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Jenny Kimbro & Ryan Shelton: How S.T.A.B.L.E. Mental Health Is Transforming Veteran PTSD Care | Security Halt! Podcast Ep. 453

Deny Caballero Season 8 Episode 453

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 In Episode 453 of the Security Halt! Podcast, Deny Caballero sits down with psychiatric nurse practitioners Jenny and Ryan to discuss the future of veteran mental health care and why healing requires more than simply prescribing medication.

Drawing on years of experience working with veterans, first responders, and individuals struggling with trauma, Jenny and Ryan explain how personalized treatment plans, nutrition, sleep optimization, neurofeedback, medication management, and innovative therapies can dramatically improve long-term outcomes.

 They also discuss the importance of building trust with patients, understanding the root causes of mental health challenges, and empowering veterans to take ownership of their recovery.

Whether you're a veteran, first responder, healthcare provider, or family member supporting someone through trauma, this episode offers practical insights into what comprehensive mental health care should look like.

 About Jenny & Ryan

Jenny and Ryan are psychiatric nurse practitioners and founders of Stable Mental Health, where they specialize in treating veterans, first responders, and individuals experiencing PTSD, anxiety, depression, traumatic brain injury, and other mental health challenges through evidence-based and holistic treatment approaches.

 Listen now. Follow the show. Share this with the veteran or entrepreneur who needs to hear it.
 
Chapters:

00:00 Meet Jenny & Ryan: A New Approach to Veteran Mental Health

01:56 From Military Service to Psychiatric Care

04:54 Understanding Trauma Beyond the Diagnosis

10:06 PTSD, TBI, and Today's Biggest Challenges for Veterans

14:57 Holistic Mental Health: EXO Mind and Emerging Therapies

19:57 Medication Management and Safe Tapering Strategies

25:07 Sleep, Nutrition, and Hormone Health for Mental Wellness

29:48 Neurofeedback Success Stories and Brain Recovery

35:14 Why Personalized Treatment Plans Work Better

40:03 Expanding Veteran Care Through Telehealth

45:00 Building Trust Between Providers and Patients

49:59 How to Connect with Stable Mental Health

 

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Sleep Meds That Backfire

SPEAKER_01

You're prone to wake up and, you know, sleepwalk and do crazy stuff, say insane things, just throwing it out there. You might know which medication I'm talking about. One of the worst fucking things you can do to somebody with insomnia. It gives you a false sense of like you're actually sleeping. Meanwhile, the rest of your body, the rest of your brain, it it's fucking you up neurochemically.

SPEAKER_04

And then they're like, why am I so tired all day? Why am I so groggy? Why am I sluggish? Why is my clarity of thought bad? Why can't I think through a process? Well, let's look at your med list. Right.

SPEAKER_01

I'm not gonna say the name of the medication, but it has one of the strongest black box label warnings on it, and it's billed as a sleep medication. I was prescribed that, and I was told you'll just take this forever. Meanwhile, it doesn't do anything to like actually restore your brain's function to actually actually restore the like effects of sleep. Doesn't do anything for that.

SPEAKER_00

That Security Halt Media is looking for clients that need video editing. Have them reach out to info at securityhaltmedia.com.

SPEAKER_01

Guys,

Meet Stable Mental Health

SPEAKER_01

welcome to Security Halt Podcast. How's it going?

SPEAKER_04

Good. How are you?

SPEAKER_01

How are you doing? I am thrilled to be here alive, well, and uh have some sleep. Uh, but it is uh just crazy. I'm getting gearing up for Normandy, but um I am excited to have you guys, the team behind stable mental health, helping a lot of my dear friends in Northwest Florida. So uh today I had to have you on. We tried to make it happen before, but again, travel's got in the way. But now we finally were able to lock it down at least for 45 minutes uh before I have to jump into the seat of another endeavor. But uh today you gotta dive into your journeys, guys. So please tell us a little about yourselves. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_04

So I'm Jenny Kimbrough, and um we are stable mental health. We're psychiatric nurse practitioners.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I'm Ryan Shelton, the other part of stable mental health, and um we have a lot of experience as far as the medical field and decided that we wanted to pursue the psychiatric portion of it, not the just the medical portion to kind of help all those in need, uh especially veterans. Uh it seems like there's a big uh deficit as far as the help they receive and are getting.

SPEAKER_01

So absolutely. Um, if you guys have uh listened to the show, you know that's something that I dive into because it's near and dear to my heart. I am uh not only a proud advocate, but a proud member of the club. Uh I struggled, and uh, here's the fun fact we're gonna continue to struggle throughout life, so but it's about minimizing the amount of struggle and uh giving you and everybody that's dealing with these issues some tools. Um so it's important to have individuals such as yourselves on the show to talk about what you're doing. But before we dive into the great stuff you're doing, I want to dive into the background because we have to know that you know there's there's a human element to it. There's a reason why there's a calling. And uh so I want to hear that. I want to hear where that calling came from.

SPEAKER_04

So for me, um, I started off at a young age. I started off as a paramedic and then a firefighter, and I did that for about 12 years. Um after that, I went into um nursing because then I had a family and kids and stuff. And um, so I did ER nursing and I was an ER nurse, ER trauma um and charge nurse for 12 years. And then I went into family nurse practitioner, and we did that for a couple years, and then decided that wasn't really my thing. So psychiatric was always something I was interested in. It was always something I loved. Um, kind of got into that just from from the pre-hospital, from trauma, ER, and all of that. Um, psych was always like my go-to. I always wanted to be around those patients and help those patients. I felt like they were um mistreated in the ER. I didn't really like the way they all that was handled. I didn't like how substance abuse patients were handled. Um, and I felt like it's it is a disease, it is something that needs to be treated and cared for and their people as well. Um, and trauma is a big thing, and a lot of people, I think, dismiss it. Um so we have to wrap back around and understand that there is a deeper aspect of what happens in the human brain and when that when there's trauma or when there's substance use and why that's there, um, and kind of treat that from the depths and not just from the surface. Um, so we opened Stable Mental Health a few years ago um to kind of pull in our passion or my passion from that. Um, and so that's where we are.

SPEAKER_01

That's awesome. And I got so much to dive into uh on that. But Ryan, tell us about yourself. How did you find yourself in in in this uh the forefront of the battle for uh veterans' mental health?

SPEAKER_03

Well, I um took care of my grandfather who also was a he was a veteran of World War II, and um I saw the good and the bad of the medical, and that's what pushed me into the medical. Um I also am part of the club like you are, and um I served and when I came back um from my last deployment uh from Kenar and uh Afghanistan, there just wasn't a lot of services, especially for a lot of us that came back. And I think my intake took six months to get completed, and then that's not that's just the medical portion of it, that's not even the psychiatric portion of it, and the techniques and things they were using for veterans were obsolete in my mind, and I feel like a lot of my friends, I end up helping them more than the VA and the other services were, so I felt like I it was up to me to kind of help them out as best I can, or at least provide as much as I can for that that community itself. Um, also from working in the hospital, because I did internal medicine as well, um, just seeing how much of psychiatric things get pushed to the side as far as with addiction and trauma. And it's not just trauma dealing with war trauma. It's I mean, trauma is it's it's particular to that individual, you know, whether it's you know, a car accident or you know, spusal abuse or anything like that, but everyone's got their version of trauma. I just want to make sure that that type of community, the mental health side was taken care of, and that's why we kind of embarked on this endeavor.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, sir. That that is um I I wanna I wanna highlight something in in both of your stories, the um the capacity to serve, the passion for it, the purpose to drive, it's there, and I think we need to highlight. I think I fell into this idea that only a veteran or or only somebody within my community could really understand me. And that's not really the case. You need to find the understanding that there are people

The Calling Behind Their Work

SPEAKER_01

of purpose and are people who are deeply devoted to service, and those are the individuals going to rally around you to help you. Um and and that's what I ended up finding was uh an entire coalition of more often than not women providers that were deeply devoted to service members and helping us. And if I wouldn't have changed that mind frame, my my pathway to healing would have taken a lot longer because it takes a lot for a veteran to get out and to go to school and to get those certifications. Uh, and and Ryan, you're a powerful component to this healing journey for so many of us, but we also have to be willing to take a look at uh individuals such as uh as Jenny, somebody that is sitting here with a service record of service and compassion and being there for others in a different capacity. And we have to be willing to accept that, man. That is something that I struggle with, and I have to constantly remind people that hey man, like the the guides, the the support that you're looking for may be coming in a different, you know, maybe wrapped in a different package than you're willing to accept right now. Maybe just reflect on it, maybe just meditate on the idea that maybe it's not some barrel-chested freedom fighter coming in uh with a mustache and a mouthful of dip, but it may be a five foot two Hispanic lady named Rosalita with a proven track record of helping people that are in your position. And I think we have to kill that math, man. I think we have to show people that, yes, there are amazing individuals like you, Ryan, that have served, that have gone into academia, have gone certifications, needed to help, but also powerful healers like yourself, Jenny, that are in this, in the fight with us and helping and willing to do everything they can to help others. And I think that's something that we need to talk about more, man. The idea that only one type of person can help us. It's just outdated, and we need to embrace anybody that's willing to help us.

SPEAKER_04

Right. I will say that like in the beginning, I wasn't like all of our military trauma or uh vets and stuff like that. I would push to Ryan and be like, hey, he understands you, he knows you. And I had to kind of like wrap around it and say, wait, I I might understand you too. Um went and spent time. Um I've done a lot of time and um work with A Hero and like Vets Recover Um and different organizations that do a lot of veteran work, um, just to kind of see that it's really just about understanding the person. It's not really where the trauma specifically came from and that it's military, that it's vet, but it's just the individual and their trauma and how they deal with it and what they need from me or us. So it's been in it's been a journey. It's been interesting to learn everything.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's it's something that a lot of people don't understand that um that our doctors, our providers are constantly growing. It's not like they graduate from one program and they're like, you're done. You know everything. It's like, no, man, like we bring a lot of different shit to this field. And uh the individuals love what they're doing. They're constantly finding ways to get more insight. And there are new tools being developed, new things being brought into the fights. I mean, like just a few years ago, we didn't have MERT. We didn't know how hybridic uh oxygen treatment could be beneficial in the fight against PTSD and TPI.

PTSD And TBI In Younger Veterans

SPEAKER_01

This episode of Security Health is brought to you by Dr. Taylor Bosley and Persistician Wellness Group. Let's be real. By now, a lot of New Year's resolutions have already fizzled out, life gets busy, motivation drops, and health ends up on the back burner. But here's the truth there's no better time to start than right now. Persistian Wellness Group specializes in hormone optimization and hormone health, delivering personalized care and treatment right to your door. If you've been dealing with low energy, brain fog, poor sleep, forced all performance, hormone imbalance, maybe the missing piece. Dr. Taylor Bosley and his team take a data-driven individualized approach to help you get back to operating at you fast. Security Hall Listeners receive 25% off their initial consultation when they use Security Hall 25 at checkout. Click the link in the episode description to find out more and get started today. And uh, I think it's important to understand that individuals in your in your seat, in your profession, are really devoted to constantly learning and adapting because the veteran that we're seeing right now that is is coming through the front doors of you know your clinic or other clinics like it is vastly different than the veteran from World War II. There are some similarities, but our younger veterans are struggling and they're struggling from different things from you know that guys like myself and Ryan did. And your guys' um, you know, in in the area you're working in, what are some of the things that you're seeing more of today that our our veterans are having problems with?

SPEAKER_03

You're saying for for me, I'm seeing a lot more PTSD and the uh TBIs are more prevalent now than you know the World War II vets, the Vietnam vets. Um and that in itself is a double whammy because you have two injuries, because PTSD is not a, you know, it's not a hurt, it's not a condition or anything like that. It's more of an injury to the brain. Same thing a TBI is an injury to the brain. And so when you have those two whammies and then you have two things affecting your neurological pathways, you you're already at a disadvantage. And if the younger guys are just not as equipped, didn't have this, some some of them just didn't have the uh the hardships coming in to be able to be uh aware of what they were getting themselves into, as far as especially when we went from um enduring freedom to Afghanistan, like the stuff that they were being thrown into, going from death storm to that was completely different. So it just was a lot of um shock, shock therapy on them. So from my experience, a lot of them just were having increased anxiety on top of that with depression and everything like that. So it's and a lot of the therapies were just like, here, take this pill and I'll I'll see you in a month. A lot of them were telling me like counselors weren't really talking to them about the things that they were going through, or they wanted uh them to immediately relive those events doing through um you know trauma therapy right away. And that's like nah, you gotta be ready for that.

SPEAKER_01

And yeah, my favorite is the uh, hey, I just want you to pick uh the worst event of your life. And it's like, lady, uh, my ACES scores are off the chart. I've deployed 17 times, and and the guy is like listing off like every deployment he's gone to, all the different theaters, and each one of them has like an insane index event. And that the the pain point I'm always hearing from guys is like I enlisted before, like I got into the the height of the war in Iraq, and then I you know enlisted and enlisted again and then went to SOF. And I went and I went to all these different places and saw all this different stuff and had all the moral injury here, here, and here. And they want me to just summarise summarize it all into one event. Like, I don't know how to do that. Like, I don't know how to summarize, and I vividly remember friends telling me this like, how do I weigh the impact that these things have had on my soul and in my brain and come up with just one and just go in there? But the other problem is the lack of consistent care because either the guy gets frustrated and he leaves, or they're part of the VA program and it's a revolving door of providers.

Trust-First Care That Meets You

SPEAKER_01

In your guys' experience, what has your approach been to like working with that veteran and like establishing that secure handshake, that firm handshake of, hey, I'm here with you. And how do you how do you get to the point where you finally say, All right, it's your turn to go on your own?

SPEAKER_04

So um, we listen. Um I feel like I sit and I listen and I don't so for me specifically, um, I don't push. Like it's it's on them to tell me what they want me to know or what they trust me to know. Um and so we sit and we talk like humans. We sit and we talk like buddies. Um, I'm not usually sitting like in a clinical situation. Like sometimes I'll just go pull up a chair next to them and sit and we'll just talk like we're chilling. Um, and it's building that relationship of a friend and not a provider versus a patient, and just like you just they have to trust you. Um, but that goes with any kind of trauma, not just veteran trauma, all trauma. Like you have to trust the person you're talking to. So I kind of took it away of okay, well, this is specific to vets, like we have to do this. Like, there are some specific things, like, but everybody's trauma is trauma, and you just have to look at it as okay, we're just gonna sit and we're gonna hang out and we're gonna talk. And some patients can't sit in an office, so I'll say, Hey, let's go for a walk and we'll just go walk around the block and go for a walk and hang out, or we'll go sit at the park or whatever. So it's just like you have to read the room. Um, and I feel like a lot of people don't read the room. Um, and if they don't want a door shut, we don't shut a door. Um, it's not, you know, I kind of just follow their their guide.

SPEAKER_03

And I feel like we adapt to our clientele and give them what at that time they're presenting what they need, honestly. Like she said, like if they they feel uncomfortable sitting in the room, hey, let's go for a walk. Um and a lot of times, like she said, we build a rapport with these patients by just listening to them at first because it uh PTSD and trauma and it it affects us all in different ways, whether you're the veteran warrior or like I said, the car crash, abuse, whatever. Um, we don't tend medications have their place, um, but it's not the end-all be-all. Like 30 to 40 percent of medications that we give to people with PTSD don't effectively relieve their cis symptoms. They make them numb or or have sexual dysfunction or whatever. That's why we look at different avenues, like the exomine was a big thing, big proponent of thing that we wanted to bring to the forefront because that was that neurofeedback is something that I think that can really help as far as with anyone with PTSD, not just veterans, but it's seems like the people that need the therapy the most are the ones that are gonna be left out because the only thing is, hey, let's talk about that worst part of your life. Let's take all those little single events and talk about that. Like, I I know when I came back, I that was the least thing I wanted to do. I wanted to keep that door shut until I was able to deal with that. And I had a buddy that was he, sir, he he was in 2007, he was in Iraq, and I think I missed him by like a couple months, but it took him five years before he was like talking to me about stuff that he encountered. So we just try to do stuff that brings them along the journey of healing at their rate and not what the textbook says, the black and white. We we we kind of kind of like I said, adapt to our clientele.

SPEAKER_04

And we don't push medication. Like I'm actually I'm more holistic. I don't believe in a lot of the medications. I try to keep patients off of medications. Um, I will do everything in the world to not put a patient on a medication until it's like, okay, we'll we'll do it. But my belief is medications are for now, not for an always. Like we're not gonna always have you on medications. Patients will come and be like, well, my doctor said we have to be on this for the rest of my life. I'm like, there's nothing that's the rest of your life. Um, we can be on it for right now, and then we're gonna use it as a tool to get through the minute, and then we're gonna come off of it, and then we're gonna see how we adapt because without it, we don't know your baseline. So you don't have that anymore, but we don't know if we don't come off the medication and see what your baseline is now. But we also come off the medication, like I'm very slow on coming off a med. So I don't want you to feel the decrease. I don't want you to know you're coming off of the med. Um, so we do it really slow and we come off of it, and then we're usually okay. And if we're not, then we revisit it. But it doesn't have to be all the time. Um, the longer you're on these meds, the more side effects you have. So the less time we can be on it, the better. Like he said, we have the XMI, which is a TMS machine, transcranial magnetic stimulation. We we are using that in our practice now. And there is so much proven research now on PTSD, on depression, on all of the things that that's helping to help us not put patients on medications to help redevelop the brain and reformulate how it's functioning and thinking.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And I want to dive into that, but uh just to reiterate, folks, because we have to say it again for

Polypharmacy And Safe Medication Tapers

SPEAKER_01

the people in the back medications have a place. Absolutely do. But the idea that you're supposed to be on these, some of these substances for the rest of your life, and some of the things that they're prescribing veterans to take daily, to take daily is insane. Uh, I'm not gonna say the name of the medication, but it has one of the strongest black box label warnings on it, and it's billed as a sleep medication. That I was prescribed that, and I was told you'll just take this forever. Meanwhile, it doesn't do anything to like actually restore your brain's function to actually actually restore the like effects of sleep. Doesn't do anything for that. You're prone to wake up and date and you know, sleepwalk and do crazy stuff, say insane things, just throwing it out there. You might know which medication I'm talking about. It's grinding like eat when I see people on it. I'm like, why? It's the worst, it's one of the worst fucking things you can do to somebody with insomnia. It gives you a false sense of like you're actually sleeping. Meanwhile, the rest of your body, the rest of your brain, it's fucking you up neurochemically. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_04

And they're like, why am I so tired all day? Why am I so groggy? Why am I sluggish? Why is my clarity of thought bad? Why can't I think through a process? Well, let's look at your med list. Right. Let's let's take you off of you know eight of these nine medications and really figure out what's wrong because the doctors, um, specialist certain services, just like to throw you on a lot of medications. And then it's like, okay, well, which one's working? Or they'll put you on five at a time at the five at one time. It's like, okay, which medication actually helped you? Well, I don't know. Okay, well, then let's decrease them, let's get off them, start at the base, see how you are, and let's go start from there.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and it's also important to note that you have to downstep. You cannot if you're out there and you're on medication, and and I know it it's by a for a lot of veterans, you're prescribed a lot of medications. Talk to your provider. Talk to your provider, develop a plan of action, um, be intentional, be focused, and understand that. You have to do the work. There's no such thing as a magic wand. And if any medication is being presented to you as a magic one, uh, granted, there are some health issues where I'm not telling you you can offer diabetic medicine. Like, come on now. That's ridiculous. I'm talking about I'm talking about mental health stuff. Uh, so don't get it twisted, folks. If you're taking something that your life it's absolutely necessary to be able to live, that's not what I'm talking about. If you're on Prozac, if you're on something that affects the chemical balance of your brain, talk to a doctor. Develop a plan of action to come off of it. Because I will tell you, uh, I I was uh I was one of those guys. I was taking a lot of medications and I got to the point where it was affecting every other aspect of my life. The world was muted. And when I finally talked to a provider that had a plan of action, it wasn't like, yeah, just stop taking it, guy. No, it was like, all right, we have to be very deliberate because come to find out, your body stops producing some of the things that it's getting from these medications. And when it no longer gets it, it can be catastrophic. So please, please, please, please, always consult your doctor, your care team, and be willing to ask questions. That's the greatest problem that I knew I was facing. And a lot of other veterans are in the same place. We get in this room with a provider and we clam up. And it's like, yep, yep, whatever, yep, good. Ask a question. If the doctor doesn't know, they should provide you with a resource or be willing to sit down with you. That was one of the greatest moments I ever experienced going through my health journey. Having a doctor sit down and read Operator Syndrome with me as I brought him the white paper study and be willing to understand it. Oh, I haven't read this before. I haven't seen this. Whereas, oh, this is this is breaking news, right? This is just now coming out. All right, I need to educate myself. I work in this area, Northwest Florida. I have a lot of soft guys. I should be educated on this. Holy cow, another human being talking with another human being. That's how simple it is. It's nobody knows everything, even our medical providers. And we should be willing to ask questions. But I've like I said, I was right there. And I'm sure, Ryan, at some point before you were a doctor, you had that same feeling of like, well, I'm just gonna sit quiet and let them tell me what I need.

SPEAKER_03

For the most part, until they said something, I'm like, I can't hold it in anymore. I'm gonna stop you right there. And and then I'd be like, well, you know, certain studies say this, and yeah, especially when they were trying to put schmeds on onto me or friends of mine, because friends of mine would call me, like, hey, they're trying to give me X, Y, and Z. I go, Nope. Yeah, ask for ask for maybe this, ask for labs, um, let me know what they're try trading you up, let me know how they're try trading you down, and I'll tell you if that's okay or not to do. Because you like you said, you these medications that took place and they stopped having your body naturally produce some of these neurotransmitters, these chemicals in your body, that you you take that away and you go through pretty much like a withdrawal or like a shock to your system. That's why it's it's so important to have a plan, to trate slowly and be honest and ask questions. Questions are huge. I make sure anytime someone leaves me, I ask them at least three times. Any questions, comments, concerns, last chance? Sure, anything, nothing? Not so I always want to make sure they're comfortable with the plan and they understand the plan.

SPEAKER_04

And on top of that, not only do we ask them a million times before they leave if they have any questions, it's like, okay, you have my email address, you have my phone number, you can text me at any time, you can message me through the portal, whatever. You have like a million different avenues you can get a hold of me. If you have any questions between this appointment and the next appointment, or if you walk out that door and you're like, oh, I forgot to ask this, shoot me a message. Like, I'll always answer that way too, because it's they need to have that comfort because not everybody's comfortable looking you in the eyes and asking you a question. So I'm like, just email it to me. Yeah, I'm cool. If you don't want to talk to me, like in until you're until you're at that point where you are comfortable talking, send me an email. That's fine. Um, so there's multiple different avenues that people are comfortable with. Um, but what I was gonna hit on that, what you said about, you know, we are going through this and we're talking about meds and how they're not, you know, don't just come off of them, don't just stop them. That is one thing I will say that a lot of my veterans do is they're they they come in because they're like, hey, I was on all these meds and now I'm just a basket case, or now I'm just like having such problems because I read some stuff or I heard something, and so I just stopped it all. I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, that that's a problem. We don't do that. Um, so yeah, never just stop. Like, always come up with a plan. There's always have to wean off of these things and come down safely because they are the medications are altering the chemical makeup in your brain. They are altering your system. So we have to put your system back together by coming off of them slowly.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. And uh that's such an important thing to know because yeah, we are we're smart, capable, amazing human beings in the veteran space. We're wonderful people, but um, sometimes we can do some really, really special things. The great way to put it, yeah. It's a very beasty way of putting it. We're retarded. There we go. It's security, all I can say. This is my show. Yeah, we do a lot of things. Um, yeah, you you hit it on, you hit the nail on the head. We we jump to conclusions, we hear a new trend, and before we understand the severity and the dangers that come with it, friggin' pull the plug. But uh, you know, I want to go back to something you guys were talking about. Uh uh, you know, MERT

Exomind TMS And Neurofeedback Gains

SPEAKER_01

therapy. There's a lot of different things out there that are helping our veterans. And how is that how has that innovation been uh utilized by your clinic? And what kind of response have you seen?

SPEAKER_03

As far as the exo mine's been great. I I've actually used it myself. Um when I, like I said, I came back, I had all kinds of issues, and it took me a while to get to a adjustment period to where I could function at a pretty high level, but the exomine worked a thousand times better than anything that I could imagine. I mean, it it's like five because your your brain is like an engine, like in a car, and you know, and the exomine is the diagnostic tool that kind of figures out what's wrong and then helps p regenerate and make new pathways to fix those things with you know, with uh biofeedback, um photomyel bio uh bioavailability, um, things like that helps with your uh HRV, your your heart rate variability, which is we Yes, because veterans, when we come back, we're so we're so geared to that threat alert, that that rational part of our brain that pumps the brakes and lets us know that it's safe. We are so tuned to have that threat, like, hey, we gotta be building that that part shuts off, that brake system shuts off. And where the exo mind helps regenerate that that active thinking process, goes, hey, you're safe, and we're gonna start pumping the brakes. So it kind of turns down that alpha part of your brain, that that pre-frontal cortex, that that fight or flight, like I'm ready to go, and nothing's gonna, I'm gonna protect all. It brings that level down so that reactive brain can go, okay, we're good, pump the brakes, let's stay calm. And that's, you know, if that's what helps with the delta waves as far as your sleep cycle was because once you start bringing that down, everything else kind of even kills itself out. So it's like I said, it's five tools in one. You can't I used it six times and my sleep improved, uh, my cognitive function improved. Uh, just in all me staying calm as far as hearing things, my triggers like you know, car firing back, certain alarms would be the same alarms you would hear, like incoming type thing. Um, I was able to not get so heightened so quickly. And I was able to take my rational brain and go, you're okay, you're not over there anymore. We can we can relax, everything's good.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And it's funny when people aren't in tune to those things. Um, you don't understand your body signaling a certain thing, like things like diesel fuel. Yeah. Like diesel fuel of all things. Like, and I didn't stop to think of what I was feeling in in that heightened sense of like alertness until I started seeing a therapist for the first time. And you don't think about triggers. I'm like, and it wasn't like I was amped up to get in a fight. No, but my body was definitely, I was getting that, I felt a spike. I felt a spike like I was getting ready to go somewhere and do something specifically, but it was a normal factor of my life because I owned a diesel truck. I and that it was it, I was sitting there wondering one day, like, and I brought it up. It's like, yeah, when I'm popping on my my truck and I'm getting fuel, like I get really amped up, get like get excited, get a moment of like feeling like, oh wow, like something's about to get you get a little bit more of a pep in your step and alert. Am I getting high off my fumes? Like, no. It's that feeling that you're gearing up to go out on a mission. You're filling up, you're topping off the trucks, and you're getting back up. And it's been long ingrained because for an entire year of my life in Iraq, I was on a convoy and I was gearing up, and I'm sitting there having to fill up, do pit stops and fill up with jerry cans, and it became a thing in your mind. You don't even realize it. And it just becomes part of who you are, it becomes part of your operating uh mechanism. And there's tons of guys that I talked to had that same reality with something as simple as filling up their truck or checking something or constantly checking the door or doing security around their house. These are all things that you don't think are a problem, or don't think that there's a connection with your deployments or being in a uh a threat environment until you sit down and talk with somebody.

SPEAKER_04

But I guarantee that's the big thing is sitting down and talking to somebody or standing up or whatever. But it unless you bring it up, like even after people do the eczema, I'm like, well, how do you feel? Do you feel any deep? They're like, not really, until I start like asking a few random questions. And they're like, oh, yeah, this happened yesterday and I actually didn't lose my crap. I'm like, okay, so then we're we're prog we're progressing. And then the sleep, sleep is really one of the biggest ones because I know that sleep is a problem, especially for a lot of veterans, because you sleep, you have nightmares, you wake up constantly. Um, and if you don't get that sleep, like we have to work off of sleep. If you don't get sleep, you can't function. Um, and you can't emotionally regulate. So without sleep, people are like, oh, I'm good, I'm good. And I'm I'm that person too. Like, I'm like, I can go for days without sleep and I'm fine, but you start to not be able to emotionally regulate. So your anxiety is higher the next day, you can't handle situations the next day, your clarity of thought's not as good, but you think it's like, well, it's just me, I'm just that way. Well, no, you're not sleeping, so your brain's not resetting ever. Um, so it's always a problem. But I will say, like, our personal story on the XO mine is he wasn't, I'm more holistic and I'm always like, hey, let's look at this, hey, let's look at this. And he's like, okay, okay, Jenny, let's look. Um, so he wasn't like a firm believer in the beginning. And so finally I was like, hey, because I knew what he had in the back of his mind. Like I knew the traumas that he had. He had, he doesn't talk, like you said, he didn't talk about a lot of things, but you know, and especially when you spend time in a business with somebody. So I was just like, I'm gonna just try this out. So I was like, hey, why don't you just get on it and see? Let's just see if we can get you sleeping better. And so we started doing it with him. And so slowly through time, then I noticed one day he came in, he was like, Hey, can you put me on that machine? I was like, Okay, so now we're seeing a difference. Like we feel like it's helping now because then he was coming and asking for it. So I saw the shift in him, and then I saw how he was handling situations differently and how in the office things were a little different. He was a little lighter, his tone was a little different. So I saw the whole shift in him specifically.

SPEAKER_03

And that's why it's funny you said that about diesel fuel because that's the same thing that triggered me because I didn't I didn't realize until I got when I got back and I would smell the fuel, but I'd then all of a sudden I'd be looking around everywhere and doing checks everywhere, constantly looking. And finally, my son's like, What are you doing? I was like, Yeah, that's a good question. You know, what am I doing? And that's what led me to like, oh, this is one of my triggers. But the thing with the examine, when I said about the heart, the heart rate variability, because I'm I measure that in myself a lot, and mine was much lower when I came down. But then when we started doing that, it mine increased after a few sessions. And then I started reading more of the research on it. That's why I said it's like a five tool, like um, your brain, your brain will always do what's best for it. And so if it's if it knows it's getting a good, if it knows it's following this pathway and it's getting good results, healthy results, it will continue that. And so when it are resolved it, it will reset to get back on that pathway. That's that, that's that neurofeedback. And then you with the neurotransmitters, it nudges you for healthy activity because what we're trying to do with that is reset those circuits so you're not always in that fight or flight. And um, that's the main thing is that we are so prone to having that threat mode for us that to bring down the threat mode and let our reactive brains to say, you're okay, you're in a safe spot.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. You know, Jenny, I want to dive into the holistic aspect inside of this because it it while I'm I'm a big proponent for it, there's still naysayers. There are people out there like, I'm not gonna get better by just worrying about vitamin E and taking in the right substance and and drinking green drinks. It's not gonna help me in any way. It's like, dude, uh, yes, nutrition, nutritional supplements, vitamin, they're they're actually very critical in helping every every component of our lives in our body. And for the longest time, we've

Triggers Sleep And Emotional Control

SPEAKER_01

focused so much on Western medicine and on pills and this this idea that like, well, if I want to feel better, I just got to take all these pills. And it's like, okay, well, let's look at the pills because a lot of them should be things like vitamin D, vitamin E, some fish oil, some of those things, but they're just now starting to get more credibility in this space.

SPEAKER_04

Right. Yeah, so we do dive a lot into like nutrition, hydration. Like, people don't bel don't understand how much hydration alone matters in life. And I'm like, if you're not drinking half your body weight in ounces a day, then you're not hydrating. And you hydrate today for tomorrow. I know you made a face. See, you're not doing it either. And like half your body weight now.

SPEAKER_01

No, I am not, but my wife is always on top of me to do that.

SPEAKER_04

That's your minimum, like half your body weight and ounces a day. And then if you're out there doing something active, like if you're running or if you're doing anything outside or you're anything functional or taking specific medications that are naturally dehydrating you, you have to increase that. Your brain is balancing in fluid. Like, why wouldn't you need hydration to balance all of that? So, um, so yes, we I do a lot of education on like you should be hydrating, you should be supplementing, you know, having good nutrition and eating correctly. Um, and we we look at a lot of that supplements, like um, we do lab work, you know, we're we're testing your vitamin B, we're testing your D, we're you know, doing specific labs to make sure that there's nothing else going on. Um there's a large percentage of Americans that have low vitamin D. Um, and then some people are like, oh, well, my B12 is normal. Well, what is your number? Okay, well, if you're at 300 or 400, like it's normal, but it's not normal, it's not high enough.

SPEAKER_03

It's normal and a low.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, it's normal according to the range that it's supposed to be, or your vitamin D is at 30 and it's supposed to, you know, the range is all the way up to 80 or 100, it should be up there. Right. So, you know, people are they just look at that their labs are in the green. And it's like, I just because your labs are in the green, does that mean that's where they're supposed to be? Um, and secondly, we're all individuals, we're all different. So what a range does is a range. Um, but the the vitamins matter, nutrition matters, hydration matters a lot. Um, listen to your wife. Um it's true though.

SPEAKER_01

It's true. Like it's especially when it comes to like our diet. We we don't put enough emphasis on the things that we're putting in our body. And I I know for a long time I wasn't really tracking it. You know, I would do, I would put more more focus on nutrition for the gym. It's like protein and pre-workout. I'm like, oh, I need to get more pre-workout because it gives me the the that fire ants feeling. That's how you know it's working. And and it's got like 300 milligrams of caffeine. It's sitting here, I'm constantly pounding it, and I'm like, wait a second, too much of a good thing can be bad.

SPEAKER_04

Uh, but it's understanding like, hey, hydrating you when you're not replacing the hydration.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And it's like you, you know, you switch, you know, should I be buying the uh the aftermarket, you know, flashy marketing new, you know, energy drink or a pre-workout that's made in a questionable third country third world country, or can I drink and choose uh a pre-workout from say pure Liberty Labs that's actually made here in the United States that's good for you? Shameless plug. But that was a growth moment for me, is understanding what I'm putting in my body because you can't eat a friggin' gas station tornado and tell yourself that you're gonna be the pinnacle of health and not worry about what the you know the side effects of eating like garbage. You feel worse, you're more prone to diabetes, blood pressure, all these things. When you start diving into the veteran like health issues, mental health issues, it's deeply connected to overall health. Like, how are we gonna talk about mental health when we're not talking about diabetes, when we're not talking about hypertension, when we're not talking about individuals that are suffering from both aspects? You know, obesity is a huge thing in our population too. And that's that's a sad thing to realize that these things are interconnected. And when I'm able to find mental health professionals like yourselves that are championing these ideas, like I get thrilled because what we put in our bodies through eating affects this a hundred percent. Like, and it doesn't have to be this thing where you're you're you're not gonna be able to go out and eat. No, but it make better choices, simple better choices. And you're gonna realize your body's gonna tell you what it likes, what it desires. If you're just willing to just pause on the sugar, like I always tell people, hey, just take two weeks of cleaning up your diet, you're gonna naturally find yourself wanting and craving things that are better for you. Like, yes, a white monster is still delicious, it's still amazing when you don't have that morning cup of coffee and you're on the go. But I'm telling you, ditch the overly processed pre-workouts that don't do anything for you. And again, I'm gonna plug them because it's a better-owned company and this stuff's actually better for you. It's better for you. And one scoop to go to a workout versus drinking a monster and four scoops of a very questionable pre-workout product that makes you feel like you're on fire, and maybe, maybe has trace elements of crystal meth, probably not good for you. But it's that growing, it's that that that little bit of growth that we all have to do. Like, look at what you're putting in your body, look what you're putting on your body. That's another thing I didn't understand. The the prevalence of neuro uh endocrine disruptors in our clothing. And I'm not telling you to go full crunchy mom. I'm just saying be willing to read, be willing to look at things, be willing to ask your providers for help. Because, like, I'm I'm pretty sure that the things that you talk about with your with your

Hydration Nutrition And Lab-Driven Basics

SPEAKER_01

um patients and clients, Jenny, are the things that you're also passionate about. So you have broader insight to them. And that's the thing that I was missing for a long time was the insight from people that had a different background, that understood different things that could have helped me better understand what's better for me a lot sooner.

SPEAKER_04

Right. Like we'd use, I use a lot of like we do lion's mane, we do cordyceps, we do turkey tail, we do rishi. Um, we work very hand in hand close with Lost Boys Mushrooms. So actually we're in the same building with them. So like I know their growth process, I can see what they're doing. They're doing it all organically. They're doing amazing.

SPEAKER_01

You have there's a mushroom provider for lion's mane, turkey tail, and that in in the Northwest Florida area.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, we're in the we're in the same, we're in there, we're in the same building. So, and we actually did that on purpose. Like, that was an intentional marriage. Like we did that on purpose. We I knew I was holistic, I knew I liked their products, so we married into the same building on purpose. That way we are here with them. So they're growing in the back of like in the warehouse behind us is their grow center. So they're growing all the mushrooms and everything right back there. They're making the tinctures in-house, they're making the powders in-house. It's all organic, it's all love. Like he goes back there and talks to his mushrooms. Like he's like very you that's it's a it's a thing. And it is a thing.

SPEAKER_01

It's it's one of the largest, like it's one of the largest. Yeah. Uh well, I'm moving back in the area in July, so surprise. Like, I'll be we'll be able to do this in person uh when I get there. But mushrooms and tincture, especially, are something I'm a big fan of. Uh we have mushroom coffee. Uh, I'm still a big proponent of my my wife's awesome coffee in the morning. I I love drinking coffee, but I did uh do mushroom coffee for a long time. There is lots of science, lots of advocacy in utilizing mushrooms uh as part of your supplements, as part of your daily diet. Nutrition. There's huge benefits to it.

SPEAKER_04

You buy she's buying mushroom coffee. What I do is I brew my coffee and then I'm putting the tinctures. I'm putting lion's mane and cordyceps and turkey, I'm putting it in my coffee, and I'm frothing it. So I'm like, I'm putting them in my coffee. Um, my son has ADHD and I won't medicate, I don't medicate him, but I he does take lines, mane, and cordyceps in the morning, and he does put it, I might put it in his body armor in the afternoon. Um, so like he is doing that too, and I haven't had to medicate him. His grades have come up from C's and D's to A's and B's. So, you know, we don't have to, you don't have to do a lot of things that we do just because it's faster or it's what we know.

SPEAKER_03

And the lion's mate is something that I utilize during my deployments, but back back then it was all pill form, you know. So you get closer to the closer to the source, it's much better, obviously, you know. But the we're both very holistic with as far as that thing, as far as making sure you have your labs done correctly. And I actually will order labs. If their PCP or their specialist won't do it, I'll actually order the labs. Like, this is what I would do in the hospital, this is what I would run, here's the slip, go find out where whoever will do it for you, and then we'll go over them. And I'll and I will literally go over each lab. And I had one guy who had one inflammatory rheumatoria factor that was off the charts, and I had to tell him because if you research it, it makes it look it the prognosis is like you got six months to live. And I had to say, You gotta take this with a grain of salt now, because one, you have no respiratory issues, so you you're not gonna go from zero to sixty. I was like, you gotta look more into it. I was like, I think yours is high. If it's not a false positive, it's it's because your history of cancer, which can cause a false positive with this. But you wouldn't know that unless you actually sat down and read it with them and tell them, like, hey, just because you have this one, the other ones that should be supported it aren't elevated.

SPEAKER_04

And the other thing is that we're not afraid to say we don't know something. Like I'll go over things with patients and they're like, Well, what does that mean? I'm like, Well, I don't know, but I'll get back with you because I'll go find out. Um, but I'm not afraid to say, like, I have no idea. So let's research it, let's learn it together, let's figure it out. Um, we don't know everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Like it is a constantly growing uh environment that you're in. It no doctor's gonna know everything. And in fact, that's a warning sign. If a doctor is too arrogant to want to research something with you or admit that it they don't know, just saying find somebody else. Find somebody else. There's no way a provider knows everything. Things are coming out of the woodwork as we speak. New research being done, new things are coming out. And if you find yourself dealing with somebody that is difficult to talk to, difficult, doesn't answer questions, uh, and and has that elevated sense of self-worth, find a new provider. Be willing to check somebody out. It's your journey, you're in control. That's um that's something people don't talk about often. It is not a dictatorship, it is a companionship. You're uh it's a guide, you're like guiding somebody through their journey.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

You gotta find that like it's like dating, you know, not everyone is compatible with everyone. So if you find a provider that you don't get along with or you feel like it's not listening, there you got you you gotta feel comfortable enough to know that there's millions of them out there. Well, it it doesn't seem like it, but you you just gotta do the research and put it out there. And and as far as also with the holistic stuff, we are uh I know in my journey when I was overseas, uh a lot of guys I was helping out with with peptides and things like that, as far as with the inflammation and main maintaining the muscles that that you need to, and and even the uh cognitive benefits of the of the peptides. Like I would help them um manage and dose those, like, hey, this is what I know, because like I I can't stop reading and I'd always try to do research on things. Like it's and I once I read it, it's in my brain, I can pull it out, be like, okay, but I'm always trying to like, okay, this study said this, but it's based off this study, so let me read that. But there's so much benefits from doing holistic things with both peptides and supplementation. And like even now, like MOTC is like a big one that everyone's pushing. And I'm like, well, you you got to do the supplements first to improve your mitochondria function before something's gonna make you have all this energy. Because if your battery is low, given something that's gonna make your battery high, it's just gonna make it a little bit high. So if you improve it and repair it, then you're fine. Or like the labs that are you need with some of these things, like the B the BPC 157 and the TB, the Wolverine stack, as everyone likes to call it, that it's great, but you got to do the labs behind it because you can cause yourself some physical harm if you just go buy it off the for one, if you buy it off the third party, don't know where in a warehouse that it's being made, gray market, whatever you want to call it, you don't know what you're getting. And also, too, if you don't have the labs behind it, and say you have a cancer cell that's slowly growing, you can throw that thing in a hyper hyper drive and bingo. Yep. Bingo people, they'll bring me their labs. I'm like, you have the wrong labs. You need this, you need this. You can get by with this, but if this is elevated, come let me know and I'll tell you what else you need to get.

SPEAKER_04

We say that because we are we're getting more and more and more patients coming in saying, Well, I'm having these problems. Well, I'm well, I started doing these peptides on this online company and da-da-da-da. And I'm just like, oh, so are what are they doing? Are they doing these things? Oh, no, no, no. So we've decided to kind of dive into that as well to push it into our company just because everyone's having issues and they're not doing it the right way. And I hate that. Like they're doing harm, but nobody knows.

SPEAKER_03

So or they're mic getting micro dose when I'm like, no, that's not the appropriate one. They're just kind of bringing in to keep you keep you on the leash. You you get the minimum effect, and you'll keep buying. I'm like, nah, we don't uh you don't need to do that. This is what we need to do.

SPEAKER_04

I want to heal you. I don't want to keep, I don't want you to have to come say keep come keep the keep coming to see me. I want you to be healed.

SPEAKER_03

I want you to come back and say hi and

Mushrooms Peptides And Risk Management

SPEAKER_03

not have to come back and keep, you know, exactly because you feel like crap.

SPEAKER_01

At some point, there's an offboarding and you move on, not just a subscription model like Netflix where you're constantly coming in.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I'd rather run you at a grocery store and man, you look great. That's fantastic, awesome, happy I could help. Then you to keep going back and like slowly progress off that.

SPEAKER_04

No, this isn't a soap opera that's gonna last for a hundred years.

SPEAKER_03

Right. It's not amazing or lives, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_01

I'm so glad you said that. There's there there is a lot of misconceptions. Um, there's a lot of fear of like, oh, once if I do therapy, if I do if I go get uh talk therapy or conventional therapy or go see provider, I'm gonna have to see them forever, forever and ever. It's like, no, there is there is you come together, you make a plan of of action, you attack it, and at some point they're gonna say, You've done great. We're proud of you, you've done all these great things. Now it's time for you to fly on your own. And if you ever need help, you know where to find us. But from now on, you're on your own.

SPEAKER_04

Right. Everybody has things that they go through and they'll have like they'll they're here and they're coming every week or every other week or uh once a month for a while. But then it's like, okay, well, those things we've you're good at now. So the next thing that comes up, if you need a talk, give me a call. We'll, you know, we'll put you back on the schedule or whatever. But you know, it's never like we're not divorcing and moving on. We're just, you know, go do your thing and then come back when you need us.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, you're graduating and now we're letting you, you know, use the tools we gave you. The train wheels are off. Go, go do your thing. If you need us, come back to like kind of revamp, then we can. If not, you know, you you got everything you need. You you'll be you'll be just fine. You just got trust in the system, trust in yourself.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

Who They Serve And How To Reach Them

SPEAKER_01

Well, guys, I I can't thank you enough for being here today. But before I let you go, tell us a little bit about the clinic. Where can we find you? Who's accessible? Who who do you guys take as clients? And uh, how can we connect with you online?

SPEAKER_04

So we take anybody as clients. We see everybody from uh children to adults, um, geriatric, whatever. Um, everybody's a person. Um we are stable mental health. We're in Pensacola, downtown Pensacola, um, 101 East Brainerd Street. Um our website is www.stablmh.com. Um you can go into that website. If you have insurance, you click on new patient with insurance. If you don't have insurance, you click on patient without insurance. Um, and just fill out the form and then we'll give you a call. Emmy is our receptionist, and she will call and get a contact with you and get all your information and get you set up on our schedule. If you were if you want either one of us, you can request, or we shall just put you on a random schedule. Um, but other than that, our phone number is 850-332-3205. Um, and that's how you get us. But and we see every we see people all the way through Florida. So right now we are licensed in Florida, so we do telehealth through we have patients all the way in South Florida. Um, so we're seeing them all the way through. And then we are working on Alabama licensing. So we will be licensed in Alabama, hopefully within the next month or so, um, depending on how fast that process goes. And um, and then we'll work, I think after that we're working on Mississippi, Mississippi, because there's a vet um grit organization there that has asked us to get Mississippi certified. So we will be Mississippi licensed shortly after that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Slowly taking over the United States. I love it. Guys, thank you so much for being here today. And guys, you already know it should be all episodes

Follow The Links And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_01

almost over. Do me a favor, pause, go to episode description, click those links, send them a like, a follow request. You guys are on all social medias, right?

SPEAKER_04

We're on Facebook and Instagram currently. Um, but yeah, I think that's what we're on.

SPEAKER_01

Those are the only two that matter. So I'll have I'll do the legwork for you and I'll put those links in the description. So now you just go to click it, just click, you know, send them a friend request. Send them a message.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Uh promote them if you're Northwest Florida. Say what's up if you're a Pensacola. I'd certainly appreciate it. I know they would too. Thank you guys for being here, and thank you for what you're doing for our veterans, um, especially for my Northwest Florida homies. Uh, shout out to my seventh group fam. Thank you for taking care of them. Uh, they're near and dear to my heart, and everything you guys do for them. I I know it's it's going to people that need it. Uh they've uh they've gone through a lot in the last 20 years, and it's great to see a lot of guys finally take that bold step towards health and uh ask for help. And uh it's no easy task. I know it takes a lot to get there, and uh it's great to know that when they reach out, they're meeting individuals like yourself that are willing to go the extra mile to make sure that they leave a lot better than when they showed up. So thank you so much. And to everybody listening, thank you guys for tuning in, supporting the show. And uh again, please thank you and take care of each other. And we'll see y'all next time.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you, Bra.