Beyond ADHD A Physicians Perspective: Dr. Laxmi Naiki

Dr. Laxmi Naiki: realized that I am wired for addiction and that's a higher risk with ADD it wasn. Drugs per se, but my addictions tend to be typically work and food and perhaps impulse control shopping, things like that, that I didn't realize was part of the whole diagnosis. And I don't even, the word addiction is a little bit of a stigma for me, but it was in a sense that it was overwhelmingly doing it.

It wasn't just a habit. It wasn't just oh, I'm just shopping extra on a Friday night, it was like real. Hello? Hello.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Welcome to beyond ADHD. A physician's perspective. I am Dr. Deanna mage. I'm a family medicine physician practicing in rural Texas. I used to be hindered by my. ADHD, but I now see it as a gift that helps me show up as a person. I was always meant to be both in my work and in my personal life. In the past two years, I've come to realize. That unlearning some of my beliefs and some of my habits were just as important as learning the new set of skills. I'm excited to share all these.

Okay. So I am so excited today. We are gonna be talking all things holistic, so it's fun to talk about this topic. And I have a dear friend of mine here to talk about it and it's Dr. Lak NA and I might butcher that. So she'll help me out in a second. She is an ER physician and she's been actually practicing holistic medicine since 2015. And so I am so excited to have her come in and explain what her journey.

Been like, and she is from Atlanta, Georgia, or she's currently in Atlanta, Georgia. So yeah, this is gonna be such a good treat for everybody in Atlanta who can reach out to her and start to heal and start to integrate your health in a different way. Thank you. And please tell us your names.

So if I messed it up

Dr. Laxmi Naiki: so it's Lak and I practice in Georgia and our. My practice is spectrum integrative help. And, we take a really holistic approach to the healing, the journey for the person and specifically for a D there's so many different things that I had to learn about as I was healing, because, I self-diagnosed myself.

Back in, I think it was like 2010 when I started noticing just aspects of my personality. Whether it was impulse control issues, whether it was working memory, whether it was me being able to complete a task, but then unable to complete it. Or I add, I have a project on my plate and then I keep adding 20 more before the first one's done.

Classic. And just, I struggled with sleep. I was having definitely struggling, in relationships, boundaries, so many various different things that I just didn't understand what it was and I'm a physician. So [00:03:00] it was really, and eye opener and I started just looking up stuff.

And then, of course I researched came across the word D. And I started looking, reading more and more about it. And then I said, how do I start my healing journey? And I had other medical issues for which I went into the, holistic approach of healing. But only to find out that I think like 60, 70% of ER, physicians have a D D.

Our comorbid it's very high. Daniel Amman is the guru in add, and he talks about how ER, docs are perfect for the job, but at the same time, cuz you have this high stimulus, like encounters with people and then you go from test to test it really fast and before one task is completed, you move to the next.

So it's perfect for me. Like it's almost like it was drawn or calling. They should just call E. Add people apply, but but yeah, just through the whole process, really figured myself out and in a much different place now, a decade later.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So what did you think when you first realized, oh, this might be [00:04:00] a D like, were you surprised?

Were you like relieved? Were you like ashamed? What did you.

Dr. Laxmi Naiki: It's probably a combination of everything. I was overwhelmed cuz I'm like, oh my gosh, what do I do now? Sure. The Western approach is here's your prescription pill, your, Adderall or Vivance or whatever you wanna write.

Sure. But the, I was looking for approaches to say, okay, this is what I have. We all have something probably. Yeah. And I'm not a big person for labels, but let's. The issues that come with it. And I was overwhelmed. I was just and that's also part of the diagnosis. I think the tendency to get overwhelmed very quickly.

And I was scared I was feeling alone, but, luckily I reached out to a couple of, clinicians that were trained and I said, Hey, what do I do? Unfortunately at that time, again, the approach was pretty much. The pill, this is how we treat a D here's a prescription and there's nothing wrong with prescriptions.

There's definitely a place for it. I think there's a lot of things that can be done as an adjunct or instead of, depending on the person, everything's different. Had a range of emotions. [00:05:00] And then I, I said, how do we, we're like clinicians, right? We look at the situation and we try to solve problems.

X is the problem. What's the solution.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And so you said 2010, is that correct? Yes. So then five years later. So in, in this whole time you were in this whole time you were trying to do different ways of helping yourself,

Dr. Laxmi Naiki: right? Yes, I was trying to figure out. So for example, my relationship was struggling.

And so I was like, why is it struggling? How is my mind thinking versus my partner? And how, a lot of it was just, I needed in a relationship. For example, I needed to constantly do something new. Constantly have a new stimulus. And that was my brain wanting that dopamine perhaps.

And so I had to stop and say that's definitely not him. He's not wired that way. And so I needed to back it up and say, okay, how about we negotiate two new things a month? This was this negotiating process. As I was learning myself in those five years. And then clinically, I noticed that I needed to change many different aspects of my life.

I had a [00:06:00] tendency. I realized that I am wired for addiction and that's a higher risk with a D it wasn't. Drugs per se, but my addictions tend to be typically work and food and perhaps impulse control shopping, things like that, that I didn't realize was part of the whole diagnosis. And I don't.

Even the word addiction is a little bit of a stigma for me, but it was in a sense that it was overwhelmingly doing it. It wasn't just a habit. It wasn't just oh, I'm just shopping extra on a Friday night, it was like real, like my credit card bills were high, like scary high. And I was like something I just can't stop myself.

I can't control. And it was real. And so in those five years I was like, okay I need to now regulate all of it. And, thank gosh, I, I really worked hard at it. I'm at a very different place now and I'm able to regulate it and, I check myself all the time. I people have to plan when they work.

I'm the person that needs to plan fun. [00:07:00] Because I know where my tendencies are, yeah.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. Yeah. So it's so beautiful that you say that because ADHD is the spectrum and like you said the labels. Yeah. They're there, but it doesn't matter really. You, if you don't understand how you are wired, like what you.

What like lights you up or what, can really derail you then it's hard for you to create those safety nets, to be able to guide you towards where you're trying to get at and where you're trying to avoid so that we don't get ourselves into trouble, right? Like you said the ADHD tax, either buying too much stuff or not even having what you need at hand, because you ran out because.

Forgot. And so what are some things that have helped you that you've noticed that now you incorporate and try to help your own patients?

Dr. Laxmi Naiki: Yeah. It's excellent actually, in terms of my life, for example, if it's work related, I have, [00:08:00] hard stops. I work in 90 minute blocks.

I only work three, four hours a day. I have a great virtual assistant, so I put hard stops and then I have a list of non-negotiables are, and I kid you not my non-negotiables. I have to exercise every day, even a walk like for 20 minutes in the sun, nothing, necessarily intense, but it's a non-negotiable the non-negotiable for me is sleep.

I have to get my sleep in because it helps me process things better. I'm not as impulsive. I'm more regulated. The body heals significantly during sleep during Delta sleep. Mono non-negotiable. It's exercise. I regulate, how long I work and my biggest one is actually, nutrition.

I'm very clear about what I put in my body stimulants, cuz I have a tendency for addiction. So I'm the person that just. Won't stop at the one cup of coffee. I'm the person that potentially can, excuse me, it's lightning and thundering here. So if it's noisy I'm the person that could potentially do the six to eight cups of [00:09:00] coffee and just not stop.

And so I knew my body and this is not everybody, but I knew my body and I have given up coffee and I do, more healing, herbs and teas that are more therapeutic for my body. Whether it's lemon brass or Rubo, or ginger turmeric tea, things that are highly healing for me, not necessarily addictive, but also feed the nutritional part of my body.

And so those are really my non-negotiables and I pretty much stick to it. And it helps me regulate the other aspects of my. Yeah, that's

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: so good that you have that insight about the teeth. Some people, as might be using that, alcohol or smoking or different things.

And so I always say like the body's gonna get what it needs and we have to pay attention to see if there's a better way for it to get what it needs instead of causing us something long term. That can be more complicated. And now Do you in your diet, are you like [00:10:00] plant based or like low carb or what do you, or do you sometimes just tailor it like for your family or for your clients based on what they, what else is going on with them?

Dr. Laxmi Naiki: Yeah, it's, each person presents very differently because some people can have a D and diabetes. Some people can have add in autoimmune and there is a book, I forget the author, but there, he wrote a book called there's no such thing as a D. Which was very fascinating because I had to look it up because and that peaked my interest in the functional medicine approach to healing, which was let's go closer.

There's so many different ways to eat and people eat differently. So let's look at it primarily. I think a whole foods plant based diet is probably the best for most people. Almost everybody plant protein, generally isn't the most comprehensive protein. So you, some people do benefit more with animal protein or certain servings of protein limited, they do better with that, but in general, plants are the best way to go overall in general.

But more than that, [00:11:00] there's more emerging. If we were going a little more scientific in medical, there's more emerging data on the microbiome. And D so for people who have a lot of gut issues lot of bloating, gas, and D what we typically tend to do is we do a three month protocol to make sure that their gut is good.

What does that mean? We do a stool test that looks at their entire microbiome. to see what exactly is happening with all the bacteria. Do they have good bacteria in the gut? Because that's the source of all our nutrition. If whatever nutrition we eat uptake is due to the microbiome. So we look at exactly what's going on.

Majority, I would say are very depleted in fiber. Okay. We also rule out certain St infections that occur in the stool and it comes out the stool sample. If they're, parasites, if there's very high concentration of yeast can be in the microbiome. It's fine. But it's just the level to which it's there.

So we look at things like that. Those patients with the yeas, they usually have high sugar cravings, and we can [00:12:00] tell, and it comes out in that stool test. The other thing that's very very profound, which I'm seeing now compared to five years ago is 80% of the urines that we're collecting on.

People have herbicides

have, excuse me, have glyphosate in the urine. Wow. Which is yeah. 80% of urine samples. And I haven't really drawn the bell curve to see what percentile they're at, but they're pretty. And these are people that swear, they say, oh, I eat clean, I eat this, I eat that, but still we're seeing it.

So it's seeping in either through the soil, through the food, through all the exposure that we're having and sprayed on the food and all of that. So we're seeing much of more of that. Now. I don't know the impact of that, but I can't imagine it's not there on a D right?

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. That's so good to be able to have some.

Other type of tests and the usual. Oh, okay. Here's a questionnaire and okay. And even though. A questionnaire is okay, because then you have a [00:13:00] baseline, but it's you, the more that you compliment different things, the more that you approach the whole thing, because I keep telling people, medications are great.

Like it's the fastest way for the people that it, they work for. There's the fastest way. Within 30 minutes of you taking a pill, you can all sudden think a little bit better to do other things that maybe you would. Put out for weeks. But at the same time, like it's not gonna help you to do all those other tasks and to regulate your emotions and to be able to know how to prioritize like there's tools for everything.

And sometimes. The meditation or exercise or breathing techniques can help you to regulate some of that sympathetic overdrive that hits. And so if you then also have me food in your diet, that is not going to get you so worked up or, everything just compliments each other.

Yeah. And. [00:14:00] I was reading recently and you can tell me about your meditation journey, cuz I know you, you really use meditation as a way to cope. And I remember in our previous conversation, I was so intrigued by, how well it was helping you balance. And I think I shared with you like meditation.

I would love for it to work for me, but it's really tapping is what works for me. Emotional freedom technique works wonderful for me. So it doesn't matter what people use as long as they find something that, that works. That's where that, that goes with. But, with tapping I've had always been told like, oh if you have.

Trauma in your life, maybe you shouldn't do tapping by yourself. You need to do it with a tapping trauma coach. But I think, and a lot of people wonder whether ADHD is even a diagnosis or whether it's just right, like a trauma, or post-traumatic, or depression or whatever. But it's not. Trauma is not gonna induce ADHD.

It might just make your ADHD come about, [00:15:00] obviously sooner in age than it would have eventually come out. Because eventually our systems that we were trying to use to help us cope are no longer. Enough, like we hit like a saturation point. So to say, so what is your, what are your thoughts about this in terms of like meditation or like trauma?

And I know you, you have a lot of in your practice, you help with

Dr. Laxmi Naiki: this, right? Yeah. Yeah. So we see, it's really amazing points you're bringing up. It's actually pretty incredible. So thank you for bringing it to light, because what I am seeing is significant levels of trauma, obviously with everything going on in the country and the world the mental health crisis that we're at and it's presenting in various different ways now is a D due to trauma because of trauma, independent of trauma, because trauma is bringing up what already exists, it's interesting when they've done the brain scans, there's ation issues, there's connection issues that seem fairly similar in both states. And that being said, they both do exist. It doesn't, [00:16:00] to me, it's almost moot to see what caused what it's there both are there. I will say a lot of patients with a D have comorbid trauma.

Yes. High percentage due. And if that is the case, the highest, Impactful modality for me has been meditation and yoga. Now, Bessel VanDerKolk who I think runs the trauma. He's the head of one of the trauma associations. He also states yoga as being the one of the top modalities for healing. The yoga that I particularly practice is called inter engineering it's by Isha foundation and it's very therapeutic and it's really helped alter.

Energetically what's going on because I think the west, the con the limitation with the west, and it's beautiful, but it's still a limitation is that it's more scientifically approached. And it's the mind as the cause of a D trauma and the ease look at it. Like your energy is the cause of the a D it's a little bit different, cuz it goes a little bit.

In looking at why [00:17:00] this is happening. So trauma could be anything, right? Someone bullied you in fourth grade versus you've been persistently, emotionally abused by your parent, or you've been abused in a much more horrific way through sexual abuse or other things. And that imprint it, keeps scoring the body.

The body keeps score, right? According to that book written by VA Leonard, Paul, it keeps a memory. Of that in your body and you carry that and that can manifest as anxiety, depression, O C, D all these other things that come out or a D D. And so what do we do for that? A way to slowly resolve that is usually different modalities.

Do you do psychotherapy with therapist? Do we now need to put you on a pill, low dose of something. Do we try to address this holistically? And if so, yes, yoga is one approach. And if it's really traumatic and we're not able to get there with any of these techniques, sometimes there is very good data for plant medicine.

And there are patients that if I feel are. [00:18:00] Able to handle it, but are safe that we do recommend plant medicine for now. I don't do it as blanketly, as it's being practiced. Currently, I'm very conservative in my sort of choice and selection, because there's a lot of impact I can have when you put someone into a plant medicine protocol or ketamine therapy, because these therapies say stop the mind.

The mind is going all over the place with the a. Let's drop the mind. Let's go to the trauma. Let's figure out what happened in the childhood, the thoughts, the memories, the feelings all come up. When we drop the mind with all these plant medicines. And what happens is the person goes into this deep state, another world state, right?

Like it's with LSD and MBMA and those sorts of things. And they go into a different world and memories come up, which can be really intense, and they just can't handle it. So it has to be the right person that we recommend to. Somebody who has severe schizophrenia, who's unstable on multiple [00:19:00] medications.

It's not somebody I would recommend for this. And when they do go into these states and they come out, we make sure that they have really good integration in place, right after meaning there's a plant based integration specialist board that they can talk out all these memories that they just got flooded with in a day.

But it can be highly therapeutic from a trauma standpoint because what they tried to do with a therapist for 20 years, They were able to do within a week. And so there's many layers to it. It's very different. And only when you talk to your holistic provider or functional provider, you negotiate and talk it out as to what would work best with you.

Cuz each person is so different. Some people have seen remarkable results with doing intense yoga practices. And again, it's just certain types of yoga for me. The yoga has to have really good spinal alignment. It has to have, like you said, you brought up a beautiful point about breathwork as having an, a very kind of centering sense for the body, just to get centered because it's all over the place.

[00:20:00] Energetically ad. Breathwork spinal alignment and silence is a very big part of of doing a yoga practice, which typically not to say there's not beautiful yoga practices in other schools of thought, but generally in the west, they tend to talk through the entire yoga class. And when that happens, the body doesn't have a time to just get into that parasympathetic mode.

And so practices that are in a certain yoga practices that I recommend for people. It's just silence. You're just there with your thoughts by yourself and you get to integrate on your own what's happening. Yeah, we could talk about this forever. I'm passionate about it.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And then like one of the ones that I like too, like yoga, like I, I like yoga Nira, that's really.

Call me, because there's also like evidence in that where it can rewire some of your brain and some of your subconscious like limiting beliefs and some of, and that it can [00:21:00] actually help modify your DNA. I was shocked by that , but I guess it makes sense, like different things that can be traumatic can also change your DNA sometimes.

And it's just interesting how much our body keeps to coping with our environment. And how we do have some sense of control if we are just taught about it. Because so much is how much we have to unlearn that self helplessness or just stepping into curiosity, to think about it in different ways.

Yeah. So a lot of people sometimes. The first thing they think, oh, okay. So holistic, that sounds great. But that sounds expensive. That's the first thing that they go to, but we have to keep remembering like how much is your health worth? Like it's an investment at the end of the day, right?

How much money did we spend? Trying to go to med school, how much money that we spend in our cars or in our purses or whatever we buy and. And if we don't have our brain working the way we want it to, or our [00:22:00] health aligned then what's the point, but I'm pretty sure this is the common question you get asked.

What do you usually tell people when they ask you these questions? Because I'm sure they're like, oh my God, what's due test is that expensive, but you know how they.

Dr. Laxmi Naiki: Yeah. We all, the way we work is yes, we don't take insurance currently. We're cash only practice. We give a tremendous amount of support, I think, above and beyond between appointments in terms of messages, emailing the cost, there's two ways to think of cost there's dollars, how much I'm spending and two untangible.

Quality of life, your relationships, your credit card bill, how much? And I'm not saying that coming to a holistic practitioner will solve all of those things, but you will definitely get the tools and direction that you need to go on your own. A lot of our patients come to us after nothing has worked.

And two they're highly. If I tell you some things about my patients, they are highly motivat. They are messaging me. Oh, I read this amazing book on I don't know, a macro biotic diet. What are your thoughts? Oh, I'm here. And I'm always [00:23:00] pushed to the edge because they are reading.

They are listening to podcasts. They're looking at, there's so much evidence out there. Not for everyone that I have to be on my toes. Constantly reading articles and stuff. So our patients are very motivated, very knowledgeable, and we're at, the cutting edge with some of the stuff.

Now it's also expensive because expensive, in a sense of, there's other add modalities that I often see come across my desk should we do a functional MRI for $5,000? I'm not sure if that's necessarily gonna impact, outcomes, but patients have gotten it. They don't necessarily know the evidence.

All of that, neurofeedback has great data for ADB, but you've gotta do 50 sessions you have to potentially, fork over, I think five, $6,000, if it's outta pocket we're nowhere close to that. And it's just important to make sure whatever practitioner you go to.

You really research their experience with a D you do your homework, get references and see what they're about, and then go to them. [00:24:00] And then it's definitely worth the cost because even if you're paying a little bit to, for the visits, you're getting a lot of tools. You're getting assessments, you're getting answers.

And if you have all of those, you probably don't need to come back. Most of our patients I'll be honest. See us about four to five times the first year. The second year they see us only twice because everything's been set up, they've figured everything out. We know what to do. And the second year is usually just a couple of blood tests and just following stuff through if they're very sick most of the labs are out of quest and lab Corp, which is through your insurance.

And then the specialty labs, like the stool tests and stuff. And food allergy tests, those are out of pocket. And they can range anywhere from, I think, a hundred, $150 to four 50 for the stool test. We've not really seen much resistance because we don't charge for the labs, they just pay the lab directly.

And they're just looking for answers. and if they feel better and they're getting outcomes, they're getting results, they're happy we see symptoms improve. But I do think that, I tell them realistically, before the first appointment, I said, it's gonna be a journey. [00:25:00] This is the investment.

Please don't start with us unless you can stay with us because there's no point in doing this for two visits and then just leaving it, doesn't help. And we're certainly not looking to, just take your money and not get results. That's not us. I will say that it is an investment, but in my eyes it's changed my life.

I've invested in it, invested in the functional medicine, holistic approach. And with ad dates, interesting something new will come up every. A new layer about my response to people who I am, how I am, and it's constant work for me, so I'm still learning. I'm still a student, but I'm definitely on the journey.

I am not currently on a medication because I feel that I can regulate myself without it. But there is a place and I use one, psychiatrist in Atlanta, Georgia, and she. Only trained in a, not train, not only trained, but she specifically focuses on add medications. That's all she does. I'm very specific about the [00:26:00] psychiatrist I sent folks to, even for that, because not every psychiatrist really knows the medications to that level of depth.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. That's so important that everything you just said really resonates with me because. When you're doing it for the right reasons. And not that there's a wrong reason, but what I mean is that when you yourself are the product of your product, meaning you have gone through something that has. Been transformational for yourself.

And then you're like, oh my God, it worked for me. And you can't wait to tell everybody else how, like it might work for them. It becomes like a no brainer for you to like, be talking about it. This is why I got into this because I didn't know what coaching was like two years ago. And so now I'm like, how come?

Not everybody has a coach, like how come nobody's drinking the Kool-Aid. And so it's just funny how I. It feels like it's, everything's been peachy. But it really hasn't, it just started to become peachy in the [00:27:00] last two years. But your brain kind of forgets because now when you're at this other new level, like you're saying you're constantly learning.

So you're, everything's new, everything's exciting. And you just keep leveling up and you just. Like you said your clients push you to learn more, not in a bad way, push you, but in a good way, push you because you want to show up and help them. And in the same time you are helping yourself. So it's a win, win now.

For your clients. And that's the same thing I tell my patients or my cl my patients. I have that I do treat with ADHD, but I also tell them, Hey, go seek a coach. Hey, go seek like a therapist. Hey, go seek like acupuncture, go seek like holistic, like functional medicine. There's some people in Houston that I refer to.

Even though it's a two hour drive for them, like they go. You are gonna send them to people you trust you're. And I tell them who not to go to also. Yeah. And so it. It's important to be [00:28:00] able to in your network have people you trust so that you can help each other and communicate with each other.

And do you mainly see people from Georgia or have you seen people come from all over just to chit

Dr. Laxmi Naiki: chat with you? Yeah. So I'm licensed in Georgia and Tennessee. However I do a one to two kind of educational consult for folks across the country. Not we don't prescribe medicines. We don't order labs, but people will often almost always contact me and send me all their information, their labs, their diagnoses, just to get an idea from me on what direction to go.

For their treatments and therapies. And I will give my advice on what they need to do. Like for example, we had, somebody call me from Boston that had gotten an entire functional medicine workup and were given, I would say like 15 supplements, which was just too much for the patient to take.

And they said, can you look at our blood work? Can you look at all our functional tests? Tell us what we need to. Give us a [00:29:00] better direction. And we did this was the patient with, the glyphosate at the 90th percentile. She had a leaky gut. She had obesity which was not addressed. It was addressed more from a detox perspective, but not, I think she would've probably benefited from a GLP one at that point, she, we give our own take on what direction.

And then the patient's daughter who contacted me. Went back, took the information. We wrote a report up and she said, this is what we're gonna do. And it's not that the physicians were not doing the right thing. It's just in the current insurance paradigm. They also don't have the time to look at the case in its entirety, and there's no residency for functional medicine.

There's no residency, so you can get your certifications, but if you don't know how to manage those labs and read the tests and know really clinically what to treat the people with, you're gonna get protocols of supplements. And then the patients are like, what is this? This makes no sense. And and

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: I think I'm also biased.

Sorry to cut you off. It's like when [00:30:00] you yourself understand the diagnosis enough to where you can complete your clients. Words it there's so many layers that they don't have to describe to you because you know where they're going and why, what might be helpful. Again, I'm not saying that only people who have ADHD can help people who have ADHD.

But if you happen to find that unicorn who does, like, why not go to somebody who really understands you and so that it could. Make it be like one more thing that you don't have to explain. Because so much of medicine, like we are always trying to make sure we're following X, Y, and Z, but like you said, if you.

Have that hyper interest because it totally pertains to you. It just gives it to a different level. Perfect. So where could people like reach you so that they can send you their patients or they could [00:31:00] consult

Dr. Laxmi Naiki: you. Yeah, our website is spectrum iHealth, I, as in India, spectrum ihealth.com and you can find us at spectrum integrative health on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn all the fun social media sites.

And yeah, we're we're excited. We're growing and we're having fun and we're learning. I don't. Necessarily see ADB, but I see, multiple different conditions. Us, which ones? Yeah. Oh yeah. A lot of obviously, lot of women reach out to me. So a lot of it is menopause and weight loss and autoimmune.

And interestingly enough, we don't keep this in mind, but with trauma and a D The number one, silent killer really is heart disease. I'm seeing a lot of really tough cardiometabolic disease and we have a full-time lipidologist on staff. We have a full-time dietician, so all our patients have to go through her first.

She's a functional dietician nutritionist. So because again, fun foundation, if we don't get that diet, what are we doing? We're just writing you prescription pills for what. The [00:32:00] foundation is always diet. So she sees every single case coming through and we have this sort of team approach.

We have also a full-time Aveta consultant she's on the world health organization, board for Aveda. So she's just joined us, joined on our team. And my vision is really to bring this. Evidence based integrative approach to medicine, because I feel a lot of it has been lost due to lack of standardized training.

And we're not really sure. And, holistic has become this catchall term, and my vision for the, the practice is really to bring evidence based stuff together and to have this authentic way of approaching holistic medicines.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. So where do you see yourself in the next three to five years?

For fun?

Dr. Laxmi Naiki: That's a good question. I need to pencil that in with my my work tendencies. Where do I see myself for fun? I don't know if I need a vision three to five years. I'm having fun now. Yeah, I try to have fun now. I don't really consider any [00:33:00] I don't know in my mind I don't really, piece it out as work or fun.

For me work is fun. That being said, because I have a tendency to overwork. I make sure I have these non-work fun. But yeah, I definitely. Try to re you know, relax through my meditation. I go out with friends on weekends, we're going on a trip this weekend for a week. Just doing all the stuff that's needed,

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: do you think you would go like to a retreat, like in India or Bali or somewhere? What do you think would be fun that you might do in the next, it's in your bucket list, say in your next three to five

Dr. Laxmi Naiki: years? Oh my God. That's a lot of stuff. I wanna go like hiking in. Like a remote region of the world.

I wanna go to Bali. I wanna do this retreat that I do in Costa Rica. There's definitely stuff I wanna go to. Yeah, definitely stuff, places I wanna go that I haven't been to.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. Thank you so much for coming. It's been such a pleasure. I always end this last question by saying that, Our listeners have ADHD and they probably [00:34:00] zoomed out somewhere

And so if they're about to like, just zoom in right now, and what is the one takeaway point that you would want them to walk away with from this episode?

Dr. Laxmi Naiki: Huh. I would say, look at, add as a gift, not as a diagnosis or a label. or an impairment. It's a gift. There's some incredible accomplishments I've made because I'm able to think quicker than people I'm able to do things much more than people I'm much more creative than a lot of people.

Those people have their gifts. I have mine, and definitely don't look at it in that way. Look at it as this incredible immense gift. And yes, there's potential that it may have some regulatory kind of issues, but you have tools. You have podcasts, you have books, you have coaches, you have therapists, you have tons of stuff now that you did not have 10 years ago or 15 years ago.

And there's a lot of help out there, but it's a gift. I consider it a gift.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure and [00:35:00] yeah who knows, we might be doing a retreat together soon. Who knows? I love to travel. So yeah, we gotta integrate everything so that everybody has a way to tame their

Dr. Laxmi Naiki: in touch.

It's been awesome talking to you. Thank you for having me. Thank you.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Thank you for spending your time with me. I really believe that time

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