WMH Season 3 Ep 9: Does Herbal Medicine and Acupuncture Help with Mental Health?

This is a transcript of Watching Mental Health Season 3, Episode 9 which you can watch and listen to here:

Katie: Hi everyone and welcome back to another episode of Watching Mental Health and I'm so excited to be here today because it's been, I think a few weeks since we've come together. So I'm glad that we are all back. And then I'm really excited about my guest today. I've been following him and I've been following his organization for a few years now and I think it's just going to be a really great conversation. And so today we're going to be talking with Dr. Sanghyun Lee, who's a licensed oriental medicine doctor in Nevada and a California acupuncturist since 2015. So he has over a decade of experience in acupuncture in herbal medicine, including five years treating patients in psychiatric clinics and as well as pain management and physical therapy settings. Dr. Lee currently practices at WGU Health Clinic or won Go University here in Las Vegas. And in this episode we're going to be breaking down how effective oriental medicine, herbal medicine, acupuncture, and these approaches to mental health really are and what does the research and what is Dr. Lee seen in his own experience. And so with that, let's bring Dr. Lee to the show so we can talk.

Dr. Lee: Thank you for having me.

Katie: Thank you so much for being here, Dr. Lee. And again, I'm just really excited to have this conversation. We haven't spoken about oriental medicine or herbal medicine and its approach to mental health before and I know that there's that big difference between western medicine versus eastern medicine and I'm just so interested in how mental health can be approached from both sides and so I'm really excited to have you here. And so with that, just first tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you came into this area specialty that you practice

Dr. Lee: First. My name is Sanghyun Lee. I'm working at the Wongu University of Oriental Medicine. I've been practiced in the Nevada for about four or five years and at the beginning when I start being in the mental health field is about somewhere 10 years ago after I got the license in California, my first job is acupuncturist and in the psychiatric clinic, so my boss is the psychiatrist, so his vision is to offer the western treatment psychotherapy by the psychologist and MFTs and addition to it. He also want to provide acupuncture and herbal medicine as a non-pharmaceutical approach. So that's how I start working at his clinical, the inside choices.

Katie: That's amazing.

Dr. Lee: So for about five years, most of the patients are referral from the other md, the psychiatrists, psychologists, and then L MFTs within the outpatient setting the clinics.

Katie: Very cool. Did you find that applying acupuncture was effective for the patients that were in those settings? It seems like it was because you were there for four or five years, right?

Dr. Lee: Yes, but at the beginning I was also not so familiar with the mental health field because what we expected is most of the public patients expect some skeletal pains. Like many people come to the Mongo Health Clinic for the low back pain or the short retention, isn't it? So at the beginning I was more paying attention on the musculoskeletal since most of my majority of my patient referral is about the anxiety depression, A DHD and PTSD. So while I was working there I was able to see some of the anxiety, depression, the intensity is reduced and especially that the clinic that I used to work, most of my patients are with the psychiatric medication like some Lexapro or the Atory and common side effect is the secondary insomnia or the other GI concerns or so what I was able to experience again is not only those psychiatric condition but also they're possibly associated that the secondary other the complications too.

Katie: That's so interesting. I hadn't thought about that, but yeah, that would absolutely, because the side effects can be really hard on people with long-term medication use and so that's really interesting that acupuncture was there for that level as well. When did you start applying herbal medicine to it?

Dr. Lee: Oh, at the beginning I start with that acupuncture only about a year later I started using the herbal medicine because what we got trained in the acupuncture school is we learn acupuncture and herbal medicine together and herbal medicine, what I used to start using is the powder form. So I get the herbal medicine from the herbal company that the pre-made herbal medicine and after that I also cook the herb by myself and the order the liquid will be more the strong more extractive version of the liquid formula. So based on my understanding of each patient in front of me, there's some oriental medicine perspective diagnosis. So based on my diagnosis I prescribed the acupuncture point combination and herbal formula combination two. So that's how I started using the acupuncture and herb together.

Katie: That is so interesting. Did you find that patients that were combining maybe both approaches that western talk therapy approach with herbal medicine and acupuncture, did you find that they benefited more from the combination of that or did you find that really just applying acupuncture and herbal medicine was to help with a lot of those side effects as they were going through talk therapy and or medication use?

Dr. Lee: I prefer more the combined treatment. So not recommending a dramatic, just discontinue other the medication or other therapy

Want to go together with the other psychiatrist psychologists, the treatment with the acupuncture, I was able to reduce their intensity or frequency of panic attack. That was the very common symptoms. They used to suffer that often panic attack almost like every day that reduce somewhat once a week or so. So I wanted to share this, the results with other providers and some of the psychiatrist or the nurse practitioner ask the question what kind of the herbs that I use or what kind of the progress that I see. Then we have a little bit more the discussion as well. So I prefer more combined treatment with them.

Katie: Yeah, I think that that's probably powerful to combine the treatments. I had no idea that acupuncture could help with panic attacks. That's really powerful to know that and it seems like you've really seen a lot of powerful things coming from just applying this eastern approach to these western kind of treatments that are already in place.

Dr. Lee: Thank you. Because when we think about the acupuncture treatment, we're inserting the hair thin needle in the certain spot, isn't it?

Katie: Yeah.

Dr. Lee: So when we insert the needle inserted area is stimulating local, the tendon or the muscle. Another perspective of the understanding acupuncture treatment is on inserted area is like disturbing the electromagnetic field on the body and by this, the acupuncture needle insertion in the certain combination of the spa or the ear or other places also stimulate the brain function too to, so I often encounter the often panic attack with the high anxiety level patient. After the acupuncture, the treatment day becomes very calm and more relaxed.

Katie: Wow, that's so nice. So let's back up a little bit. What is, in your opinion maybe the differences in approaches to mental health from a western perspective versus an eastern perspective or not just treatment but how you approach mental health is I know here in the United States we have a lot of mental health problems I think, but we don't talk about them and maybe we experience a lot more anxiety. And so I'm just wondering what from your perspective have you seen from the eastern medicine perspective

Dr. Lee: As an educator's perspective? We have a master program of acupuncture and herbal medicine, which is about four year program. We also address the mental health concern on the senior advanced level classes. However, at the beginning introductory oriental medicine theory class, we also addressed the mental health related concern because the oriental medicine main important keyword is linking, linking and associating group of the muscles on the arms and leg part of the body is relevant, is linked to some of the 12 organs. We have this group of the muscles relate to the stomach, that group of the muscles are relate to the intestine, something like this. And when we get to know this group of the muscle we call it as a meridian, is linked to the certain one of the 12 internal organs. So it affect to the internal organs function. One more thing is relevant emotional issue. Each different organ is relevant to each different types of the emotion. Some organs is relevant to the feeling more anger, some others are feeling more worried or scared or too much joyful. So linking this mental health condition is very common when we think about some organs function.

So in the oriental medicine perspective there is the mental health we can regard as one of some imbalance of the certain organ so we can reach the eat and young balance.

Katie: Yeah, that's amazing. I love that approach. I think that yin and yang balance is important. That's something I really love. So tell me more about what wgu University offers and kind of the different services. It sounds like you don't and you don't, it can help with so much more than mental health. You also help with pain management. I know I mentioned in my intro and I mean chronic pain management is a big issue that can lead to a lot of mental health problems here just and people are continuously trying to figure that out between our opioid epidemic and so I just think that that's really cool. So tell me more about some of those services and the various services that WGU offers.

Dr. Lee: One goal has the two different service. First service is about education.

We offer master program of acupuncture and urban medicine that we teach acupuncture and her as a treatment method, western medicine, oriental medicine as the appreciation of the patient's condition with 1000 hours of the clinical internship. We provide this almost four year length of the master program. So the alumni can take the national exam, open their own acupuncture clinic, receive the either regular or the insurance patients also or walk in the other hospital or work with the other, the Western healthcare provider just like me before second service provide is the clinical practice we provide acupuncture, birth copying, moxibustion or other modalities. The most common symptom is that the chronic pain is you and one of the main keyword of the chronic pain is the frustration. People frustrate on their own pain and many different trial before, not many people come to the one goal as a first treatment,

Katie: Right?

Dr. Lee: Yeah. Many people went to the different clinic, different hospitals before they give up or then they come to the ku. So what we do is with the acupuncture treatment by acupuncture treatment is muscles are a little bit more squeezed. But as we know we have many different muscles, isn't it?

Katie: Yeah,

Dr. Lee: Muscles are working like a orchestra or muscles are working like a basketball game. In the basketball game there's five guys play together against another five guys, isn't it? So when we stimulate the certain group of the muscles, they're friends who works together, they're adjusting their tension, they're readjusting their orientation. Then it also affect their enemies on other side. These five guys, they're also accordingly the make a balance to each other,

Katie: They're moving off of what they're doing.

Dr. Lee: So I believe that there is no muscle works solo. Every muscle has their friends and enemies. What we need to do is adjusting their orientation and tension and have a balance to each other. That's how we reduce their tension and gradually reduce their pain level and frequency.

Katie: Wow, wow. That's amazing isn't it? It's so connected. It's so linked is what I'm getting between our organs and our muscles and our mental health, it is all connected in various ways.

Dr. Lee: Yes it is. And another method is the herbal medicine. Last almost three years we have been very emphasizing the herbal medicine because when we teach this master program, we even spend more time on the herbs than acupuncture. And within the main weapon is the herbal medicine. We teach 200 different single herbs and 160 combination of the herbal formula. One of our strengths of oriental medicine is long history. When we think about our ancestors or the 500,000 years before, there must be the numerous ISTs try their best to help their patients, isn't it? So almost there must be thousands, millions different types of the herbal formula nowadays based on the department of the education guideline, we select about 200 herbal formula that has been commonly used and have the good result. Those formulas are in the textbook. What we do is very simple copy and paste to the patient, copy and paste from the textbook. So based on our diagnosis, this patient has too much high anxiety and based on the Orton medicine it seems like either the heart function related, heart related,

Katie: Then

Dr. Lee: We use the herbal formula targeting the heart to cool down and calm down, use the acupuncture points to relax the heart related muscles and the tendons too.

Katie: Wow. Yeah, that's a lot. I mean over 200 to go through all of that. I'm sure you do spend a lot more time on herbal medicine and that history is so long, it's been used for so many hundreds and hundreds of years. I know here in America we tend to have problems with our gut health and many people will say that your gut health and your mental health are very interlocked. And I know for me personally, yeah, my gut health and my anxiety can be really interlocked. What have you seen from your experience with people with gut health and perhaps with mental health challenges?

Dr. Lee: One of the well-known example is the serotonin that is secretive from the intestine and affect to the brain function, isn't it? Yeah. When we do the diagnosis, we check the several different things include the tongues, shape, color, texture, oh pulse, several pulse position, their speed rhythm and the quality texture of the blood vessel. Another thing is among 400 acupuncture point on the body, somewhat 20 or 30 acupuncture point is more important meaningful in the diagnosis perspective too. When we check those, the acupuncture points, color, texture or the elasticity, we found this points related. The organs function might be a little bit more excess. Some other group of the organs or the and acupuncture point is a little bit depleted. Then we make the balance to each other. The balance especially is the stomach small intestine or the large intestine related acupuncture points. Many patients are showing either excess with the very hard, rigid and cold or the depletion feels like nothing's there. And then very the dry and probably developed muscles. So those kind of APU point reaction makes me to more focus on the GI function.

Katie: Yeah. Wow. Okay. So in your experience, do you think that when somebody comes to you maybe with a mental health challenge or with chronic pain, that it's something that they can overcome? Or is it something that really, that they will need continuous treatment? Do they need to come back for acupuncture, treat for the rest of their life? Let's say they have panic disorder or is it something that with time that herbal medicine and oriental medicine can help maybe decrease those symptoms?

Dr. Lee: Very appreciate your question Katie. That's the most common question that I encounter in my practice too. Is it okay? Well just like other psychiatric medication or chronic disease, some blood pressure were the diabetes related.

Katie: Sure.

Dr. Lee: Most of my patient, what they heard is that they need to take the pill for rest of their life. So when I encounter those group of their patient, my answer is no. Although acupuncture and herbal medicine cannot make a very dramatic strong effect. However, our practice is not for rest of their life. Only until that we are able to resolve the targeted symptoms and discomfort port. Even though we are teaching 200 different single Earth 160 different her formula, nothing's for the rest of their life, only for the several months or weeks. And what the OMD Orient Medicine doctor do is when we see the patient periodically we are checking their testimony, orient medicine, the diagnosis like a tongue quality pulse and acute point reaction related like some diagnosis resolve based on their changed condition, improved and reduced their death symptoms. Then what we do is we also reduce the intensity. All the acupuncture treatment looks very similar, but in the practitioner side we are keep on changing the diagnosis, the direction and strength. When we are able to see the somewhat good cases patients reduce their discomfort, then gradually reduce coupon strength and change the herb also to make it a bit more simple, more mild, less strong. The herbal formula then discontinue.

Katie: Yeah, as they achieve balance is. So that's cool. I like that. So that western medicine approach, a lot of it is like, yeah, you need to be doing this for the rest of your life. You need to be taking this medicine or nutrient or whatever. And it's hard. It can feel like a lot for people that they can never get past it. And so I like that, that we want to be achieving a balance. And then once we find that balance, then it's about maintaining that balance using different methods. It's not your method of treatment and tools changes as you evolve. And so I do really like that approach that you're continuously monitoring how the patient or the client is doing.

Dr. Lee: Thank you. What we are known is as a acupuncture and herbal medicine, however, that is only some types of the well-known modality. What we practice is that oriental medicine philosophy, Oriental medicine, the lifestyle changes acupuncture. Urban medicine is that very somewhat relatively stronger weapon to improve. However, after that we also give some of the nutrition suggestion, meditation technique, Ong and tai chi, the practice recommendation too. Our master program, we also teach the Chico Tai Chi, Western Nutrition. Eastern nutrition.

Katie: Cool. That's cool. I want to do that.

Dr. Lee: Thank you.

Katie: I want to practice tai chi, I want to try Tai chi and then to learn more about that difference between herbal medicine, western approach versus eastern I just think is really, really interesting.

Dr. Lee: Thank you. So for someone like some long-term and then for the maintenance we more emphasize the types of the nutrition to prefer to avoid. And Ong and Tai chi is also about the in young balance. In young balance in the Ong Tai Chi practice is more about the group of the muscles, just like as we talked before, isn't it? And I think the oriental medicine practitioner. So the same as marketing outreach associated of the meditation. Our big roots of the orient medicine is tism. Think about the Indian balance, meditation and energy flow to be more unblocked and then better circulation of the energy. So what we more promote is the patient even without other types of the treatment within in the normal life and go to the grocery shopping and they are able to achieve some better, higher quality of life. So I think that's our goal as an OMT practitioner.

Katie: Yeah, that's beautiful. I think that's really amazing. It's a good approach. It's different. And I think that we as a western society really need to be looking at Eastern and oriental medicine approaches to our mental health and to balance in our body because I think that we're all probably struggling over here a little bit with balance in our body, to be honest. Well, I just appreciate your time so much. This was a really, really interesting, informative conversation. I learned a lot about acupuncture, about herbal medicine, about that approach of our bodies and everything is linked between our physical and mental health. And it's important to find that balance. And so again, thank you so much for your time. If anybody is interested in becoming maybe a student or in going to maybe get help, maybe they're struggling and they want to maybe try this approach, how could they get in touch with you or with Wongu University?

Dr. Lee: It might be a little bit confused because we have two different phone number. Okay. Yeah, there's the school phone number for the master program and there's other Wongu Health clinic phone number.

Katie: Okay.

Dr. Lee: So if we want to try the acupuncture herbal medicine treatment, then reach out to our Wgo Health clinic. Okay. Want to get to know about this oriented medicine and regard the next career, next full-time job, then please contact WGU University.

Katie: Wonderful, wonderful. Well, thank you again so much for your time. Thank you for being such a staple in the community. Wgu, I mentioned before, our call is very good at getting out in the Las Vegas community and really just being a part of our healthcare community. And so I just am glad and grateful that you came on and it was just wonderful. Great conversation. And thank you again so much for joining us.

Dr. Lee: Thank you for inviting me. Again, we can have a more chance to introduce Orient Medicine to the local community.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. We'd love to have you back anytime to talk more on this topic, on maybe even the Taoism approach to mental health and that Oriental approach to mental health that we haven't touched on. And so I think it's so powerful to learn about different cultures. So with that, we will end it here. I just want to thank everyone who's listening in today. And then also of course, please catch this episode and all of our episodes at katierosewaechter.com and this episode will be posted live by next Wednesday. And with that, I will see all of you guys back every first and third Wednesday of the month and I'll see you in July. Have a great summer everyone. We'll see you next time.

Dr. Lee: Thank you.