Naturopathic Medicine Institute (NMI): Interview with Dr Christie Fleetwood

welcome back to another episode of Christian Natural Health today I am so pleased to have Dr Christy Fleetwood

with us Dr Fleetwood earned a Bachelor of Science degree in pharmacy from the Medical College of Virginia Virginia

Commonwealth University in 1988 after practicing as a retail pharmacist in the Greater Richmond area for a decade she

attended bastier University earning a doctorate in naturopathic medicine in 2004 because of her unique Education and

Training she effectively branded herself as medically bilingual her current passions and projects include renovating

her crazy cool house in unlicensed Virginia where she adores practicing vitalistic naturopathic medicine riding

her new touring bicycle motorcyc motorcycling with her husband and her adult sons eating great food listening

to great music chasing her favorite band I need to know who that is by the way oh and for those who have been asking for

her book the first one is underway the cardiovascular system combining both diseases of the drugs and the disease

reversal and deprescribing portions the disease reversal project as a website and a podcast has already been published

and currently on Spotify welcome Christy thank you so much for joining us you are so welcome thank you yes absolutely so

first I'd love for you to tell the audience your backstory from pharmacist to naturopathic physician why why did

you make that jump oh that's a that's a long

conversation um uh I mean the the the quick and easy the cliff notes version

is um I was I signed up to help people get

better and I wasn't watching that happen I started off in a in a independent

retail setting so the most fun part about that was getting out from behind

the pharmacy and going to talk to people and getting to know their stories and sort of helping them pick and choose

over the counter stuff that was the fun stuff um but being in retail pharmacy

and staying in the same spot for a little while you start to see you see the same people coming in month after

month right and they were coming in with the you know a prescription for high blood pressure can't believe it all this

stress and now the doctor's telling me I've got high blood pressure I'm thinking okay well you know I was young

naive um but then a few months later they'd be back with a higher dose of the

same medication and maybe a second medication and then the following year that'd come in for the two prescriptions

for high blood pressure and something for their cholesterol

issues and then shortly thereafter they'd come in with the two prescriptions for blood pressure

cholesterol meds maxed out maybe a second cholesterol lowering medication

and something for their diabetes yeah really

so you know you see that once or twice and you go okay sure but when you see it

over and over and over and over and over

again you start going something's wrong is it

possible that something about these medications which aren't fixing the problem by the way is it possible that

they're pushing people into this next problem or is that just lifestyle and I

don't know Lauren if you have ever met pharmacists or nurses or medical doctors or really anyone in the conventional

medical world but we don't typically have Stellar Lifestyles um we don't eat very well we

don't take breaks during the day you know I worked 12 hour shifts maybe I ate

lunch maybe I didn't eat lunch maybe I drank enough water to send me to the bathroom maybe I didn't maybe I drink

soda all day long and ate candy bars and cookies yeah just saying

um and then I did switch jobs and worked for I

mean it was still in retail but then I was with a chain yeah okay the chain was just that

was radically stressful um fill in 350 prescriptions a day I'm just you know

count po lick stick boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom there was no time to C counsel anyone about anything sure and

I was scared that I was going to actually hurt somebody so then I switched to a

different chain it happened to be in a grocery store

setting and I had this massive aha moment because people you know in a brand new store it's a grocery store

that happens to have a pharmacy in it the store had lines all the way down you

know from one end of the store to the other but the pharmacy I'm like okay I've been doing 350 prescriptions a day

and today I'm hoping to do 35 wow that's different so yeah very very different so

the people would go you know hey Doc not a doctor but wearing a white coat yeah

hey Doc those lines are just ginormous can I ring up my few things here with my

yes please yes I will gladly ring up your groceries please

[Music] um but the diabetics were getting their diabetic medication and their donuts and

the high blood pressure people were getting their high blood blood pressure medicine along with their cured meats

and the cholesterol people were getting their bacon products with their yeah the

asthmatics hey can you ring up my cigarettes back here

sure so interestingly enough

um so so I have this niggling suspicion now I'm thinking it's probably more about lifestyle right but in the midst

of that kind of determination um some of my Pharmacy

customers were saying the doctor tells me there's nothing more he can do for me like oh

why what what what well I have chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia and there's just nothing more that they can do or I

have Hepatitis C and there's nothing more that they can do but I got to tell you these drugs are killing and they're

they're going to kill me because I can't afford them and they're they just make me so sick I want to kill

myself the doctor can't help me because my bipolar is too much for the doctor

now this was back when bipolar meant that you had had a manic episode it was

bipolar one we didn't have bipolar 2 when I started Pharmacy in 88 MH but by

the time I left Pharmacy in 98 we were starting to see this faster cycling but

not as high and low but just faster cycling bipolar turns out that that came

along in the late 80s about the time that I graduated when the first SSRI hit the market that's

when we started seeing type two bipolar but that's a that's probably another

conversation um so all these people that that weren't

terminally ill and some of those also were telling me that the doctor could do nothing else

yeah but the folks that weren't terminally ill the doctors couldn't do anything for them and then I had a

significant Health crisis and conventional medicine failed

me so I I was looking at a working

diagnosis of some rare form of leukemia or

lymphoma because I had had huge swollen nodes couldn't turn my head to look in

the rearview mirror while I was driving um so they figured it must be a lymphoma

of some sort in this area where I grew up and where I was working as a pharmacist we

have more lymphoma and Leukemia in this area because we happen to have quite a few chemical companies ah right

surrounding us um but mine was

actually not a physical ideology I had had a significant series

of losses and my body was just showing

physically what was going wrong with me spiritually mentally and emotionally

yeah right I didn't realize that at the time but in talking with medical doctors

who were putting me on antibiotic after antibiotic and nothing was

shifting and then my abdomen would swell out of nowhere and I would bend over in

pain I remember falling off a bicycle once I'm pedling I'm doing fine whatever

and I get hit with this pain that literally knocked me off of a moving bicycle oh my um but no one could do

anything for meh I was sent to therapy I demanded um surgical process to remove

all of my my interior women Parts um and that was a smart OBGYN she

said look you're in your mid 20s I'm not taking anything out unless I find something radically wrong so I signed

the paper was like if you find it remove it yeah oh my gosh so she wakes me up in

recovery and says Christie everything inside you is

absolutely pristine there's nothing physically wrong with you I think you need therapy honey

oh so she sent me to a she found a counselor for me that didn't last very

long because I like what the counselor had to say

um and I'd lost everything uh I

I so what happened was

what it happened was and this was this was 3 4 years ago so it doesn't hurt to

say this anymore but I had married my high school sweetheart and we had had a baby and the baby died and then my my

soulmate left I had already changed Pharmacy so that I would have better insurance for a pre-existing condition

because the baby was born with award exosis um which we had monitored for

during the pregnancy because his dad had aortic stenosis and I just wanted to know what we might be facing everything

was fantastic about that baby's development in

utero um and then I went into pre-term labor at 33 weeks and while I was behind

the pharmacy counter that was fun not um but I got taken to the hospital they

loaded me up with um IV fluid and mag nesium and slowed the contractions down

but sent me home on a drug called terbutaline which is for asmatics but it

had um a side effect of slowing down contractions so got put on a dose of

terbutaline every six hours around the clock and sent home to my parents house

actually to lie on my left side until the baby was closer to term

so for an entire month I lay on my left side allowed to get up every few days to take a

shower wow and I took triene around the

clock and then I was induced when I hit 37

weeks like I went in they said how you been doing how's the tribing working I don't know I'm still having contractions

every five minutes oh well what was your last dose um no

great it's 3:30 let's go have a baby tonight wow oh

okay um I would find out 20 years later when

back at bastier teaching pharmacology that terbutaline can cause heart defects

usually killing mother and baby it is not to be used for pre-term labor now

unless you are in a hospital setting and you will deliver that baby within the

next 48 to 72 hours oh my gosh but I didn't know that right so baby's born

they tell us within 12 hours hey um we need to get a Pediatric Cardiologist involved here

because something just doesn't sound right and I'm thinking all right well dad's got a word exosis he's had open

heart surgery at that point I think it was three times maybe four times

um anyway when Thomas my when my baby was five months old um he went in for a

procedure just to take a look to see what was going on with the valves because his pressures were

reading not the way that the cardiologist wanted and so there was going to be angioplasty if necessary

right then but he coated on the table and did not return to my arms

my gosh so then my husband left because that's how he dealt with the trauma my

family of origin kind of split apart not over the death of my son but because of

the bizarre activity of my parents oldest son my brother

um and because of his involvement in our church I went to the pastor and said

this is what my brother is doing this is what he's just done after teaching love thy neighbor as thyself he's threatened

our father he's got a gun he tore up the yard this that and the other thing I think you need to have a word with your

Deacon yeah and Pastor said well I don't really think the things that he's done

are all that bad and I left the church all my

girlfriends were in their mid 20s having their babies or baby showers and they didn't want me around because they

didn't want to hurt my feelings um I'd already Chang jobs so I

I sold the house and packed up the baby stuff and got rid of most of that and moved to a different

city took a different Pharmacy job

um you know all the things that could push a person right over the edge and yes I was I was quite suicidal I had no

grounding to this earth and I think I mentioned that I left the church I threw

away all my Bibles I just railed against God because here my brother is abusing

his kids and I'm doing the best that I know to do with my sweet baby but my child is

taken and my life is wrecked yeah what up God yeah so I had the job experience

but I did not have JB's humility

um and it took number of years for a an

atheist who now calls himself an agnostic that would be my current husband um I married him in a season of

rebellion but he's the one who got me back in church and after after our first

son was born um he said look you got to quit being angry at this God of yours

either get back in relationship with him or tell him goodbye for good because I I

can't have you flipping back and forth yeah so he picked out I don't know a handful of

churches that were probably within walking distance of our house at that point and said you probably just need to

go back to church he was an agnostic and he s you back to church that's aw yeah

yeah yeah um I mean there have been a couple of times in our 28 years of marriage where I've looked at him and

said are you an angel I mean you pluck my nerves sometimes really big because

of your agnosticism but are you an angel are you sent here to make me

grow um he denies being an angel so so what are we gonna do living with a

provocative agnostic who's making me grow um right

so so during that period of

trauma and watching people get sicker even the folks who came in with

antibiotic prescriptions for their kids those kids kept coming in they kept having repeat ear infections and repeat

throat infections and it just seemed like something was not as it should be

and why are we so focused on this form of medicine what what did

we used to do like how long have we been doing this kind of medicine what used to what did we do when we took care of each

other to be healthy so I went on that selfstudy kind of thing um and I read

everything I could get my hands on from Chinese medicine and ayurvedic medicine

to uh reflexology and aromatherapy and orthomolecular high nutritional things

you know using supplements as medicine and food as medicine and exercises medicine and sleep hygiene and all the

things Homeopathy um touch as

medicine um

like here we are looking at people and and saying you know a calorie is a

calorie is a calorie that turned out to not be true you know you got you got whole grain bread versus

white stuff that looks like bread these cannot be the same same they can't

be and we went sugar-free in the 70s and fat-free in the 80s we ought to be a

super slim culture but we aren't we're getting bigger every year we're having

to add fat categories to the existing categories that we started with because

we're just getting that fat and our health statistics have plummeted in the past 40 years just in aside and it could

just must be coincidence but who has been the face of our Public

Health from the 198s very

recently uhuh so again another series of

seemingly unrelated events happened that pointed me in the direction of naturopathic

medicine naturopathic medicine medicine there was a there is this

magazine at the health food store because I'd gotten I mean I was so sick and then

I I decided I would take a vacation by hiking and biking the Grand

Canyon wow and so I was I was on Mile 46 out of 47 miles on a training

ride and it was hot and sweaty I live in Central Virginia um and it was probably

June I was taking my gloves off because I was just that nasty uh so I'm still

biking but handsfree and I the world T shifted and I found myself

on the gravel road uh with a lot of um Road Rash had to limp with my broken

bicycle because I shifted the The Handlebar so far out of whack that

limped my way to the the last through the Last Mile and then had a family

member take me to the emergency room had a broken second rib from that

experience and of course conventional medicine couldn't do anything for that it was a green stick fracture it was

someplace they can't put a cast so I went to see a chiropractor who

said Christie look I've been taking care of you for 10 years at this point um I

know what's going on in your life and you need to quit your job you need to take a vacation where somebody else

takes care of you so don't go like hiking the Grand

Canyon imagine that say that to

him um he gave me his juicer his carrot juicer and said for the next 30 days

you're going to be vegetarian you're going to drink only distilled water or carrot juice you're going to actually

start to turn orange M eat real food drink clean water get

some rest then you can regroup and figure out what your next steps

are so turns out that my next steps were going to naturopathic medical

school which I did um because I'd picked up that that magazine at a health food

store and then um you know I was 30 years old

divorced child had already died I was alone I was miserable was

depressed um and so I went to went to a jewelry store bought myself Emerald a nice

chunky emerald and a couple of uh Diamond bits and had the

Jeweler put those pieces together um in a ring that I no longer where that's

another story um but the jeweler was like asking me

questions why is a young professional woman like you buying a

weed like this because no man is ever going to

Value me enough to spend this kind of money on a piece of jewelry which men don't even understand so I'm going to

buy it myself righted it's a rough period Lauren

Gathering that but I'm guessing that the angel that isn't an angel ended up

filling that so he bought a band to go

underneath my my ring um all these little diamonds that circled underneath

the funky cut he went to the same Jewel Jeweler anyway the point point of this

piece of the story is to say that that Jeweler said christe you know you remind me of my friend crazy Candice she's an

herbalist you should go see crazy Candice exactly like thanks

thanks but sure enough I go meet crazy Candice and within minutes of us talking

she said Christy you've got naturopath written all over you why don't you quit your career um

go to basier university get your doctorate in naturopathic medicine and then go heal

your part of the world this is what you're meant to do girl I was like huh yeah nature what what yeah exactly back

then I imagine yeah so it was crazy Candace and then I got the the magazine

that talked about the three schools that were credited at that point in time in North America not even just the us was

in North America and then lo and behold coincidentally in that same time

frame I get a flyer in the mail about a a pharmacy continuing event happening in

Philadelphia over three weekends all about alternative medicine and one of the featured speakers was Dr Don

Brown n d like what this is ND naturopathic doctor right right he was

the best speaker over those three weekends that I traveled up and down the

highway to get to Philadelphia and there were a couple of there were a couple other pharmacists

that I had graduated with who were also at that conference and I remember looking at them going

y That's What I want to be when I grow up an naturopathic doctor yep so in 98

I'd been married for two years to the Angel that's not an Angel um to the

provocative agnostic we' gotten married we eloped on April 1 so that we could

you know tell everybody that we'd gotten married and hey Happy Spring and no this is not an April Fool's joke we really

did get married this morning but we got married on a piece of property that we hadn't purchased yet that was in 96 we

ended up buying the property we built a house custombuilt home on acreage in

Colonial Heights right down the Street it's a beautiful beautiful place in

which to live and work and grow old and within two years I came home to

my beloved and said so I'm going to quit my

career let's sell everything that we own leave everyone that we know and move

to the other side of the universe for me to go back to school fulltime to become

a naturopathic physician and my husband

said let me get this straight you are currently working as a pharmacy manager

doing whatever you want to do which was true I was ordering in homeopathics I

was ordering in um like a good quality

coenzyme Q10 that I was packing into capsules myself for all the people on their Staten drugs

because I'd figured out I read the literature that says you know this actually was formulated with CoQ10 and

the manufacturer said it's too expensive and you're alerting the public to the fact that our drug causes a problem with

their CoQ10 so take it out so nobody knows my goodness right so that was a bit of a

problem in my brain so I'm I'm counseling people because I could I'm

only filling 35 or maybe 50 prescriptions at that point per day so I got plenty of time to counsel people for

free and offer them co-enzyme Q10 to offset the worst of the side effects

associated with their stattin you know I am really I'm getting paid well matters yeah to to not work

real hard and I can learn I've got plenty of time on my hands to study so

the angel goes job do whatever you want we're dual

income no kids we get to travel we get to we get to buy Persian rugs we get to

have big dogs we get to go to Disneyland just

C and you want to become a voodoo

witch I heard that one a few times too yeah I'm like no honey not a voodoo

witch a naturopathic doctor you know a

physician and he goes well you know that when one party in a married relationship

goes to graduate school divorce rate like

triples well then we know what we need to guard against don't we so I packed up the car I left him

with power of attorney to sell the house it was like I made a decision I'm acting on it

now y he's like let's just give this one year let's think about this for a year

let's tie up our lives here I don't I I will do this but let's tidy things up nope gotta

go because if if I don't go now something will happen and I will never do this I gotta go I feel physically

pulled I gotta go to the West Coast gotta go honey gotta go and I packed up my Honda Accord and I

drove away it's kind of I'm

that was not ladies that's really not the thing to do to your spouse probably

didn't go over awesome um well he did follow me so a couple months later

couple months later under duress The Man shows up in rainy Seattle um and two months after that I

was pregnant with our older son awesome and I'm like see do you see this would

have happened back in Colon Heights and I would never have made this trip true

yeah um and it was definitely a God thing and I wasn't even talking to God at that point

see he's got that much power absolutely it's it's amazing how

much of your story sounds like it was just orchestrated the right person at the right time Divine encounters yes

absolutely ah even the folks that wanted to pull me way off path because I

was I really loved handson healing and

was considering a route in Hands-On stuff that ended

up I was I was actually at the kitchen island in the beautiful house down the

street that I don't own anymore because I'm now in this one which is way cooler by the way um but I was at the kitchen

counter about to write them a check and I got a phone call with the guy saying

yeah our Spirit guides are telling us that you really need to come and work with us and I was like whoa okay well my

spirit guide just put the pen down I

will will not be joining you uhuh Spirit guides um so that was a real check in my

own Spirit like okay hey girl what are you doing

an agnostic is one thing but don't go attaching yourself to Spirit guides

right right right yeah Holy Spirit or no Spirit yeah Holy Spirit or no spirit

this is your choice so yeah yeah absolutely so that's

an amazing story I feel like you should write a book sometime this is definitely novel material but let's change gears a

little bit so now as of January right you are the Pres of naturopathic Medical

Institute so I know that's also amazing so tell us what I so I think of this as

something that was started by Dr Jim sensenig yes give give the audience a background like what is naturopathic

Medical Institute andm I why did he create it and why are you passionate

about it so passionate that you decided to become the president even while you're still practicing naturopathic

medicine okay first a couple of Corrections one is it's the naturopathic medicine Institute now thank you given

where you were located you get a pass because your the the letters after your

name in your licensed state are nmd for naturopathic medical doctor that's why I

said that thank you sorry because that term makes me

go yuck I don't want to have anything to do with being tagged as a medical doctor

even if you put naturopathic in front of it but fair enough that's me that's from the trauma that I endured being in a

broads scope licensed State during the 2020 and following 2021

which was just more 2020 going on um so so so happy to be an unlicensed

Virginia unlicensed and unregulated nobody can tell me what to do okay but

Jim cig Jim cig started the American Association of naturopathic

Physicians he did a lot of speaking in different states like he went around to

different states that were actively seeking lure and spoke on behalf of

medically trained naturopathic doctors and why they ought to be licensed when he saw that the American

Association of naturopathic Physicians the a was getting off path and actually

becoming more and more allopath AIC more and more like the medical doctors that

historically we've always been kind of the the other side of the story right that's the point we've been yeah that's

the point right um so as the aam was headed off track and becoming more

allopathic he grabbed a couple buddies and started something called The

Institute of naturopathic medicine the inm oh okay and as they grew and the

board memb changed over just like the a p the inm started getting off track and

they went towards a more allopathic Direction and so Jim left them too but

he owned the name Institute of naturopathic medicine so the inm is now

attached to the a& P but inm now stands for Institute of natural medicine

interesting okay right so

roughly 2012 is when Jim started the nmi the naturopathic medicine Institute that

exp again to say yeah to say look this this is naturopathic medicine right it

it's not about the things that we do it's why we choose to use the thing

absolutely here we we've got this therapeutic order it's

ordered there there are steps here let focus on these lower intervention steps

because that's where you remove obstacles to cure that's where you teach people how to live differently for a

different outcome that's where the big guns are if you want to really see cure

if you want to heal somebody you got to focus on these lifestyle

[Music] pieces well the schools in the meantime

we're becoming more and more allopathic because once you've got people graduated and they're

practicing and they learned something new because Integrative Medicine was

coming on the scene and functional medicine had already been on the scene and and when you're taking insurance and and

the schools were saying this too we're just like medical doctors just like medical doctors four years Premed four

years medical school we have the same prescriptive scope where we're licensed

by and large we can be your primary care provider and there was a primary care

shortage um you know we're just like medical doctors we take your

insurance so when you hear that the schools are saying that the a is saying

that then people in Arizona or Oregon or Washington the states that have the

biggest scope can go to some some that they know as a representative or a senator for

their state and say dude I really want to do IV Therapy I've got the training

for it because he did that in a functional medicine environment or an integrative Medicine

environment well if that gets approved through legislative motions in a given

State then the schools have to teach to that level of intervention it's not it's

not naturopathic medicine it's it's quite clearly conventional medicine but

it's being allowed so now the schools have to make sure that we're not going to hurt anybody by doing IV Therapy okay

yeah so the scope keeps expanding and expanding and expanding

and if you're taking Insurance you got to play by those Insurance rules which

are written for medical doctors not naturopathic doctors is that

why so I was still under the impression that most naturopaths were not able to take I mean I certainly can't in my

practice take insurance so I didn't think that that was even allowed anywhere so some NDS are taking

insurance right so Arizona has the best of both worlds okay y'all have a huge

scope right but y'all chose to not shoot yourself and not just the foot but the

femoral artery and take insurance right so you can be

the primary care provider you can be the specialty naturopathic doctor you can be anywhere on the broad scope of from

nature cure to green alpath and you your people never have

the thought of insurance yeah which is that's what I thought it was it all was

I figured it was that's incredible so in the unlicensed States nobody tells you what to do but if you're not taking

Insurance they're still basically not telling you what to do so it's the similar feeling right okay interesting I wasn't aware so

in a lot of the other states they take insurance and that means they have to check all the boxes for standard of care

correct correct yeah so that explains I was wondering why the philosophy seems so

diluted at the level of the schools now so many of the students seem to be coming out not having the basic concepts

of how do you find root cause corre this is why it's this is why because

you come in so I graduated in 2004 from best year

and immediately moved across the country because my mom was dying um and so I

invited mom and dad to move up from Florida while we were coming across from Washington and we all converge here in

this crazy cool house in March of 2025 or 20 or 2005

2005 um

but even when I was a student there there was I felt the shift

while I was a student now my

husband got the best job ever in Seattle while I was a student at Bas year um and

we loved the Pacific Northwest we really did we felt more at home there than we did here

but at that point God and I were back in relationship and we were communicating

with one another and I mean hubby and I had he had given me three criteria look when you graduate

you need to you need to be someplace where you can practice to the full extent of your Medical Education and

Training and we're within 20 miles of a Whole Foods or like equivalent uhhuh and

because he had just learned had a scuba dive and gotten all of his certifications he like we need to be someplace where there's some decent

scuba diving yeah like sure okay yes I am agreed

Y and at that point in time students it was encouraged for the

clinical student to for for their patients to follow them so there was

continuity of care now they follow the supervising doctor so the student doesn't get to the student doesn't know

what's going on you know so I had a following and I'd been there for six and a half years instead

of the usual four or five so I had a bigger following than most people because I was in the clinic for three

years sure also had a classmate that had graduated the year ahead who had a

beautiful space office space overlooking Lake Washington in Kirkland which is the

snazzy place to have an office she like Christy why don't you come join me oh

okay sure and God starts to tell me honey you got

to go home home I I am home I'm home I'm good

good right here in Shoreline Washington God I got this I got that I got the other thing I mean we bought a house

we've had our kids here both the kids were born in this living room god um I've got I've got a following I've got a

pre-made I've got a pre-made career right here he's like yeah you got to go

home yeah gotta go home certainly you don't mean Virginia

certainly you just must mean the East Coast like maybe Charleston South Carolina no how

about how about the Adera of Pennsylvania no home 23831 I'm like I

don't what 23831 it's like print in my brain 23831 no idea what that is no idea

what that is but he's telling me Virginia 23831 and then mom calls and

says honey the cancer has metastasized uh we're going to Tiana Mexico I'm gonna

do what I can do there I can't take this drug I can't do that drug I'm kind of

I'm not sure what to

do and I look up to 3831 it's a zip code it's Chester Virginia which is where I live now yeah

wow so I and then randomly a compounding pharmacist in

Richmond Virginia contacted me out of the blue saying hey I've heard

about you I understand that you're from Virginia I understand that you are about to graduate or you have

graduated um from naturopathic medical school I need a part-time pharmacist in

my compounding pharmacy and I'm going on vacation in February can you cover me for two weeks

I will know by the time that I get back whether I want to hire you or not

oh and so I arranged to do that but I was only going to work for him for the one week because I was going to use the

second week to go check on my parents

and I talked Mom and Dad into moving in with us because we needed to call in hospice care for her almost as soon as

she got here

um so we did move back across the

country in 2005 again against Greg's desires my

spouse it's like three things Christy three things how hard is

this now we're going to be in an unlicensed unregulated State you cannot practice to the full extent of your

naturopathic education there is no Whole Foods there

is no Whole Foods there is now we have two Whole Foods within 20 miles well not within 20

miles one's in 20 miles enough and scuba diving zero

but again the man crossed the continent

again for me he's amazing yeah he pretty much is yeah he's an amazing man but in

2012 his company that he left the best job ever best job ever

Christie they called him and said it was 2011 they called and said hey the guy

who took your place has moved on what do you think about coming

back now between 2005 in 2012 I was homeschooling those boys that we had

together both of them and I had gone from just hanging my shingle to having

to have a bigger name because another naturopathic doctor had come and joined me and then we had to move to a

different space because a third ND also an acupuncture wanted to come

join so we became Monarch natural medicine three

Indies um an acupuncturist who was also a thermographer a

reflexologist a nutritionist wow and a nurse practitioner who had studied with

Andy wild seven women All in This Old House taking care

of people our receptionist was the one man turn it all upside down right right

Frank was answering the phone um and it was

fantastic I was making at least the same amount of money as I had as a pharmacy manager working

50 hours a week and now I'm working 18 20 hours a

week doing what I love to do yeah watching medical miracles happen

all the time reversing those cholesterol issues reversing the type two diabetes reversing high blood pressure that's all

easy peasy watching rheumatoid arthritis stop in its tracks even getting more Mobility

the deformation doesn't always go away but these people could use their hands again um inflammatory bowel reverse

multiple sclerosis re Versed and I'm thinking well this is

what every naturopathic doctor does so when hubby took the job in Seattle and

left early that year of 2012 the boys and I

followed and I got a I got two jobs I took an Adent teaching position for

baser teaching pharmacology that's when I found out hey that trun I took turned

genes of expression on my first child yeah everything that we

had looked at all his valves all his Chambers all his arteries and vessels

surrounding the heart were absolutely perfect throughout

development until I took a medication that is known to cause heart anomalies and that killed

him um so teaching

all this really is going to come back to Jim cig and the naturopathic medic Institute I'll trust you so the um the

schools I also took a position as an associate in a group practice of

primary care providers naturopathic doctors taking insurance I did not see

medical Miracles I worked so many hours doing charting I like I missed so many

baseball games because I'm sitting over in the bleachers

charting um I mean I made as much money hourly

when I was 17 working at Western sizin than I did as a naturopathic doctor

registered pharmacist taking Insurance working primary care and seeing I don't know 35 40

patients a week yeah it's insane and they weren't

reversing their disease process they came in telling me look I'm taking this medication what do you have that's

Kinder and gentler so green allopathy yeah that's what a lot of the public

wants but that is not what I want to provide that's not what I provided here

and I saw medical Miracles and I I think I became a bit of a medical miracle junky

I love reversing things that the the conventional medicine says these are

impossible you cannot reverse this okay well then let's just put it

into remission forever okay well we didn't

reverse it it's just continual remission fine

call it you want to call it yeah yeah so um

the the school itself underwent a number of leadership changes that weren't

really in the best interest of the school and from the top down I was being

told you got to teach these students how to manage medication like that's not

what I do I don't manage meds I reverse the disease and then I I Empower my patients

to to let their prescribers know how to deprescribe safely right no your job is

to medically manage and that's what you're going to teach oh my goodness um so I you know I ended up being removed

from my teaching capacity because I wouldn't conform um and and there were kids that

I would trigger um because I would tell them the truth about the drugs and they be tears

you know and then I get called into the the boss's room and well you know

Fleetwood you made somebody cry really who because it's not a big classroom I know when I've upset somebody right well

I can't tell you because there you know you could have academic retribution like whoa P out yeah this is some this

student is going to be a colleague within just a few years but this student can't come in talk to me directly right

that's a problem um you could be in the room with

us plus do you think it's possible that with my Pharmacy background and my

knowledge of these drugs that I study all the time that I might know something more than a third-year medical student

you think maybe some of our students are on some of these medications and they're learning for the

first time what they're really about and what they really do yeah I think maybe

that could upset someone but I was still removed from my

teaching I'm shocked I'm not um I mean there was academic retribution that did

happen at a different school after I showed up as a guest

speaker so and this was after Jim had started the naturopathic medicine Institute I told you I'd get back to

this because Jim really shook up the profession and we had in 2016 we

couldn't we were busting out of our conference rooms we had so many people

showing up to hear him speak and it was like and he would say we're the best kept secret in naturopathic

medicine because we're actually causing healing to take place right we're

looking at those naturopathic principles and taking them seriously

sure um and I spoke at one of the

schools and we lost almost every student that had been a member of the nmi after

I spoke why almost because their president showed

up and took names oh my gosh and then called his own

meeting and said you know these nature your people don't be closed-minded we've got this really big spectrum of

naturopathic practice don't listen to them when they say that they can cure

things we we've got all this other medicine up here don't be narrow-minded and I used those very same words and

said we got this big Spectrum y'all don't be narrow-minded there's so much cure and

healing that takes place down here when you're taking care of the patient in

front of you not the diagnosis when you're getting to that root cause which might not be on the

physical level it may have started with a thought it may have started with a broken heart right you got to go there

you know if we could start with the physical I mean sorry if we could start with the

spiritual and correct things with our spiritual life then everything else

would be so much faster absolutely absolutely but we've all been raised to

focus on the physical because that's what we can see and that's what we can put things into or take things out of

and measure and make comparisons anyway those students got in trouble and

and I had one call me to say ple Dr food can you tell me the truth because it

seems to me that every time we host a speaker if that speaker

is not part of the naturopathic medicine Institute we do not have any of the leadership of this school in attendance

but when we have a naturopathic medicine Institute associate we get somebody

sitting in on our meeting Dr fleetw you got the

president and he said you know we've lost all of the elders we don't have any

Elders teaching us and we were told this story but having been to a conference an

nmi Gathering and spoken with some of those Elders they all tell us that they were

let go that they were not even given notice they were just escorted out of the

building like yep y all politics geez politics exactly and all of the schools

are like that now all of them yeah Joe pizor was let go from his adjunct

teaching and he found it bastier University yes bastier and so the school

there in Arizona has changed its name it was Southwest College of naturopathic medicine it's now Sonoran University of

natural medicine right the Portland Oregon school used to

be National College of naturopathic medicine now it's National University of

natural medicine like we're taking naturopathic out of the name oh wow I

wasn't aware they changed their name too yeah gosh so I mean b year said the

president it used to be the John basier College of naturopathic medicine then they added additional

programs and basier University yeah and you know the

founders fell away the people who were there that understood the mission and vision are no longer there and nobody's

on Mission my goodness so

um so Jim just packed the house from 2016 until 2019 when he died very

unexpectedly and then two months later it was 2020 and within a couple months

of that it was covid lockdowns and quarantines and and divisive polarizing conversation

and censorship and Shadow Banning and all the things yeah and I had my life threatened I had my

license threatened um because I'm I'm kind of outspoken so I wrote a paper on

presumptive case of covid-19 because there was no testing at that time but in March of 2020 our older son and I both

got really really sick couldn't taste couldn't smell had GI issues respiratory

issues skin issues psych issues um

senses issues you know it was eight signs and symptoms that were becoming rapidly accepted as this is what SARS

CO2 looks like you guys and we could tick them off

um I wrote a piece called choice in the season of covid and that got a lot

of attention yeah and my own classmates

and colleagues wanted my license taken from me they were telling me you can't

say these things chrisy the the American Association natur naturopathic Physicians has already put out a thing

saying don't talk about covid don't say covid don't say anything about the immune system like well fortunately I

have not been a member of the a since 2014 and the shenanigans have happened at that conference so nobody's going to

tell me that I cannot say what I am trained to say and by the way schools

this is the time to open up the clinic doors and show the world what

naturopathic medicine can do and they all shut

down so I really

contemplated relinquishing my

license and then I talk myus husband into coming back to this property because we owned it and it was broken it

had been rented while we were gone and then empty and on the market while we were gone and then it got broken worse

because there had been a spell of weather in Central Virginia we got like seven inches of snow and it burst a

water pipe on the this is a four-story house so on the third level a broken

water water pipe that gravity pulled down into the first floor tore out that

kitchen and pulled it on down to the basement so we lost the finished basement that we' created for my dad

um though reluctantly he moved back

again crossing the continent for his wife who was already like okay I'm

gone hope you follow right

um so the naturopathic medicine Institute is the little fraction of a

bigger profession naturopathic medicine that is holding true still to the roots

of our medicine getting to the roots of our people's problems and seeing that

person hearing their stories bearing witness to their lives so that we know

where we can intervene yeah and I I feel like maybe I heard this from Dr Sensen at one point

but as you're talking I'm imagining Noah's Ark you know that there's there's a flood and it's the thing that is

saving the profession it's this small little group that has the core that is still trying to perpetuate it and keep

it from being demolished right and any Elder will tell

you naturopathic medicine isn't going to go anywhere

but those of us naturopathic doctor doctors who have been the stewards the

holders of this phenomenal profound

simple simple medicine we may not be the ones who

continue to Steward this and so the naturopathic medicine

Institute one of the things that Jim said and established within the naturopathic medicine Institute would

was there would not be a vote for who would be on the board of directors except from that current board

but the board gets to choose their successor so that that's the second um

correction Lauren I was

not I I don't remember how you fra framed it but um I I didn't like put my

name in the Hat to be president you it came as a real shock

really in December because I be I I I joined the board of directors for the

nmi in June of last year we only meet once every

quarter I was getting a little irritated with that

because 2020 took a lot out of me and long covid is a real thing and I had it

my my view of what long Co is is that it's

really you get covid and your immune system is like shining the

spotlight dude there's this thing that we've not seen before but it's we got to

do something with that and so you recover from the covid but the immune

system's like okay what else what El we are on fire because we killed that

thing what else you got going oh hey Christie's got some depression that

never actually got resolved let's crank up the volume to get her

attention Christy pisty you're depressed work on it girlfriend because we're

ready so um yeah I was horribly depressed and

I mean my license was being threatened my life was being

threatened the governor of the state was threatening he was

tyrannical and I figured God was giving me an option I

could stay or I could go home like home

and there were A Few Good Men in the nmi that said Fleetwood you need some

help you need some like help that we don't know how to give

you but we know somebody else in the nmi that can um so I got some help I got some

really good counseling holistic counseling where it's not talk therapy it's you know it's tell me more about

that oh wait hold on you just tear it up a little bit tell me more about that did that hurt tell me why it hurt where does

it hurt why what is underneath all that hurt like ah gosh would you stop I this

is painful yeah that's the point let's peel off the scab look

debride the wound yuck and allow for some true

healing so that happened and that was lovely um

but joining the nmi in 2023 I was finally kind of

resurfacing still not on social media because I don't even want to go there um

but back here and rebuilding my house and rebuilding

it with my office and bringing the kids back home because

the younger one was locked down in B Canada for the two years not not a bad place to be the older one had just come

home from Ireland for for his first two years of University had a year online and then

finished on the west coast so you there's been a lot of driving back and forth um from one side to the

other but I finally started to reinol myself

in the nmi I think in 2022 and when I joined the board of

directors I was like y'all we need more consistent leadership and we need better

communication because on the docket for our December call we're supposed to pick

new leaders for president and let's see Treasurer had already

shifted with within like the last time that we talked so three months

prior um secretary was

up for negotiation I guess and possibly

vice president and I'm like um no what why and I'm on this rant

through a zoom call and the president Tish di Cronenberg says Christy if you will give

me a minute to go through the president's notes I think we'll make this clear

so I I'm fuming I'd already contacted Jared

Ze and said are you g to be part of this meeting you're already in aer's status but they're gonna they might overhaul

the entire executive leadership we y'all what how you know

and he's like bwood I'll I'll be there if you think I need to be yes please Jared and pray

pray I don't know what going to happen with the

nmi because we were not immune from all of that divisiveness in 2020 and 2021

there was some fighting within and we lost a lot of people which means we lost a lot of our

volunteers we're a nonprofit profit organization we're run by volunteers we

lost a lot of money and Tish starts to tell me that we

don't have a vote we don't vote on who comes in next the

new leaders are chosen by the people already there so

that they know that they're picking the next leader that's going to hold the heart of this

medicine and she goes on a little bit about the qualifications that she's

looking for and then ends with and I'm I'm just sitting back there just waiting

because I'm mad and she says and for all these reasons my clear selection is

Christy Fleetwood yeah I was not

laughing I was so stunned I don't think I even moved and one of the board member because everybody's voting except for me

and one of the board members goes well looks like we're gonna have to call an emergency meeting for Friday because

christe seems to be her only opposition give her a minute I think

she'll come around so do we meet on Friday to actually get fleetwood's

acceptance oh wow yeah so that has radically shifted my practice and I

haven't gotten very far in my book yeah I haven't haven't been able to write

yeah because in the meantime I've been asked by an entire state to help Mentor them as they got a prescriptive scope

expansion so our our already said yes to that that started in January my church

had asked me to step into a leadership position that started in probably November of last year um I write

continuing education for the profession so I've got different organizations asking me for new written material that

i' already said yes to so like I'm I'm working four different jobs right

now oh my goodness well since you mentioned that nmi is volunteer run and

it's it's nonprofit and all of that for any of our listeners either they're naturopath or interested in just helping

the natural the the this kind of medicine to flourish what do people do

anybody listening who wants to help with the vision do you have any calls to action what where do they

start oh yeah definitely have calls to action um you can give in multiple ways

you can give with your time you could volunteer we need people to do techy

things we need people to do fining things administrative things um our

executive director would be the better person to ask but I can put you in touch with Lisa Petersburg so you can give of

your time volunteers you could also give of your um

talents some of y'all are listening to me going I really would like to help this

organization and she said they need techie stuff I'm really fabulous at WordPress I

wonder if they could use somebody in WordPress yes the answer is yes could we're kind of like desperate for a

WordPress G kind of person um so your talents and whatever they might be if

you love to do something and I think we all do probably

you're just curious throw it out there let me know you can also give of your

Treasures so time Talent OR treasures and treasures would be if you got if you've got some extra

money throw that our way we've had our first living Legacy donor so one of my

former students has her own lovely practice and has already her board her

board of directors unan unanimously chose the nmi to be the benefactor of

all of her work upon her death now I don't want her dying anytime soon she's young yeah I

would love to partner with her well before she passes um but if

you've if you've got a bunch of money that and you don't have a bunch of people you want to leave that to or

right now you're looking at this charity organization or this charity or now you're hearing about naturopathic

medicine Institute and you're like huh that could be a thing yeah it could

be so whatever your time your talent or your Treasures I love

alliteration any of those all of those whatever you want to bring to the nmi we

could probably use it and so if people want to know where they can reach out so

that they can offer any of those things where should they go couple of places you could start with naturopathic

medicine institute.org you can contact me directly at

president naturopathic medicine institute.org that's a long email yep um

or director at naturopathic medicine institute.org that'll go directly to our

executive director fabulous well I will link to all of that in the show notes

and this has been so inspiring I loved hearing your story thank you so much Christie this has been great you're welc

welcome absolutely

- Generated with https://kome.ai

‍