Fresh Start with Dr David - Season 3 - Episode 16 - Personal Growth & Transformation with World Renowned Dermatologist, Dr. Allen Lycka (Part 1)
Good afternoon, this is Dr. David back with a fresh episode of the Fresh Start with Dr. David podcast. I hope everybody's been doing well. I don't know about you, but here in the state of Georgia, city of Atlanta, we've had some interesting weather-related changes. It went from being extremely hot to extremely rainy, and now fall just came in. It doesn't usually happen this way, but it's interesting. And if you know me, if you've listened to any of the episodes of the Fresh Start with Dr. David podcast, you know that I believe in working through the energy of the seasons. And so, as you know, fall is the season of harvest.
So now is the time of the year, if you haven't already thought about it, thinking about harvesting or reaping the benefits of everything you've been sowing throughout the year. Right. So this is the time for your harvest. So if you haven't done so already, start planning and doing the harvest. And what that means is you're starting to gather together everything that you've been collecting and creating throughout the year. So that means if you've been working on stuff, creating stuff, now is the time to start executing it, activating it, realizing it, transforming it, and all those kind of things. So just keep in mind, the more that you do in tandem and in synchronization with the seasons, the better off you're going to be. And fall is the season of harvest. So do everything that you can to harvest everything from the seeds that you planted this past spring.
And with that, we're going to jump into today's episode. I've got such an exciting guest for you guys. I really am really so impressed when they reached out to me about having him as a guest. I said, oh my God, this is incredible. So I've got a very, very, very exciting guest today. You know, he's a, gosh, what's the word to describe it? A Michelangelo. He's one of these guys who just does everything and everything he touches turns to gold. And so I'm so excited to have him. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce Dr. Allen Lycka. Welcome to the show, Dr. Lycka.
Dr. Allen Lycka shares his incredible journey from being misdiagnosed with ALS to discovering he had chronic Lyme disease. This revelation not only saved his life but also transformed his career path. From a world-renowned cosmetic dermatologist, Dr. Lycka is now a thriving leader in personal and professional growth, focusing on lifestyle management and holistic health. He discusses the importance of forgiveness, overcoming adversity, and the power of positivity. Join us as we delve into his inspiring story and explore the profound impact of holistic approaches in medicine.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Good afternoon, this is Dr. David back with a fresh episode of the Fresh Start with Dr.
David podcast. I hope everybody's been doing well.
I don't know about you, but here in the state of Georgia, city of Atlanta.
We've had some interesting weather-related changes.
(00:20):
It went from being extremely hot to extremely rainy, and now fall just came in.
It doesn't usually happen this way, but it's interesting. And if you know me,
if you've listened to any of the episodes of the Fresh Start with Dr.
David podcast, you know that I believe in working through the energy of the seasons.
And so, as you know, fall is the season of harvest.
(00:42):
So now is the time of the year, if you haven't already thought about it,
thinking about harvesting or reaping the benefits of everything you've been
sowing throughout the year. Right.
So this is the time for your harvest. So if you haven't done so already,
start planning and doing the harvest.
And what that means is you're starting to gather together everything that you've
(01:04):
been collecting and creating throughout the year.
So that means if you've been working on stuff, creating stuff,
now is the time to start executing it, activating it, realizing it,
transforming it, and all those kind of things.
So just keep in mind, the more that you do in tandem and in synchronization
(01:25):
with the seasons, the better off you're going to be.
And fall is the season of harvest. So do everything that you can to harvest
everything from the seeds that you planted this past spring.
And with that, we're going to jump in today's episode. I've got such an exciting guest for you guys.
I really am really so impressed when they reached out to me about having him as a guest.
(01:47):
I said, oh my God, this is incredible. incredible so i've got a very very very
exciting guest today you know he's a.
Gosh what's the word to describe it a michelangelo he's one of these guys who
just does everything and everything he touches turns to gold and so i'm so excited
to have him so without further ado i'd like to introduce dr alan like welcome to the show dr like a,
(02:15):
Thank you for having me, Dr. David. It's a pleasure to be here.
Awesome. Awesome. I was so impressed when they reached out to me.
I remember what medical school was like, and I remember what it was like trying
to get residencies in dermatology.
And I remember the people who did, and they were always the people who were the cream of the crop.
So I was already impressed when I saw that you're a world-renowned cosmetic dermatologist.
(02:39):
That was really impressive to me. When we started dermatology,
you know, cosmetic dermatology was just starting.
Uh-huh. You know, I remember when Botox. Oh, wow.
When fillers just started. And the lasers we had when I was in my residency
were very primitive compared to what we have now.
(03:02):
So it was a journey. And, in fact, I was there for all the trends that came
in and all the trends that happened.
Sadly, the person that invented cosmetic Botox, Alistair Grothers,
just passed away this year.
(03:22):
Oh, no. From that Parkinson's disease.
Oh, no. You know, it just shows, you know, 30 years in the battle where I was
there at the forefront of all this and how it was such an exciting thing.
It was barnstorming days as we
created all these wonderful techniques that everybody's using these days.
(03:46):
Yeah. And it's amazing to me, speaking of Botox is the different uses.
You know, I remember when, you know, there were Botox commercial.
Well, number one, considering how long Botox has been around,
as you know, they didn't used to have this many commercials about it.
And now they have so many commercials about it. But now they even have commercials
(04:06):
about using it for migraine headaches,
which totally blows me away that they use a product that was marketed as a dermatology
dermatologic project now as a neurological product to help people with migraine headaches.
And, you know, this is how products start and develop.
They start in one arena, but then they move into others as they're going to
(04:30):
have more and more utility.
You know, a lot of migraines, for example, start from people frowning too much.
An impulse, which causes the migraine to come on. Oh, wow.
(04:52):
See, I learned something new already. And so, and so, wow.
So it's part of a reflex. So that's what it sounds like to me.
If a frown or a facial expression can trigger a headache, then it sounds like
it's part of a reflex arc.
It is, but it's a reflex art that just doesn't stop.
(05:14):
It just keeps feeding on itself.
So that's why you have to break that reflex so it doesn't keep on producing that stimulus.
You know, that's such an incredible way of looking at it.
And I learned something new. I did not know that. So, as you mentioned.
(05:35):
You have been around since the start of it all.
Botox and I guess Restylane and all these other kind of things come into mind.
Looking back at that stuff, looking at kind of the genesis of it,
and we haven't reached an exodus yet.
But when you look at just kind of like the timeline of all those things that
(05:57):
have come along, my mind jumps to things like Restylane.
As you look at some of those products now, what do you think about the utility
or what stood the test of time when it comes to common dermatologic treatments that people use?
Well, you know, I think we are
now at a phase that we can actually reverse aging and we can stop aging.
(06:23):
If people use these products early enough, we simply see aging stop.
So the good news about it is that people do not have to go old gracefully.
They can keep in a state where they want to be.
(06:44):
And the other thing I want to emphasize is this is not plastic surgery.
People who get these procedures done do not look plastic. They do not look phony.
They look natural. Right.
No, absolutely. Absolutely. And before we jump into some of the other things,
(07:06):
let me just, if you don't mind, read a little bit about you,
and hopefully I capture some of it, and I'm going to invite you to share any more.
Guys, I'd just like to read a little bit about Dr. Alan Laika.
Dr. Alan Laika is a retired, world-renowned cosmetic dermatologist,
now thriving as the president and CEO of Dr.
(07:27):
Alan Laika Professional Corp. He is a versatile leader in printing,
media, branding, and public relations, specializing in website development and SEO.
He's also a captivating keynote speaker who organizes impactful workshops workshops,
and retreats focusing on personal and professional growth and development.
(07:49):
His expertise in lifestyle management offers exclusive experiences for people.
As an author, host, mentor, and corporate trainer, Dr.
Laika's dynamic career provides invaluable insights, making him an ideal person
to go to for growth and development.
And then some of the things that they cited as areas of expertise for you were
(08:12):
the power of unlocking forgiveness, transforming a mindset, embracing positivity,
overcoming adversity, and things like that.
So I'm so happy to hear about that.
And what impresses me so much is the versatility, the fact that you went from
a highly specific field like cosmetic dermatology to some of the things that
(08:36):
you're now leading in these days. Yeah.
Well, you know, it starts usually with a person, with a personal story.
And my personal story started in 2003 when I was walking with my dear wife and
my youngest daughter in Disney World, the happiest place on Earth.
(09:00):
And my wife turned to me and she said, what's wrong with you, hon?
You know, for once in my life, I hadn't said anything wrong.
I hadn't even done anything wrong.
I hadn't even thumped anything wrong.
But my wife persisted. She said, what's wrong with you?
And I said, what do you mean what's wrong with me? She said, listen to your foot.
(09:23):
It's floppy. I said, dear, that's the dumbest thing you ever said.
She said, well, listen to it. And my right foot had suddenly and mysteriously
developed the right foot flap.
And it was flapping on the pavement with each and every step I was taking.
(09:46):
Now, she said, did you have a stroke?
I said, dear, you're a doctor. I'm a doctor.
If I had a stroke, I'd be lying on the pavement doing something unintelligible.
Well, she said the words, Dr. David. She said, when we get back,
(10:07):
you better get it checked out.
David, when your significant other gives you that command, what do you do? You do it.
Absolutely. And so when I got that, I started to see friends that were doctors.
And they sent me to more doctors. And they did more doctors.
(10:28):
You know, I... I know where you're going with that. I got brain scans. I got scan scans.
Right. You know what they showed? Right. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Yeah. And you know what doctors do when they get absolutely nothing? Yeah.
They do more tests. Right. They do more tests. Until they find something.
Or if they don't, they send you to a specialist that's going to figure it out.
(10:52):
Right. So they sent me to a world-leading neurologist, the brain guy.
The guy who has all the answers to all the brain questions.
And I walked in, and he said, hi. And I said, hi, bat. He said,
you better be sitting down when I tell you this. I said, why?
I got a drop right foot. He said, no, you don't. You have ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease.
(11:16):
Get your affairs in order. You're going to be dead in six months. Oh, my God. Wow.
So I said, is there a way to prove this diagnosis? And he said, sure, on autopsy.
Right, right. I was about to say, it's a diagnosis of exclusion.
And I said, no, I'm not going to die to prove you wrong.
(11:38):
You know, you go through anger when this happens.
You're angry at the world. I was angry at my wife. I was angry at my dog.
I was angry at my children.
I was angry at my patients.
But I couldn't share with them what was going on.
They abandoned me. You go through bargaining.
(12:00):
Oh, God, please don't let this happen. I'll do anything if you don't let this happen.
You go through denial. There's nothing wrong. I can do anything.
But you know, I had a dropped right foot. And then my right hand started becoming non-functioning.
And I couldn't do the things with my right hand that I used to do.
(12:20):
And you know i was smart i became
a left-handed surgeon and you know as
a doctor when you're right-handed to transfer
to becoming left-handed yeah that's pretty
hard that's incredible yeah that's amazing and then you know you go through
depression david have you ever been depressed absolutely absolutely especially
(12:43):
when dealing with the stages of grief like you mentioned denial and bargaining
and anger and all those kind of things all those straight stages of grief,
yeah and and when you go through that that's that
depression you can't eat you can't sleep right you can't do anything right so
you you want to end it all i mean if you need alf yeah people stop breathing
(13:09):
and they drown in their own secretions yeah and i wasn't going to let that happen.
So I had a plan, but before I killed myself, I went to my wife and said, dear, what do I have?
And she said, I haven't got the faintest idea, but you're smart. You'll figure it out.
Well, I said, I've seen thousands of doctors. How can I figure it out?
(13:31):
She said, you probably haven't seen the proper doctor yet.
So back in the early 2000s, something new was at best. You might have heard
of it. It's called the internet.
Yes. You ever hear of that beat? I remember when it came out.
I remember when the internet came out. When I was in high school and college.
(13:51):
Yeah, and it was so primitive when it first came out. Yes. You had dial-on connections.
Yeah. You had to put your phone in a cradle, and then it would go,
re-eh, re-eh. CompuSurf.
For 15 minutes until it got to the other side.
Yeah, CompuSurf. You couldn't communicate like we do now with keyboard at the terminal.
Right. You had to use a primitive language called DOS to get to the other side.
(14:17):
Wow. And you had to have friends to serve the world because you couldn't figure
it out otherwise. So I had friends.
They helped me. And we found a doctor in Colorado Springs, Colorado by the name of David Martz.
And David had a story very similar to mine. What's his name?
(14:37):
He got worse much more rapidly.
What's his name? His name was David Martz. Okay. David Martz.
Okay. And he got worse much more rapidly. but
he was so well known everybody was
coming to say goodbye to david okay and the doctor came up from texas looked
at david and said i don't think you have alf i don't think you have lou garrick's
(15:00):
disease right david said and he whispered what do i have the doctor said you've
You've got chronic Lyme disease.
You've been... Wow. Wow. Mimicking it. Wow.
So we started David on treatment. David got rapidly better.
Within two weeks, he was back to his normal self.
(15:22):
Wow. Two weeks? So I knew I had to get in touch with David. That's amazing. Yeah, two weeks.
He was from his deathbed to back to normal, just like Lazarus rising from the dead. So I...
I got in touch with him. He said, can you come down and see me? And I did.
And he started me on treatment. And that's why I was able to be here.
(15:45):
Wow. After all these years, and able to do all these amazing things.
But that's where you have to start forgiving.
Yeah. You know, the doctor who diagnosed me as ALS messed up. Right. Definitely did.
Right. But if you carry around that hate with you, it's like drinking poison
(16:09):
and expecting the other person to die.
That's absolutely stupid.
What do you do? You need to stop that.
And if you don't stop it, you're never going to grow.
You're never going to get back to where you were. And that's where you start
(16:31):
seeing things in a different way and start realizing that life is much bigger
than you'd ever imagine.
You know, I said, look, I can help people with all these cosmetic procedures,
but I'm working on the outside and I need to work on the inside.
(16:52):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.
And it's so it's so funny because I don't believe that things happen in life by accident.
It's so funny because as soon as someone recommended about having you as a guest
on the show, I was like dermatologist.
And I thought about an experience that I had back in 2014 where I went.
I my skin was itching all the time out of nowhere and my scalp was itching.
(17:16):
And I went from dermatologist to dermatologist to dermatologist to dermatologist to dermatologist.
I mean, I saw them. I saw bunches of them. I even saw a couple of infectious
disease doctors and nobody could find anything wrong.
And then finally, the last couple, not the last one I saw, but the one before
that was said something about, oh, this is this is delusional parasitosis.
(17:38):
And I said, this is not delusional parasitosis. This is not in my head.
This exists. And eventually I was able to find out what it was and how to deal
with it and how to treat it.
And it minimally affects me now. But I remember how I felt when that dermatologist
tried to say that it was in my head.
(17:59):
And I was so, I mean, I was fuming mad. I was fuming mad right there in his
office when he said that.
And, you know, this is what I call lazy dermatologist syndrome,
where you literally don't do it proper.
You do it because you figure you need to, you figure you'll get them out of your office, you know.
(18:25):
You'll literally get rid of them. But you don't, a dermatologist shouldn't be
trying to make people feel bad. They should literally look for the cause.
And, you know, there is always a bit of psychological overlay.
That doesn't mean it's the cause. out. Right.
(18:48):
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Now I was, I was so upset and I mean,
and you know, the thing about it is I had to work through that.
And then finally, you know, I got to the reason for it and understood it and,
you know, came up basically with my own way of treating it and all that kind
of stuff based off of things that I found online and things like that.
(19:08):
But it was so interesting.
And not only that, but when I was in medical school, I also had a friend of mine who's now a nurse.
And she was having all these just terrible stomach episodes where out of nowhere,
her stomach would just start just really, really these cramps that were debilitating.
(19:29):
And some of the professors and other people were saying, oh,
she's just trying to get out of exams and things like that.
And she went to doctors everywhere.
She went to doctors at Emory. She She went to this clinic and that clinic and
all these places and racked up all this debt.
Wasn't able to graduate from medical school and things like that.
(19:50):
And finally, she went to her mother's primary care physician in California.
And he said, you know what? I have a hunch about this. He ran some tests.
And you know what he came back and said she had?
What? Lyme disease.
Yeah. $60,000 worth of medical bills and about 13 doctors later.
(20:11):
And now she has permanent damage because of it. Yeah. Lyme disease is ubiquitous.
And it mimics a lot of diseases. Yeah.
You know, and the big problem with doctors is they don't think of it in their
differential diagnosis.
Right. They don't think of it as a possibility.
(20:32):
And so it gets overlooked because they literally don't try and figure out that part of the puzzle.
Yeah. And the thing that saddens me about it is, you know, in my practices,
you know, I have I have holistic mental health and wellness practices and holistic
health and wellness practices.
But I, you know, part of my job is looking at everybody as a unique individual.
(20:56):
Nobody's a chart number. Nobody's a medical record number. Every single person is an individual.
And I look outside the box and I ask if I can't come up with answers,
I don't just run more tests or do more things based off the data I have.
I collect more data. I search for more answers. And usually when I search for
(21:16):
more answers or better answers, I usually get them.
But so many doctors use the same framework and you go to 20 different doctors
and not a single one of them thinks outside the box.
They run the same test. They do the same differentials and everything's exactly
the same. And it's almost as if you went.
To four, ten robots expecting different things and you get the same answer when
(21:40):
they all use the same algorithms.
And that's the thing, is that medicine is one of those things where a doctor
gets an educated yes and tries to put it,
because diseases don't jump up and down and let you know what they are.
(22:00):
Right. You have to figure them out. Right.
Absolutely. You know, and, you know, in addition to that, too,
it's, you know, to me, there's some Socratic method involved.
There's some process that you use, and if that doesn't work,
then you have to go outside of that.
And so, but, you know, the thing about it is when that happens to a patient,
(22:23):
so many patients just completely lose all trust and belief in our healthcare system.
And you know and it's understandable if you're given a diagnosis that's a death sentence or,
and told that there's nothing you can do about it or the opposite where you've
got this debilitating condition and somebody says oh no it's in your head just
(22:43):
you know the thinking about what that does to somebody you know desperation
is the first word that comes to mind for me absolutely Absolutely.
People have to realize that people do make mistakes and people do.
But as I say, I find that sometimes the medical model is limited in what it can do.
(23:09):
And a lot of it's got to do with the way that health care pays for that.
Absolutely. All doctors are given 10 minutes to figure out what they have. That is true.
That's one of my problems that I talk about in my introductory episodes of my
podcast is about how we expect a system that's driven by money to come up with healing.
(23:36):
To me, it totally makes sense that a lot of times it misses the mark.
Going back to your personal story, so after you were treated,
your symptoms, did they resolve as well, like the other physician, like Dr. Martz?
Well, you know, I still have a dropped right foot. Okay. I require a break.
(24:01):
Okay. I still have a weak right hand, but you know, all things are controlled.
Yeah. Like many things that are chronic, you can't always cure them.
You only can control them. And that's the phase I'm in.
And, you know, as long as I do the things that are right for me,
(24:22):
as long as I take the right medications, I do fine.
Absolutely. So let's move forward and talk about some of the other things that,
because of that experience, that you now do.
So tell me a little bit about those things, the things that you do now.
You know, what I found is, you know, I moved away from cosmetic surgery in 2019.
(24:45):
Just people in the pandemic. Good time to move away from it because you know what happened to that?
Good afternoon, this is Dr. David back with a fresh episode of the Fresh Start with Dr.
David podcast. I hope everybody's been doing well.
I don't know about you, but here in the state of Georgia, city of Atlanta.
We've had some interesting weather-related changes.
(00:20):
It went from being extremely hot to extremely rainy, and now fall just came in.
It doesn't usually happen this way, but it's interesting. And if you know me,
if you've listened to any of the episodes of the Fresh Start with Dr.
David podcast, you know that I believe in working through the energy of the seasons.
And so, as you know, fall is the season of harvest.
(00:42):
So now is the time of the year, if you haven't already thought about it,
thinking about harvesting or reaping the benefits of everything you've been
sowing throughout the year. Right.
So this is the time for your harvest. So if you haven't done so already,
start planning and doing the harvest.
And what that means is you're starting to gather together everything that you've
(01:04):
been collecting and creating throughout the year.
So that means if you've been working on stuff, creating stuff,
now is the time to start executing it, activating it, realizing it,
transforming it, and all those kind of things.
So just keep in mind, the more that you do in tandem and in synchronization
(01:25):
with the seasons, the better off you're going to be.
And fall is the season of harvest. So do everything that you can to harvest
everything from the seeds that you planted this past spring.
And with that, we're going to jump in today's episode. I've got such an exciting guest for you guys.
I really am really so impressed when they reached out to me about having him as a guest.
(01:47):
I said, oh my God, this is incredible. incredible so i've got a very very very
exciting guest today you know he's a.
Gosh what's the word to describe it a michelangelo he's one of these guys who
just does everything and everything he touches turns to gold and so i'm so excited
to have him so without further ado i'd like to introduce dr alan like welcome to the show dr like a,
(02:15):
Thank you for having me, Dr. David. It's a pleasure to be here.
Awesome. Awesome. I was so impressed when they reached out to me.
I remember what medical school was like, and I remember what it was like trying
to get residencies in dermatology.
And I remember the people who did, and they were always the people who were the cream of the crop.
So I was already impressed when I saw that you're a world-renowned cosmetic dermatologist.
(02:39):
That was really impressive to me. When we started dermatology,
you know, cosmetic dermatology was just starting.
Uh-huh. You know, I remember when Botox. Oh, wow.
When fillers just started. And the lasers we had when I was in my residency
were very primitive compared to what we have now.
(03:02):
So it was a journey. And, in fact, I was there for all the trends that came
in and all the trends that happened.
Sadly, the person that invented cosmetic Botox, Alistair Grothers,
just passed away this year.
(03:22):
Oh, no. From that Parkinson's disease.
Oh, no. You know, it just shows, you know, 30 years in the battle where I was
there at the forefront of all this and how it was such an exciting thing.
It was barnstorming days as we
created all these wonderful techniques that everybody's using these days.
(03:46):
Yeah. And it's amazing to me, speaking of Botox is the different uses.
You know, I remember when, you know, there were Botox commercial.
Well, number one, considering how long Botox has been around,
as you know, they didn't used to have this many commercials about it.
And now they have so many commercials about it. But now they even have commercials
(04:06):
about using it for migraine headaches,
which totally blows me away that they use a product that was marketed as a dermatology
dermatologic project now as a neurological product to help people with migraine headaches.
And, you know, this is how products start and develop.
They start in one arena, but then they move into others as they're going to
(04:30):
have more and more utility.
You know, a lot of migraines, for example, start from people frowning too much.
An impulse, which causes the migraine to come on. Oh, wow.
(04:52):
See, I learned something new already. And so, and so, wow.
So it's part of a reflex. So that's what it sounds like to me.
If a frown or a facial expression can trigger a headache, then it sounds like
it's part of a reflex arc.
It is, but it's a reflex art that just doesn't stop.
(05:14):
It just keeps feeding on itself.
So that's why you have to break that reflex so it doesn't keep on producing that stimulus.
You know, that's such an incredible way of looking at it.
And I learned something new. I did not know that. So, as you mentioned.
(05:35):
You have been around since the start of it all.
Botox and I guess Restylane and all these other kind of things come into mind.
Looking back at that stuff, looking at kind of the genesis of it,
and we haven't reached an exodus yet.
But when you look at just kind of like the timeline of all those things that
(05:57):
have come along, my mind jumps to things like Restylane.
As you look at some of those products now, what do you think about the utility
or what stood the test of time when it comes to common dermatologic treatments that people use?
Well, you know, I think we are
now at a phase that we can actually reverse aging and we can stop aging.
(06:23):
If people use these products early enough, we simply see aging stop.
So the good news about it is that people do not have to go old gracefully.
They can keep in a state where they want to be.
(06:44):
And the other thing I want to emphasize is this is not plastic surgery.
People who get these procedures done do not look plastic. They do not look phony.
They look natural. Right.
No, absolutely. Absolutely. And before we jump into some of the other things,
(07:06):
let me just, if you don't mind, read a little bit about you,
and hopefully I capture some of it, and I'm going to invite you to share any more.
Guys, I'd just like to read a little bit about Dr. Alan Laika.
Dr. Alan Laika is a retired, world-renowned cosmetic dermatologist,
now thriving as the president and CEO of Dr.
(07:27):
Alan Laika Professional Corp. He is a versatile leader in printing,
media, branding, and public relations, specializing in website development and SEO.
He's also a captivating keynote speaker who organizes impactful workshops workshops,
and retreats focusing on personal and professional growth and development.
(07:49):
His expertise in lifestyle management offers exclusive experiences for people.
As an author, host, mentor, and corporate trainer, Dr.
Laika's dynamic career provides invaluable insights, making him an ideal person
to go to for growth and development.
And then some of the things that they cited as areas of expertise for you were
(08:12):
the power of unlocking forgiveness, transforming a mindset, embracing positivity,
overcoming adversity, and things like that.
So I'm so happy to hear about that.
And what impresses me so much is the versatility, the fact that you went from
a highly specific field like cosmetic dermatology to some of the things that
(08:36):
you're now leading in these days. Yeah.
Well, you know, it starts usually with a person, with a personal story.
And my personal story started in 2003 when I was walking with my dear wife and
my youngest daughter in Disney World, the happiest place on Earth.
(09:00):
And my wife turned to me and she said, what's wrong with you, hon?
You know, for once in my life, I hadn't said anything wrong.
I hadn't even done anything wrong.
I hadn't even thumped anything wrong.
But my wife persisted. She said, what's wrong with you?
And I said, what do you mean what's wrong with me? She said, listen to your foot.
(09:23):
It's floppy. I said, dear, that's the dumbest thing you ever said.
She said, well, listen to it. And my right foot had suddenly and mysteriously
developed the right foot flap.
And it was flapping on the pavement with each and every step I was taking.
(09:46):
Now, she said, did you have a stroke?
I said, dear, you're a doctor. I'm a doctor.
If I had a stroke, I'd be lying on the pavement doing something unintelligible.
Well, she said the words, Dr. David. She said, when we get back,
(10:07):
you better get it checked out.
David, when your significant other gives you that command, what do you do? You do it.
Absolutely. And so when I got that, I started to see friends that were doctors.
And they sent me to more doctors. And they did more doctors.
(10:28):
You know, I... I know where you're going with that. I got brain scans. I got scan scans.
Right. You know what they showed? Right. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Yeah. And you know what doctors do when they get absolutely nothing? Yeah.
They do more tests. Right. They do more tests. Until they find something.
Or if they don't, they send you to a specialist that's going to figure it out.
(10:52):
Right. So they sent me to a world-leading neurologist, the brain guy.
The guy who has all the answers to all the brain questions.
And I walked in, and he said, hi. And I said, hi, bat. He said,
you better be sitting down when I tell you this. I said, why?
I got a drop right foot. He said, no, you don't. You have ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease.
(11:16):
Get your affairs in order. You're going to be dead in six months. Oh, my God. Wow.
So I said, is there a way to prove this diagnosis? And he said, sure, on autopsy.
Right, right. I was about to say, it's a diagnosis of exclusion.
And I said, no, I'm not going to die to prove you wrong.
(11:38):
You know, you go through anger when this happens.
You're angry at the world. I was angry at my wife. I was angry at my dog.
I was angry at my children.
I was angry at my patients.
But I couldn't share with them what was going on.
They abandoned me. You go through bargaining.
(12:00):
Oh, God, please don't let this happen. I'll do anything if you don't let this happen.
You go through denial. There's nothing wrong. I can do anything.
But you know, I had a dropped right foot. And then my right hand started becoming non-functioning.
And I couldn't do the things with my right hand that I used to do.
(12:20):
And you know i was smart i became
a left-handed surgeon and you know as
a doctor when you're right-handed to transfer
to becoming left-handed yeah that's pretty
hard that's incredible yeah that's amazing and then you know you go through
depression david have you ever been depressed absolutely absolutely especially
(12:43):
when dealing with the stages of grief like you mentioned denial and bargaining
and anger and all those kind of things all those straight stages of grief,
yeah and and when you go through that that's that
depression you can't eat you can't sleep right you can't do anything right so
you you want to end it all i mean if you need alf yeah people stop breathing
(13:09):
and they drown in their own secretions yeah and i wasn't going to let that happen.
So I had a plan, but before I killed myself, I went to my wife and said, dear, what do I have?
And she said, I haven't got the faintest idea, but you're smart. You'll figure it out.
Well, I said, I've seen thousands of doctors. How can I figure it out?
(13:31):
She said, you probably haven't seen the proper doctor yet.
So back in the early 2000s, something new was at best. You might have heard
of it. It's called the internet.
Yes. You ever hear of that beat? I remember when it came out.
I remember when the internet came out. When I was in high school and college.
(13:51):
Yeah, and it was so primitive when it first came out. Yes. You had dial-on connections.
Yeah. You had to put your phone in a cradle, and then it would go,
re-eh, re-eh. CompuSurf.
For 15 minutes until it got to the other side.
Yeah, CompuSurf. You couldn't communicate like we do now with keyboard at the terminal.
Right. You had to use a primitive language called DOS to get to the other side.
(14:17):
Wow. And you had to have friends to serve the world because you couldn't figure
it out otherwise. So I had friends.
They helped me. And we found a doctor in Colorado Springs, Colorado by the name of David Martz.
And David had a story very similar to mine. What's his name?
(14:37):
He got worse much more rapidly.
What's his name? His name was David Martz. Okay. David Martz.
Okay. And he got worse much more rapidly. but
he was so well known everybody was
coming to say goodbye to david okay and the doctor came up from texas looked
at david and said i don't think you have alf i don't think you have lou garrick's
(15:00):
disease right david said and he whispered what do i have the doctor said you've
You've got chronic Lyme disease.
You've been... Wow. Wow. Mimicking it. Wow.
So we started David on treatment. David got rapidly better.
Within two weeks, he was back to his normal self.
(15:22):
Wow. Two weeks? So I knew I had to get in touch with David. That's amazing. Yeah, two weeks.
He was from his deathbed to back to normal, just like Lazarus rising from the dead. So I...
I got in touch with him. He said, can you come down and see me? And I did.
And he started me on treatment. And that's why I was able to be here.
(15:45):
Wow. After all these years, and able to do all these amazing things.
But that's where you have to start forgiving.
Yeah. You know, the doctor who diagnosed me as ALS messed up. Right. Definitely did.
Right. But if you carry around that hate with you, it's like drinking poison
(16:09):
and expecting the other person to die.
That's absolutely stupid.
What do you do? You need to stop that.
And if you don't stop it, you're never going to grow.
You're never going to get back to where you were. And that's where you start
(16:31):
seeing things in a different way and start realizing that life is much bigger
than you'd ever imagine.
You know, I said, look, I can help people with all these cosmetic procedures,
but I'm working on the outside and I need to work on the inside.
(16:52):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.
And it's so it's so funny because I don't believe that things happen in life by accident.
It's so funny because as soon as someone recommended about having you as a guest
on the show, I was like dermatologist.
And I thought about an experience that I had back in 2014 where I went.
I my skin was itching all the time out of nowhere and my scalp was itching.
(17:16):
And I went from dermatologist to dermatologist to dermatologist to dermatologist to dermatologist.
I mean, I saw them. I saw bunches of them. I even saw a couple of infectious
disease doctors and nobody could find anything wrong.
And then finally, the last couple, not the last one I saw, but the one before
that was said something about, oh, this is this is delusional parasitosis.
(17:38):
And I said, this is not delusional parasitosis. This is not in my head.
This exists. And eventually I was able to find out what it was and how to deal
with it and how to treat it.
And it minimally affects me now. But I remember how I felt when that dermatologist
tried to say that it was in my head.
(17:59):
And I was so, I mean, I was fuming mad. I was fuming mad right there in his
office when he said that.
And, you know, this is what I call lazy dermatologist syndrome,
where you literally don't do it proper.
You do it because you figure you need to, you figure you'll get them out of your office, you know.
(18:25):
You'll literally get rid of them. But you don't, a dermatologist shouldn't be
trying to make people feel bad. They should literally look for the cause.
And, you know, there is always a bit of psychological overlay.
That doesn't mean it's the cause. out. Right.
(18:48):
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Now I was, I was so upset and I mean,
and you know, the thing about it is I had to work through that.
And then finally, you know, I got to the reason for it and understood it and,
you know, came up basically with my own way of treating it and all that kind
of stuff based off of things that I found online and things like that.
(19:08):
But it was so interesting.
And not only that, but when I was in medical school, I also had a friend of mine who's now a nurse.
And she was having all these just terrible stomach episodes where out of nowhere,
her stomach would just start just really, really these cramps that were debilitating.
(19:29):
And some of the professors and other people were saying, oh,
she's just trying to get out of exams and things like that.
And she went to doctors everywhere.
She went to doctors at Emory. She She went to this clinic and that clinic and
all these places and racked up all this debt.
Wasn't able to graduate from medical school and things like that.
(19:50):
And finally, she went to her mother's primary care physician in California.
And he said, you know what? I have a hunch about this. He ran some tests.
And you know what he came back and said she had?
What? Lyme disease.
Yeah. $60,000 worth of medical bills and about 13 doctors later.
(20:11):
And now she has permanent damage because of it. Yeah. Lyme disease is ubiquitous.
And it mimics a lot of diseases. Yeah.
You know, and the big problem with doctors is they don't think of it in their
differential diagnosis.
Right. They don't think of it as a possibility.
(20:32):
And so it gets overlooked because they literally don't try and figure out that part of the puzzle.
Yeah. And the thing that saddens me about it is, you know, in my practices,
you know, I have I have holistic mental health and wellness practices and holistic
health and wellness practices.
But I, you know, part of my job is looking at everybody as a unique individual.
(20:56):
Nobody's a chart number. Nobody's a medical record number. Every single person is an individual.
And I look outside the box and I ask if I can't come up with answers,
I don't just run more tests or do more things based off the data I have.
I collect more data. I search for more answers. And usually when I search for
(21:16):
more answers or better answers, I usually get them.
But so many doctors use the same framework and you go to 20 different doctors
and not a single one of them thinks outside the box.
They run the same test. They do the same differentials and everything's exactly
the same. And it's almost as if you went.
To four, ten robots expecting different things and you get the same answer when
(21:40):
they all use the same algorithms.
And that's the thing, is that medicine is one of those things where a doctor
gets an educated yes and tries to put it,
because diseases don't jump up and down and let you know what they are.
(22:00):
Right. You have to figure them out. Right.
Absolutely. You know, and, you know, in addition to that, too,
it's, you know, to me, there's some Socratic method involved.
There's some process that you use, and if that doesn't work,
then you have to go outside of that.
And so, but, you know, the thing about it is when that happens to a patient,
(22:23):
so many patients just completely lose all trust and belief in our healthcare system.
And you know and it's understandable if you're given a diagnosis that's a death sentence or,
and told that there's nothing you can do about it or the opposite where you've
got this debilitating condition and somebody says oh no it's in your head just
(22:43):
you know the thinking about what that does to somebody you know desperation
is the first word that comes to mind for me absolutely Absolutely.
People have to realize that people do make mistakes and people do.
But as I say, I find that sometimes the medical model is limited in what it can do.
(23:09):
And a lot of it's got to do with the way that health care pays for that.
Absolutely. All doctors are given 10 minutes to figure out what they have. That is true.
That's one of my problems that I talk about in my introductory episodes of my
podcast is about how we expect a system that's driven by money to come up with healing.
(23:36):
To me, it totally makes sense that a lot of times it misses the mark.
Going back to your personal story, so after you were treated,
your symptoms, did they resolve as well, like the other physician, like Dr. Martz?
Well, you know, I still have a dropped right foot. Okay. I require a break.
(24:01):
Okay. I still have a weak right hand, but you know, all things are controlled.
Yeah. Like many things that are chronic, you can't always cure them.
You only can control them. And that's the phase I'm in.
And, you know, as long as I do the things that are right for me,
(24:22):
as long as I take the right medications, I do fine.
Absolutely. So let's move forward and talk about some of the other things that,
because of that experience, that you now do.
So tell me a little bit about those things, the things that you do now.
You know, what I found is, you know, I moved away from cosmetic surgery in 2019.
(24:45):
Just people in the pandemic. Good time to move away from it because you know what happened to that?
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