Inspiring Conversations with Natalie Lewis

Today we’d like to introduce you to Natalie Lewis.

Hi Natalie, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I was in a bad car accident coming home from waiting tables at a vegan restaurant in Santa Monica. I was making a left turn and someone ran a red light and totaled my car on Ocean Ave at the California Incline. I had tremendous back pain followed by excruciating periods. The accident led to a host of health problems including a kidney stone. This is how I learned that trauma often leads more than just initial pain but also deep internal imbalances especially with the menstrual cycle.

My yoga teacher took me to an acupuncturist who didn’t speak English and he turned out to be incredibly helpful. I used the acupuncture and Chinese herbal formulas to heal everything. And soon, I read all I could get my hands on about Traditional Chinese Medicine. I was attracted to the idea of prevention rather than waiting to get treatment once symptoms are severe. I could take herbs at the instant I started to get sick and keep it from progressing. And I was able to avoid a lot of very expensive and invasive procedures and drugs with major side effects. One doctor I saw for the period pain told me there was no cure for endometriosis and I would have to take a drug to start menopause (I was 26 at the time). That seemed crazy to me. And I learned that when a doctor tells you there is no cure for what you have, what they really ought to say is that they don’t know how to help you and you should seek another physician or another type of medicine. If you don’t like a haircut, you don’t stop getting your hair done, you find another hairstylist. If you don’t like a treatment someone offers, you get another opinion. And while integrative medicine is gaining acceptance I would not ask a surgeon what they think about using acupuncture. Ask someone licensed in acupuncture whether they think they can help you during an appointment after a proper evaluation. A treatment plan comes after a diagnosis which comes after an evaluation looking at your tongue and feeling your pulses. I have patients send me a photo of their tongue and fill out an extensive health history form. Patients sign a consent form and I take a lot of time listening and asking questions before I arrive at a diagnosis.

I went from thinking I would be a civil-rights attorney for women to becoming a primary care provider all because of a car accident.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been a lovely career, I love being an acupuncturist and doctor of Traditional East Asian Medicine. Integrating western and eastern medicine creates the best results, and knowing when to do which is where the art exists. I became a yoga teacher while I was in my master’s program for acupuncture and by the time I got my license, I had patients eager to have me treat them. Keisha Whitaker, who mentioned me in Bazaar Magazine, was one of those gracious and generous patients; she was so supportive, she introduced me to so many people and she had me come to house and treat her whole family. She even came to my school clinic to get acupuncture while I was still an intern in 2004.

I was fortunate to have a thriving business from my first year in practice. I was happy to do house calls and I would work at any time, anywhere- in hospitals, at births, hotel rooms, at weddings, in Mexico, in a tent in Brazil, you name it- I always had my needles with me. And I loved every opportunity to help people feel better and avoid unnecessary, high-risk interventions whenever possible. I’ve been extremely lucky always had a steady following of amazing patients and referrals from incredible doctors including chiropractors like Stacy Smith in Malibu who offered me office space before I was even licnesed and introduced me to many of his clients. And acupuncture is so effective; it makes patients immediately relaxed and happy and that it is a joy to practice everyday. People feel better very quickly and the results are significant. Patients are surprised by how good they feel and how easy it is to get improvements.

Obviously, Western medicine is necessary for emergencies, however, for a lot of chronic health issues acupuncture is safer and as effective and often times acupuncture is more effective. Take my kidney stone story as an example. Lithotripsy costs $10,000.- + and it effectively blasts the stone into tiny pieces so it can pass through but it does nothing to stop me from continuing to create kidney stones. Acupuncture and Chinese herbal formulas can both dissolve the kidney stone and balance the body so that it discontinues creating stones. This is holistic medicine. We do not aim to simply break up and pass the stone, we aim to also correct the imbalance that creates the stone in the first place. Healthcare today must do more than just stop symptoms, we need to correct the environment in the body that is causing the symptom/s. And more patients, especially women, want holistic medicine for their families. This is a wonderful medicine for children who have attention-deficit disorders, allergies, and chronic respiratory conditions. Children respond very well both to the herbs and to the acupuncture. They have less fear when they see their mothers getting acupuncture and see that acupuncture is normal, painless, and quick.

Donna Haraway, a PhD in Biology, teaches a crucial important lesson for scientists and for women’s healthcare especially. She teaches at UC Santa Cruz in her Women, Science, and Technology class to always ask the question, “at what cost?” As a patient and as a physician we must always ask if the treatment is too risky or even necessary. And yes, the Western Treatment may seem faster and more lucrative but if it doesn’t cure the patient or it significantly reduces their quality of life, it is not good enough.

As a patient, I could have gone along with my doctor’s recommendation to take Danazol and stop menstruating at age 26 to stop my endometriosis but I knew there had to be another option. The cost was too high to end my fertility at age 26. I never would have had my son at age 36. The biggest challenge I faced was the pain I went through as a patient, advocating for myself for better healthcare as a college student. This informed my work for 10 years as a doula as well. Women deserve holistic healthcare, we all do.

My college student health center nurse told me to take Alleve for my excruciating menstrual cramps. She said that my pain was normal. It wasn’t. I was in pain every month to the point of vomiting. Fortunately, California is a leading educator for Traditional Chinese Medicine despite the lack of access for most people. I worked at an herbal pharmacy through college and I had opportunities as a student to work with a grad student and attorney, Cassandra Shaylor Esq., who was doing her PhD under Angela Davis. Shaylor took me to women’s prisons to help interview the prisoners with children as part of a class-action lawsuit for better healthcare at the prisons. These women were in for low-level drug crimes and they had their children taken away from them. Many of them contracted tuberculosis while in prison. The institutional food was devoid of nutritional value, the hygiene was disgusting, they barely slept or exercised. It was a huge wake-up call for a privileged girl from Pacific Palisades who attended the Westlake School for girls in Holmby Hills. I was fortunate to learn how fragile my health could be after the car accident as painful as it was. I was exposed to an alternate form of healthcare that really does not have to be expensive.

Right now, the most expensive thing about acupuncture is the education; it costs about $70,000.- to get a master’s degree and another $50,000.- to get the doctorate. I was fortunate to do both and to work full-time during both degrees as an assistant to an acupuncturist and as a yoga teacher. Los Angeles alone has five or six acupuncture colleges offering Master’s degrees and now doctorate degrees. California in general, and especially in Los Angeles, people are open-minded about healthcare; they want holistic alternatives and additions to drugs and surgery.

Chinese doctors teaching at my master’s program took me to Beijing, China to work in hospitals seeing Chinese patients. I was shocked and impressed that the Chinese government pays for the healthcare so people can go ten days in a row for acupuncture treatments and get better much faster. Chinese people have more access to affordable healthcare than most Americans do.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m one of the first acupuncturists in the country to have a doctorate degree. Many of my patients have been with me for over 15 years. I am a primary care provider which means the state of California grants me the right to be the first physician patients come to for health care. Patients do not need a referral to see me and as a general practitioner, I can treat hundreds of ailments from acute or chronic pain, anxiety, and more complex conditions like endometriosis and auto-immune disease. Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Formulas are safe and effective and should be used both as preventative medicine and for recovery from serious illnesses and from side-effects of cancer treatments to covid recovery. Acupuncture reduces inflammation and increases circulation and it is recognized by the World Health Organization, the National Institute of Health and Medicare.

I am known for helping women with re-occurring miscarriages, for helping Covid long-haulers turn their lives around, and for effectively treating pain conditions with results that last. I am proud of helping hundreds of women start their labors when they are past their dues dates and hope to avoid a medical induction. And I am most proud of teaching women that they do not have to accept painful periods as a normal part of being a woman. Chronic pain is not normal, nor is chronic bloating, miscarriage, or anxiety. So much is treatable and no one should live in pain or have to rely on constant medication or opioids. There are often safer, less invasive, and more effective options to try first.

In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
The World Health Organization now includes acupuncture and Traditional Medicine in the latest version of it’s diagnostic codes for all data collected worldwide. This is a major shift and recognition that hundreds of countries use Acupuncture as mainstream medicine. Patients are smarter and more resourceful about their health care. Patients want access to healthcare that is safe, effective, and affordable. Stories about paying tens of thousands for expensive medical procedures that may not cure or resolve a health condition are too common and this lack of affordability and lack of access hastens the paradigm shift towards integrative medicine. Practitioners of eastern medicine and western medicine work together for the betterment of the patient all over the world. And in the United States acupuncture will be included in Medicare, and eventually in Medicare for All.

Knowledge is contagious. People know how to look up published medical studies (if not, read my Tip: Search for studies using the word “acupuncture” and in capital letters “AND” with the ailment ie. “low back pain” or simply, “Acupuncture AND pain” or “acupuncture AND auto immune disease” or “Chinese herbal medicine AND heart disease”, or “acupuncture AND PTSD”. Look at American studies on Medline, PubMed, and PMC
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/difference.html

Especially look at Asian databases. Acupuncture studies out of Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and China to name a few are translated into hundreds of languages. One database is PubMed:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

My favorite Korean site is https://global.cnki.net/index/

Look at the English translations on Korean databases to search for any modality or health concern. To view studies on acupuncture and Parkinson’s type in: “acupuncture AND Parkinson’s Disease” you’ll see hundreds of peer-reviewed studies including meta-analysis on acupuncture, acupuncture injection therapy, electro-acupuncture, herbal medicine and more.

Patients use referral sites like www.yelp.com to get recommendations from other patients. Patients hear success stories from their friends and family members. Word of mouth is a major source of referrals. And acupuncturists receive referrals from MDs. I get patients sent to me by their obstetricians to help lower their FSH for fertility because doctors read medical journals that publish studies. I’ve met doctors and nurses at hospital births who take their children to me. Pediatrics is a major part of my practice. Parents want their children to be healthy and safe. They want affordable health options.

A lot of holistic doctors are moving out of the state because while some insurances pay for acupuncture, some have erratic and/or undependable plans that change without disclosing the changes to the customer. Blue Shield Blue Cross just lost a major class-action lawsuit- look it up- you may be eligible for a pay-out. Patients should demand that their insurance pay a living wage for acupuncture treatments. The Affordable Care Act increased access to acupuncture by allowing states to cover acupuncture on state health exchanges when before it was mostly wealthy, entertainment industry health plans like FOX, Warner Brothers, Sony, Disney, Netflix, Amazon and Nike that included acupuncture. To remain a competitive employer and keep their employees these major corporate employers all include acupuncture in their health plans. Most of my patients are more than willing to pay for their acupuncture, covered by insurance or not.

Acupuncturist are far more educated and qualified to be doing acupuncture than any other physician is. Voters and legislators support efforts to include acupuncture in Medicare beyond just for low-back pain and without supervision so that it is more accessible to everyone not just in the military or in hospitals. Kudos to Congresswoman Judy Chu of Alhambra, California (D-CA-27) who wrote the Acupuncture for Heroes and Seniors Act several years ago and most recently the Acupuncture for Seniors Act 2021 Rep. Chu and her staff have worked for years to include acupuncture in Medicare for all veterans and seniors. Congresswoman Judy Chu writes bills including Acupuncture into our health care system because it is an affordable and effective treatment for chronic pain and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and it is safer than opioids. Acupuncture helps to minimize side-effects (like nausea and gastrointestinal distress). This helps patients comply with their Western medical treatments and increases their quality of life. And acupuncture helps with allergies and addictions. Acupuncture helps reduce addictions to cigarettes, alcohol, drugs and other pharmaceuticals.

It is important to only see licensed acupuncturists for acupuncture not a practitioner in another health field who took an abbreviated course or someone who calls it “dry-needling”. Licensed acupuncturists study for 4-6 years and one with a doctorate studies 6-8 years to must pass a rigorous licensing exam and be licensed by the state to practice; they do not simply stick a needle into the place where it hurts. Never go to someone who tells you they were self-taught! Ask to see their acupuncture license. Also, seek acupuncture first for non-emergencies rather than trying more invasive or high-risk treatments. The sooner you get acupuncture and/or take Chinese Herbal formulas the better they work. Have several treatments in a row and while you should feel improvement within 2-3 treatments, don’t expect a chronic illness to be cured in a day. It took over a year of weekly treatments to completely recover from my car accident, sciatica, kidney stone and endometriosis. And it was 100% effective. Twenty years later I remain pain-free.

Pricing:

• I charge 165.- for the first treatment
• 150.- for follow up 60 minute treatments
• 300.- for house calls
• 50. – for a 15 minute consult
• 80.- for 30 minute consult

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.drnatalielewis.com
• Instagram: @dr.natalielewis
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/GwU0V2QGRVo
• Yelp: https://yelp.to/2zG9QlC8Yjb