely to reduce their perceived stigma of the disease.

(17:50):
People who did yoga had an average score of seven at the start of the study and an average
score of four at the end of the study.
While people who did sham yoga had an increase from an average score of six at the start
of the study to an average score of seven at the end.

(18:16):
Researchers also found that people who did yoga were more than four times likely to have
more than a 50% reduction in their seizure frequency after six months than the people
who did sham yoga.
Sham yoga is basically a sham.
It's like half-assed yoga, probably something close to what I do.

(18:37):
What I was talking about earlier is probably what I do.
Doing yoga the right way that solicits these responses and these sensations truly does,
at least in all accounts of this study, had a noticeable effect at reducing seizures after

(18:57):
six months.
That's incredible.
That isn't even substance-related, herbs or anything.
That's just doing mindful breathing exercises and just being grounded.
That's what a lot of these products, we focus on.
That's what they do.
They bring you to that balance.
However, the balance of yoga is doing it without herbs.

(19:20):
This is completely all-natural and you're getting your body in that way consciously.
That's what they do.
They help balance your body out.
The herbs are the first step.
Second step is getting into a mindfulness routine.
Yoga would be a mindfulness routine, in my opinion, and that's what they're saying as

(19:41):
well.
People who did yoga were more than seven times more likely to no longer have seizures
than those who did sham yoga.
We are now going to get to the next part of our season two storyline.

(20:08):
It would be our conception, how CBD surgeons and how surgeons came to be what it is now
from the last episode.
I ended off mentioning the mushroom community that I had gotten into and started to create

(20:33):
with one person.
There was the other person, which became a little strange because I really had a good
relationship with them for a solid month or two and then we had a stop talking.
However, that person did invite me to a group that I had mentioned.

(21:00):
I really like now that I'm there and had been there.
That was the first mushroom group that I had ever joined.
That person ended up, we had just lost contact.
They brought me, they pointed me in the direction to go to this community.

(21:23):
I'm pretty stoked to be there.
I'm feeling it out, I'm there, not looking around, but I'm trying to figure out who is
who and how things work.
Quickly, I got the feeling that not that certain people weren't my biggest fans, but doing

(21:45):
what I'm doing, coming into a new community, coming into a new community, I could understand
why people would be annoyed, I guess.
I don't want to say intimidated because that's a really crappy word to use.
I would say concerned.

(22:06):
People who are concerned of me coming in are really what my intentions were.
I can understand that.
I would be the same way, and the best thing I knew how to do was I'll just try to prove
myself a little bit, not that I need to, but I teamed up with this awesome person and learned

(22:28):
more about them and their story and what they had been through and started doing some content
a little bit with them and created a pretty good relationship, I thought, in my opinion,
with this person in the mushroom community.
You'll never hear me come on my podcast and talk negative about anybody, or even in person

(22:55):
or in real life.
I never talk bad about anybody because they get that straight.
Everyone I've worked with and everyone that you've seen me work with publicly or anything
like that, I have the utmost respect for them, and I really appreciate everybody in this
process.

(23:15):
You'll never hear me say anything bad about anybody.
That's why you're listening to this and see what I'm going to say if I'm going to see
something completely off the wall about somebody.
It's not going to happen.
I've thought about it, but I've had to do that with a lot of people.

(23:35):
Just because of this story doesn't really go my way a little, or the way I wanted it
to go doesn't mean I'm going to come on here and start spewing a whole bunch of nonsense.
That's a little bit of context for you, how I feel about the situation.
Obviously, not exactly thrilled about it, but create this community with this individual.

(24:02):
Things are going good.
The group grew insanely fast.
I couldn't even tell you the numbers on it.
I have screenshots of it, but it was like, wow.
A couple of weeks that I'd gotten up to 250 or so group numbers, I was like, wow, this
is pretty, that's awesome.

(24:22):
This group is going to do really well.
Throughout this whole process, I'm talking with this person I created the community with.
From the beginning, I said, you're going to build this and it's going to be yours.
I just want to be here and help build it because at the end of the day, only one person can

(24:43):
truly own a Facebook community.
They have the complete control over it.
There's always one person who has complete control.
Going into that, I wanted to build this community.
In return, I would help build my own community aside from it, which is only the best herbs
was podcast.

(25:04):
I needed to get a community going.
On my end, I wanted to help educate people not only just to mushrooms, but I wanted to
take a completely natural approach that would not cause too much attention or the name wouldn't
raise any flags or wouldn't be looked down upon.

(25:30):
I couldn't name the group mushroom central or something like that.
I couldn't name it something crazy.
I wanted to go with only the best herbs and I wanted to focus on other things too, like
cannabis and all the other things that we've been talking about, but specifically cannabis
because I deal with hemp extracts in my company and mushroom medicine is my next thing on

(25:57):
my to-do list to bring awareness to, but people who did not want me to continue doing this
for whatever reason.
That's okay.
I was a little confused on what all of the negativity was about, but I could tell that
this person no longer wanted to do this or doing this was a joke or something or it was

(26:24):
funny or something.
I was like, okay, if it's so funny, then I'm just done.
I'm done with it.
That's that and I'll just focus on my stuff and then I will go back to what I was doing.
I go back and I'm going to make this clear.

(26:44):
It's not easy.
It was 100% not easy to give up on.
I didn't give up because I don't want to look at it that way as giving up because I really
didn't.
I was more forced to stop doing it because of, it just gets to a point where it's like,
all right, I have to maintain my integrity about this and if it's just going to be a

(27:09):
giant joke, then I'm not going to do it and I'll focus on something that clearly is not
a joke and I'll do it and we'll do it better.
So I was, it really personally did hurt my feelings and that's another thing with business

(27:29):
and just life in general, just being able to separate that.
My boundaries suck.
Getting into the mushroom community and seeing how people were, I was like, wow, this is
so different.
I kind of feel like I wanted to be here, but, you know, and I felt like I could act differently

(27:50):
or like the way that I wanted to versus what the reality of the situation was.
Like I thought, you know, we're building this community together, but in all reality, it
was just like, you're an idiot.
So I went and was an idiot somewhere else and that's kind of like where we end up right

(28:11):
now is like, I'm in this community with some awesome people who've helped a little bit
or at least like shown some kindness and that's it.
You know, we just did this giveaway for the holiday season, which brings me to that point
and it went really, I'm like blown away with how many people signed up for the giveaway

(28:37):
or how much participation there was in the giveaway.
By the way, like that, I don't, I think there's 80, 80 different people, possibly more who
signed up for this giveaway.
If my calculations are correct or my math, but that's kind of how we end up to where

(29:00):
we're at now.
And I wanted to get all this on a podcast season, everything that's happened up until
this point, I wanted to get it on a podcast because I am planning on making some content
about it, like some video work about it, or maybe just some visuals to go along with the

(29:24):
podcast possibly, but there's going to be just like a better version of it being made
and I know how people are and want to like profit off of things that have happened in
my life and claim them to be their own or something like that, which was going on with

(29:46):
this independent film producer that I had mentioned and we had a talk about it.
It was a really strange talk and I'll talk, I'll tell, we're going to revisit some things,
but to kind of close off the podcast a little bit at the end, maybe like maybe one of the
last episodes, revisit some things that are really messed up that is important to note

(30:08):
going forward.
But there are people who, I don't know how to explain it, but we're going to end that
this week.
Right now it's the day after Christmas, I started filming this the day before Christmas,
or on Christmas Eve and I'm finishing it the day after Christmas, so Merry Christmas, Happy

(30:32):
New Year, I'm going to try to get one in for the new year, should be able to get one in,
I'm going to start working on it here in the next couple of days.
A word from one of our sponsors, Ruga Monteto, they supply quality, first generation bread,
canna genetics, reach out to us here at Surgeons, we supply all of Ruga Monteto's up to date

(30:57):
strains, including strains mixed with runts, cookies, grape stomper, josh dee, kush, and
more.
If you're looking for unique, exotic, carefully created cannabis strains, Surgeons is the
place to be.
Visit our website, surgeonsolution.io, where you'll find only the best.

(31:24):
Until next time, this is Ryan Boulder with Only the Best Herbs, and you'll talk to me
soon.
If you have what it takes to be only the best, send us an email, operations at surgeonsolutions.org.
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