MEDICINE THROUGH HISTORY: WHY TRADITIONAL MEDICINE IS THE MODERN MEDICINE WE DESERVE

Aug 10

A vintage-style illustration with a woman smiling and pointing upwards towards a smiling face, both outlined in white, set against a background of palm leaves and a light-colored world map. The text reads "Medicine Through History."

Why the future of healthcare might be thousands of years old.

Ever wonder why getting comprehensive healthcare feels like assembling a jigsaw puzzle blindfolded? Or why you need seventeen different specialists who never talk to each other, each knowing everything about your left ovary but nothing about how it connects to, well, you?

There's a wild story behind this medical maze — and I think an ah-mazing plot twist that’ll blow your mind.

When medicine actually made sense.

Picture this. Before the 1500s, medicine had two "radical" ideas that seem revolutionary today.

1 — Mind and body weren’t separate. The thought that your emotions could be disconnected from your digestion would have seemed as absurd as suggesting your heart could beat independently of your blood.

2 — Everything is connected to everything else. Traditional Chinese Medicine observed that digestive energy doesn't just break down food. It also processes emotions, generates immune defenses, and influences fifty other functions. No microscope needed. Just careful observation of actual humans.

Here's the kicker. Modern science now proves they were right. We now know 90% of mood-regulating serotonin comes from the gut. Our intestinal lining produces crucial immune antibodies. The ancient healers didn't need peer-reviewed studies — they just watched, connected dots, and created treatments that worked.

The great medical breakup.

Then came the Scientific Revolution. Microscopes revealed germs! Dissection mapped anatomy! We eventually gained antibiotics that save millions of lives! Vaccines, X-Rays, MRIs, and EKGs — huzzah!

But we also gained something else: the most expensive divorce in history.

René Descartes officially separated the mind from the body in his concept of dualism. Scientists got the body, and the Church got the mind. And I mean literally that science got the body and the church got the mind. Medical students removed heads from cadavers and handed them over to religious authorities.

Yes, this actually happened.

What started as philosophical became institutionalized into “modern” medicine. Science and medicine kept examining smaller and smaller pieces in greater and greater detail, losing sight of how anything connected to anything else — especially the mind.

The specialist explosion.

Fast forward to today's medical crazy-making. We don't just have a fertility doctor — we have an endocrinologist for your “non-reproductive hormones” (spoiler alert, all hormones influence your reproductive health), doctors for your “reproductive hormones” (aka a reproductive endocrinologist), and doctors for pregnancies and pap-smears (OBGYNs and Midwives).

We also have separate mental health providers if we happen to have anxiety or depression along the way. Each provider knows tremendous detail about their piece, but none see the whole picture or connect any of the whole person dots.

And speaking of mental health providers. About, 300 years into "modern medicine,” some people wanted something different than the church to take care of the mind. Enter psychology! When it officially entered the pre-fragmented medical landscape, it immediate got relegated to a "less legitimate" status. Mental health remains stigmatized in ways physical health never is. Insurance barely covers it, and the artificial mind-body split becomes deeper than ever.

This is A) ridiculous, B) frustrating, C) terrible, or D) ALL of the above. I think we’re going with D.

A modern plot twist.

Now here's where I think things get suuuuper duuuuper cool.

For the last 10-ish years, reductionist research methods are constantly proving holistic medicine was right all along!

fMRIs show how emotions change your brain activity. Blood tests reveal how stress affects body inflammation. EEG’s measure how anxiety disrupts sleep. And suddenly everyone's talking about "revolutionary" approaches like treating the whole person and addressing root causes.

Revolutionary? Ancient healers are probably chuckling from their graves.

The retrofit problem.

But here's our challenge. When it comes to mainstream care, we're now stuck trying to retrofit holistic principles into a medical system designed for the exact opposite.

It's like trying to build a house where the plumber, electrician, drywallers, and framing crew all build only their part of the house, then expect the homeowner to magically put them all together into a beautiful functioning house. It’s bonkers! Today’s medical infrastructure — specialist referrals, brief symptom-focused appointments, compartmentalized insurance, lack of time or training on patient education, mental health, or integrated collaborative care — makes whole-person care nearly impossible.

(I’m sensing there should be some clever image of a toilet in the middle of a living room without a roof here. But picture your own version — you get the idea!)

Functional Medicine: The well-meaning detour.

Enter functional medicine with its admirable goals! Get to root causes! Connect mind and body! Treat the whole person! It sounds good right?!

The irony is breathtaking.

Functional medicine tries to achieve holistic goals using the very reductionist methods that created the problem.

Their solution? Go even smaller. Hour-by-hour saliva samples and cortisol tests. Comprehensive stool analysis. Hair mineral panels. Organic acids testing. Their promise? More detailed data will reveal the missing connections.

And the result? Patients leave with protocols requiring dozens of supplements, complex timing schedules, and dietary restrictions so overwhelming they'd challenge a NASA mission planner. In attempting to reduce a patient’s stress, the functional medicine treatment often creates the exact opposite: overwhelm, anxiety, and a lifestyle so regimented it undermines the very mind-body health it's meant to restore.

TCM: The elegant solution that never lost its way.

This is why I’m so excited to be doing Traditional Chinese medicine (that’s TCM) in this moment in time. Like, maybe too excited.

I’m a science nerd folks. And I LOVE mind-body science. I also like complicated, interconnected sudoku-level whole person stuff. Give me a person who has a laundry list of mental and physical things and I’m in my element!

TCM doesn't need to reverse-engineer connections because it never lost them. A Chinese acupuncture treatment or herbal formula isn't one needle or one herb for each complaint. It's a carefully balanced prescription addressing your unique constitutional pattern. Acupuncture doesn't place needles to fix isolated symptoms — it works with your body's energetic patterns to restore its overall balance.

I don't need to suggest $500 in tests and $600 monthly supplement protocols. Or crazy making whack-a-mole lifestyle rules. I can help people feel dramatically better using medicine that has always operated on whole-person, mind-body, multi-systemic principles, and has been refining these approaches for thousands of years.

It’s moderate. It’s intuitive. It works.

My assessment is pattern recognition based on seeing the whole you — including things that your doctor will never touch: like financial stress, relationship dynamics, childhood trauma, work-life balance, and having joy and hobbies! My treatment addresses root energetic imbalances that manifest across multiple systems simultaneously. The approach creates a calm, balanced state that actually supports healing rather than the stressed, overwhelmed state that undermines it.

My mic drop moment.

Here's the remarkable truth I can barely contain. In this moment of medical history, the most evidence-based approach is often the oldest approach.

Sure, you may need antibiotics if you get strep throat and you totally should get a cast if you break your leg. Yay for modern medicine! (Have I told you how many times it has truly saved my life? At least three!) But when it comes to most multi-systemic, whole-person medical concerns, TCM gets way better outcomes, faster, without sacrificing one system for another, or trading physical health for mental wellbeing. It provides exactly what our current medical moment (especially when it comes to things like fertility) demands: comprehensive, scientifically-supported care that honors both modern advancement and human wholeness.

This isn't about abandoning modern medicine. It's about understanding what each does best.

Mainstream medicine excels at acute care and stabilizing critical systems. But for the vast majority of health concerns — chronic conditions, subclinical imbalances, complex multi-systemic issues that make up most of what people struggle with — holistic approaches that never lost sight of these connections offers something our fragmented system simply cannot.

The future of medicine that's actually the past.

So I probably sound like a broken record by now, but I really want you to leave here with this idea firmly front of mind. The "revolutionary" healthcare of tomorrow might just be the wisdom of yesterday, enhanced by our modern understanding, but not limited by our modern constraints.

What seemed impossible is becoming inevitable. Medicine that treats humans as the complex, interconnected, mind-body beings we've always been.

And if you’re ready to experience what healthcare looks like when everything connects, I’m your gal! My 90-day The Baby You Want online fertility course even has an entire module that breaks down your unique whole person TCM patterns and what to do about them. Or if you’re in the Twin Cities, reach out for a visit. Wherever you are you can explore my podcast episodes, Fertility Freebies, and YouTube videos on TBYW TV. There’s so many ways to get back to the best options to get where you want to go.

Okay, I have to go relax. I got so pumped up. I hope my enthusiasm starts a real sea change. Let’s go!

Practicing ancient wisdom in these modern times,

Nicole