Vision #11

Dr. John Herzog:

When you exercise, your painkillers and your anti inflammatories in your blood system go up by 600% and you don't really feel that you need to have these other things. Your muscles feel better, your bones feel better, you feel more vitality and it's just so simple. It blows my mind that everybody isn't into this.

Will Winkelman:

It's kind of like an aha moment where you go, oh wait, and there's an opportunity. I used to think as a designer you want to go into your corner and make your cool thing and then bring it out. And the reality is the best process, the most open process to kind of growing and being special to everyone, is a collaborative one.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Hello, this is Dr. Lisa Belisle and welcome to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast for November 27, 2011. This is our 11th show and our theme is vision. The important thing about vision is being able to see things from many different angles. Often we're only able to see what lies directly in front of us, and we miss the things that are perhaps to the side of us or even behind us. If we can be like an owl and maybe turn our heads all the way around and see everything at once, or maybe just little bits and pieces one piece at a time, then it dramatically improves our ability to be well and healthy in the world today. We're going to pull together some visual themes as we bring on three very special guests. We'll start with Dr. John Herzog, who is an orthopedic and osteopathic specialist. We'll then go on to speak with Will Winkelman, an architect recently profiled in the Maine Home + Design magazine. And we'll finish up with with our Give back segment featuring Dr. Stephen Goldstein of Casco Bay Eye Care. We hope you enjoy this show on vision, and we hope it will help you improve your own vision in the world. Thank you for joining us. And each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast, I'm joined by my co host, Genevieve Morgan, as we deep dish on subjects like locally grown foods and things that are healthy in our lives.

Genevieve Morgan:

I'm excited about this segment today, Lisa,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

and do you think perhaps you're excited because I have some food next to me?

Genevieve Morgan:

I am because I'm starving. But I'm also, I'm getting to that age where my. I'm being told that my vision is going to change, that I might be becoming nearsighted. So I want to learn what I can eat to prolong that inevitability.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

All right, with that semi depressing thought, let's go on and talk a little bit about vision.

Genevieve Morgan:

That's depressing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It happens to all of us. I know it's true. I don't. I'm not trying to make you feel bad. Somebody the other day told me I was middle aged and I was like, what? I am not done with being young yet. And I actually think that if you eat the right foods, then you don't have to be done with being young. And in fact, studies have shown this.

Genevieve Morgan:

I think you're right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We kind of referred to this in a segment a few, I'm not sure, a few shows back, we talked about macular degeneration and the importance of beta carotene.

Genevieve Morgan:

Can you explain the term macular degeneration? It's one of those terms we hear all the time, but I'm not sure if we really understand what it is.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, you have to first think about the structure of the eye. And most of us are familiar with the iris, you know, the colored part of the eye, and then the pupil, which is sort of a hole in the eye and there's a lens over it. The retina is the part that is in the back of the eye that kind of captures the images. And the macula is right in the middle of that. So it's part of your visual field. So what happens when people age is this macula, this part of the back of their eye, it starts to break down. It's a disease of aging. So what we know is that people who are exposed to harsh light over time, maybe they don't wear their sunglasses or they don't eat the right foods. They actually are more prone to having this aging of the back of their eye.

Genevieve Morgan:

Really? Diet plays that much of a role.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Diet does play a role. And there's a recent study that came out that talked about, as we were just saying, beta carotene and specifically the relatives of beta carotene, which are lutein and zeaxanthin, which protect the eyes from free radical attack. We talk about free radicals. These are sort of, these are the scavengers of the body. They kind of clean things up around the body. So once you've been, once your body is kind of sort of cleaning itself up and you have these free radicals roaming about, then they're kind of damaging. So they're damaging to your eye, they're damaging to other parts of your body. And beta carotene, we wrote about, we

Genevieve Morgan:

talked about that in the, about skin care too.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes.

Genevieve Morgan:

It can degenerate your skin as well as your eye.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes, that's absolutely true. So what we have today from Whole Foods is actually a carrot. We talk about the carotenoids and that's one of these beta carotenes. And in fact, Whole Foods still has locally grown carrots over there. So I was over at Whole Foods this morning, we have some locally grown carrots. These carrots are actually very healthy looking. They're kind of, they don't have the long skinny tails to them. And I would use these carrots. I talk about slaw a lot in my cooking classes and on my website. I make a lot of non dairy slaw. And when you talk, a slaw is just a salad. So what I will do is I will take some cabbage, I will take some carrots, shred these up in the food processor and sort of a coarse shred and then throw them in with usually some vinegar, some lemon, a little bit of sweet, maybe some honey, maybe some sauteed shallots. And we come up with a slaw. If you let that kind of melt marry the flavors for a little while, it's quite delicious.

Genevieve Morgan:

Sounds like a good side dish or a condiment.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Kimchi it is. And if you add in, I like to throw in a few raisins, maybe some sunflower seeds or some toasted nuts. And it's a good way to get not only the beta carotene into your diet, but it's also a good way to get fiber into your diet.

Genevieve Morgan:

Good way to get kids to eat cabbage too. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I tend to make my slaw kind of based on my audience. So I will bring my slot of family gatherings and if I know there's going to be a lot of kids, I'll make it a little bit sweeter, a little bit more sort of touch of honey and the raisins. And if I know I'M going to be getting more adults, then I'll do more. You can actually make kind of a spicier slaw. You can add in some pepper, and you can do a little bit more with the pungent foods. So the difference between the type of slaw that I do and your traditional coleslaw is that I don't tend to use any dairy in my preparations. So this is a really good way to get those carrots into your diet. And the cabbage. We've talked about cruciferous vegetables all over again. We like these cruciferous vegetables. They're good for your heart, good for your preventing cancer, all sorts of good things.

Genevieve Morgan:

And sort of nature's. Nature's vitamin store those cruciferous vegetables.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. And the carrot thing is interesting, too, because a lot of people, you go into the grocery store and you look at these things called baby carrots.

Genevieve Morgan:

Oh, right. The ones that are packaged in cellophane.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So it's a great gimmick. But chances are what you're eating is not really a baby carrot. Chances are it's little carrot pieces that are taken out of a bigger carrot. And not a lot of people realize that when they're getting a bag of baby carrots, all they're getting is just slightly easier to eat portions of carrots, which is fine if that's what you want for your children or whatever. But you could very easily just peel a carrot and make it into carrot sticks, which I.

Genevieve Morgan:

And as we've talked to you before, one of our big things on this show is the least the less you process a food, the better it is for your system. So it seems like those carrots are just protruded through a machine or something.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And they are. That's why they're all so little and cute. And again, it's fine if that's. It is very convenient. And I know they sometimes come in packages with some, you know, a little bit of ranch dressing. And if that's the only way you can get your kids to eat carrots, then please feel free to do that. Otherwise, though, it's probably not entirely worth the cost. But the other way that carrots. You can get carrots into people's, specifically children's diets would be carrot bread or carrot cake. And there are different recipes that are out there that don't require the amount of sugar that traditional carrot cake recipes or carrot bread recipes require. You can use a little bit of pineapple, a little bit of pineapple juice. Look for the natural sweeteners when you're creating your Carrot cake or carrot bread.

Genevieve Morgan:

Now I have one question about carrots. Do you always have to peel the skin or can you just wash the skin? Because sometimes that's the big hurdle for me is I don't want to sit and peel a bunch of carrots.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's actually a really good question and I think it depends upon if you know where you get your carrots from. We talked about the Dirty Dozen and the environmental working group and the pesticide laden foods. And if you are buying locally grown organic produce and you know that the farm is in a sort of a not right next to the highway, you know, safe soil, that sort of thing, then you can get away with just taking a nice strong vegetable scrubber and scrub those carrots and you don't have to peel them.

Genevieve Morgan:

Great, great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The other thing that you can do is teach your children how to peel carrots if you are looking to have them eat them. Because I know that my daughter Sophie, she's 10 and she requires the peel be off. So I say that's fine, take your carrot, take your cucumber and peel away.

Genevieve Morgan:

Funny how we forget to do that. That's such a simple thing for them to learn how to do.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I know 10 year olds, really, they have actually even younger, they can help out around the house. So one thing that I thought I would do this week with regard to the foods that we're talking about is to bring in a few different resources. I mean, so we've talked about the fact that vision is helped by eating these beta carotene rich foods, including carrots. And also leafy green vegetables are rich in these sorts of nutrients. What I will often do is I will go to a place like Whole Foods and I'll look for something that's locally grown, look for something that's organic, not necessarily with a recipe in mind especially or if I'm going to say a farmer's market or I'm going to a farm stand and I'm trying to get something that's seasonal. I won't necessarily have a recipe in mind, but then when I get it home, I say, oh, okay, what am I going to do with this? So I brought a few resources in today and these are some of my favorites actually for cooking vegetables. One of them is Eating well magazine.

Genevieve Morgan:

I'm familiar with that. That's a great magazine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It is a great magazine. And what I like about Eating well is that it's. Well, first of all, I think it's based out of Vermont, but they have healthy recipes that don't have a lot of artificial sweeteners in them, artificial colorants.

Genevieve Morgan:

And they're pretty easy for the novice cook.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

They are one thing that I stay away from when I'm choosing a magazine that is sort of about healthy eating is I stay away from the diet based magazines because some of them will say add in two packets of, you know, sweet n low, or they'll say add in some sort of artificial something because they're trying to make something taste like the real thing.

Genevieve Morgan:

Right. Chocolate pudding. Light chocolate pudding.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

L, I, T E. Right, exactly. And it's just, it doesn't, it's not really worth it. And Eating well does a very nice job with that. And they actually have a website that you can go to as well. So Eating well is a magazine that I subscribe to. I suggest that my patients subscribe to it if they're looking for tips. And they're not predominantly, they're not just vegetarian. They are, they have a lot of vegetable based dishes. And actually this month, not to keep going forward with the eatingwell, but December 2011, eating well actually has a profile on Goranson Farm, which is here in Maine. And they, they grow potatoes. So they're also about locally grown. So this is a good resource for people who have the vision to look forward and make themselves good foods. I also have another book that was given to me by my friend Meg Wolf, who's a local author and cancer survivor who has a macrobiotic diet. This is called Greens Glorious Greens. We've spoke about eating greens on a past show, I think. Do you remember when we talked about.

Genevieve Morgan:

We've talked about kale. We've talked about a number of leafy greens.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Spinach, I think, and arugula.

Genevieve Morgan:

Yeah, arugula, yes. For breast cancer. So yes, we have talked about greens and mostly people think about eating greens as part of a salad. But it looks as if by the looks of that book that there's many different ways you can eat greens.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, this is by Jonna Albee and Catherine Walthers and there's more than 140 different ways to prepare your greens. Greens are so great for you. In fact, I ate kale this morning before I. For my breakfast, raw, cooked, I sauteed, I put a little olive oil in the pan and I had some pre washed kale that I just, I had stripped from the little stems and I just put it in there with a little bit of salt, put the COVID on with a little bit of water, put the COVID on, sort of let it wilt down a little bit. Took the COVID off and then just sauteed it around and. Yeah. So cooked raw kale. I just don't know that I can.

Genevieve Morgan:

I was going to say that's pretty gnarly.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. Right. So greens, Glorious grease is another resource for you if you want to be eating healthy, if you want to have the vision to be looking forward and putting healthy things into your diet. And finally, another cookbook that I use all the time, and it's enormous and it's a little bit more pricey, but I think it's very much worth it because sometimes vegetarian cookbooks are a little bland. This one is not. It's great. It's by Mark Bittman, and he also wrote how to Cook Everything. But this is how to Cook Everything vegetarian. I love this one. There's soups, there's sauces, there's greens, there's carrot recipes. So people who are looking for ways to cook healthy foods, these are the resources that we would recommend.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, you and I have talked about this privately, that I was a vegetarian for 10 years, and the thing that got me was I just got. I just didn't know how to cook. I got tired of my own cooking. I mean, I was just tending to eat grilled cheese sandwiches.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And that is very common, that people who go vegetarian, especially if they're not vegan, they will end up eating a lot of pasta, bread and cheese, and that just ends up with a very kind of bland diet. And it's not necessarily all that good for you. So then you're kind of swapping out. It's great. You're not eating meat, but what are you substituting?

Genevieve Morgan:

Exactly. Exactly.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is why I have these resources, because when I have patients come in, they will say, well, that's great. You want me to eat kale, but how do I eat it? And I say, here are some resources. We teach cooking in the Dragon's Way class. I mean, there are any number of ways that you can begin cooking healthy foods.

Genevieve Morgan:

And I think it's important to mention, too, that something else that we've talked about at length, which is being vegetarian, you don't have to necessarily go 100% vegetarian, but you can start to look at meat differently, as more of a condiment and less of the main staple. I was raised partially by an Australian stepmother, and we always had meat, potatoes and salad.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes.

Genevieve Morgan:

And I've learned through the wellness stuff that to focus more on the vegetables and less on the meat.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. And I think that's an important thing to consider. Some people will do Meatless Mondays or Meatless Fridays and they'll just decrease their meat eating by a certain percentage and that is a great place to start. So adding more beta carotene rich foods into your diet, learning how to cook the vegetables that you have, and maybe cutting down on the meat. And if you are a meat eater and you just can't give up all at once, these are all things that you can do as part of your vision for your healthy self.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast we begin what we started very recently, our new Wellness Innovation segment, in which we discuss things that have recently been in the news or events that are coming up that we think might be of interest to our listeners. We learned recently in a Science Daily piece that there is a study out showing that your skin cells actually detect ultraviolet light using photosensitive receptors that were previously thought to exist only in the eye. So this is a fairly appropriate thing given our topic of today. The interesting thing is that your skin cells actually are able to detect the sun's rays and the UV rays more quickly and they are able to sort of rush in and protect you in a way that was previously not known about. If you want more information about this, go to the Journal of Current Biology and read more on this study. We look forward to more wellness innovations in the future. And this week's featured guest on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast is Dr. John Herzogen. Thank you for coming in.

Dr. John Herzog:

Dr. John, thank you very much for inviting me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So let me tell people a little bit about you. You are a third generation osteopathic orthopedic surgeon and your main focus is educating patients on the importance of healthy diet, exercise and clean air. At your practice orthopedic specialists, you offer an array of conservative options, including prp,

Dr. John Herzog:

which is platelet rich plasma.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Oh thank you. I was going to reread that, but thank you for helping me. Osteopathic manipulation, ultrasound guided injections and evaluations of musculoskeletal injuries. This is good stuff.

Dr. John Herzog:

Thank you. That's exactly what I do.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. And Genevieve Morgan is sitting next to me, my co host.

Genevieve Morgan:

Hi Dr. John.

Will Winkelman:

Hi.

Genevieve Morgan:

I love it that I've got Dr. John and Dr. Lisa next to me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Does it make you feel safe and well and happy?

Genevieve Morgan:

Very well taken care of, yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Good, good. Well, this show is about vision. And even though you're not an eye doctor, we actually have an eye doctor who's going to come on soon. We thought you were pretty appropriate because I'm reading third generation osteopathic orthopedic surgeon and you also do this prp. So you're kind of reaching back into what we've done in medicine, what we've done well. And you're also reaching forward into technologies that are starting to come into play. So this is why I thought you'd be an appropriate person for this segment.

Dr. John Herzog:

Well, I thank you very much. I think you're right on with that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You agree that you're the good person for this segment and modesty. We like that, yes. Tell us what osteopathic manipulation is.

Dr. John Herzog:

Well, essentially it's the original holistic medicine which where you look at the whole patient and not just the sprained ankle. Everything is connected. So an osteopath would see that you're limping a little bit and try to help you out with your limp and that in turn would help you with your back and your neck and maybe free up some headaches. So osteopathy has been in my family for generations and I'm very fortunate in that it kind of goes back to common sense and not the use of lots of drugs and surgery. Well, I'm an orthopedic surgeon. Of course you do need surgery when you get hit by the bus. But looking at alternatives with vision that are less invasive is pretty much an osteopathic way to go. Just like you mentioned, diet, exercise and clean air. That's the foundation of osteopathic medicine and actually for any kind of medicine, I believe.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But it is a little unusual. As somebody who's gone into surgery and I have a sister who's an orthopedic surgeon. It's a little unusual that you've had such a focus on plant based eating primarily or just healthy eating. Is that true? Am I off on this one?

Dr. John Herzog:

Yes, it is a bit odd, I would say, but I came upon it after being an unhealthy person for about 45 years. And then I looked into the research and read a book called the China Study by Colin Campbell. You've all heard of that?

Genevieve Morgan:

Yes, I've read it.

Dr. John Herzog:

It's about plant. It's plant based eating. I had had several medical problems of my own. I'd had several surgeries and I was quite depressed and a bit chubby. And after reading the book and changing my diet, my whole being changed. I just had less pain, I had more energy, less depression, get up and go and I just ran with it and have been on fire ever since. That's been about seven years now.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I should mention to people that when you do something, you do it in a big way. What you are known in this area for being the plant based diet orthopedic surgeon. You not only read the book by T. Colin Campbell, you brought the guy to Portland, Maine and he's nationally, if not internationally known. He actually came on your watch.

Dr. John Herzog:

Yes, I'm very proud of that. And we've become good friends and we see each other quite often. It's actually a patient of mine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, that is even more telling that somebody who's kind of known to be a. I don't know if you were allowed to say that. From a HIPAA standpoint.

Dr. John Herzog:

We shouldn't say that, but we'll just,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

we'll let you get away with it. Our listeners won't tell. So you also brought with you and one of the things that we talked about a few weeks ago is the fact that you've become a sponsor of our show and we talk about plant based eating a lot. You brought with us something that we've talked about before. What did you bring today?

Dr. John Herzog:

I brought a breakfast cereal that I've got a catchy name that I trademarked. I call it Brainola. The reason I call it Brainola because it's full of healthy brain alpha 3 omega acids and it's got all the fiber and all the sugars and complex carbohydrates and fats that you would need and. And it feeds your mind, not your behind. That's a little saying I have on it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes, we read that actually a couple of weeks ago.

Genevieve Morgan:

We liked that part.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We did like this and not the behind part. So we're glad to hear that the Brainola is actually good for your brain and not made of brains.

Dr. John Herzog:

It's totally. That's true.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We do amuse ourselves sometimes here on this show and that's because we espouse plant based eating and we're just like you. We're all about the get up and go and the joy that associated with eating things that are really close to the earth.

Dr. John Herzog:

If you eat well, you feel well.

Genevieve Morgan:

I also think it's interesting that the two of you are sitting here and if we bring this idea of vision to how you both studied medicine you both had a traditional perspective, and then you used your peripheral vision, if you want to call it that, to go outside that very traditional narrow focus to bring in all these other aspects of health care. And I'm wondering, Dr. Jahn, how you see that impacting the future of healthcare, particularly in our state.

Dr. John Herzog:

Well, our state is just a reflection of the rest of the country and the way the world's becoming as a just an acceptance that we need to have more and more medical care, we need more drugs, we need more vaccinations, and we need. We need all kinds of things, we think. But the fact of the matter is we're not taking care of ourself. And that would just be exercising and having a good diet. That's where we start. That's the basis.

Genevieve Morgan:

Is that something you can espouse, Lisa?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes, I'm in complete agreement with that, yes.

Dr. John Herzog:

And seeing the vision as a visionary in healthcare, I hope to think I am along with Lisa. If we don't change soon, it's game over. We have one third of our population that's morbidly obese. One third of us are just heavy, and then a third of our children are getting diabetes. It's not sustainable. We're throwing all this research and new pills and drugs into a huge vat. That's not helping anybody. So if we just learn to go back to basis like basics like osteopathy, diet, exercise and clean air, I think we can save us a lot of money. Who cares about the money? It's the suffering that we need to take care of.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's an important point because I don't know how many patients I have referred to an orthopedic surgeon, and they've come back to me with a total hip replacement, total knee replacement, but they haven't lost weight. So then they're back having surgery again not too long after the first surgery. I find that somewhat distressing. Did you find that in your practice when you were doing surgery?

Dr. John Herzog:

Certainly one third of my patients actually, in an orthopedic practice, probably half of your populace is overweight and out of shape, and that's why their bones are wearing out, their joints are wearing out. You can coach somebody and try to be compassionate and explain things, but there's only so many hours in a day. So I find myself out of the surgical theater now and doing more coaching and hoping, you know, actually using this station as a conduit to get out there and get the word out to more and more people that taking care of yourself is the best Health policy through a little education.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, and it seems to me that a lot of the doctors I see speak with, they are happier too, when they're providing more care like the two of you do. They're not interested in just pushing meds. They really want to do more of the work that both of you guys are doing. It's just. It's hard to stem the tide of 200 years of traditional medicine. Well, it's now traditional almost seems like it's the wrong word. Western medicine, I should say.

Dr. John Herzog:

Well, it's funny you use traditional because it was the tradition back when osteopathy was started. If you had the flu or a bad pneumonia, the doctor would come riding up to your house on his horse and buggy with his little black bag, and he'd come into your house and put a plaster of mustard or mercury on your chest. That was a standard of care. And my saying is that he should have brought a shovel with him because it would hasten your demise. And for some reason or another, we're intrigued with potions and tinctures and all kinds of things that supposedly are going to make us feel good, but it's the furthest thing from the truth.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So I think this mercury analogy is interesting because now we know that mercury is a poison, and yet we used it a lot way back when. And these days we're using a lot of medications that are. They have so many side effects and they can ultimately end up poisoning people that they don't do what we're hoping that they will do, and they make people worse.

Dr. John Herzog:

I agree 100%. I mean, one drug we give is to counteract another drug we give that was given because the person wasn't doing their homework. I think a lot of times I boldly state that 85% of all drugs ordered are absolutely unnecessary.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, that is a bold assertion because there aren't very many physicians who want to stand up and. And say we prescribe too many medications, especially physicians who practice within the standard medical community. Have you gotten pushback for your views?

Dr. John Herzog:

Oh, yeah. I get pushback from patients because they think, well, hey, I need to have some pain pills or I need something because I'm depressed, and I need two pills because I'm depressed. I think that's depressing. I say, listen, we gotta start at the bottom here and work our way up in trying to stay away from drugs. And if you're on drugs, you get weaned off the drugs. And, hey, I'm not, you know, a lunatic. I mean, you need antibiotics when you have a bad infection. And I really think that polio vaccine was a good idea. But I'll go against the swine flu thing that kind of gets fabricated every year and you know the radio stations are scaring everybody. You're going to get swine flu and you're going to have this and you better get it at your local store, etc. I think that's getting pretty push more than healthy alternatives.

Genevieve Morgan:

I think what the two of you are saying and what I know Lisa practices is that the body has an innate healing ability and an innate wisdom that we are sometimes out of touch with because of the way we've been raised in our culture. Is that true?

Dr. John Herzog:

Oh, that's very true. I mean if you believe the media, I mean you need to pop this, that and the other thing and there's a pill that stops you from doing too much of something or not doing enough of something. And it's just normal that people want to have a quick solution and an easy fix. So I just, through education I think we can change that whole concept around.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I also think that what I see, because I see the question it feels like it's kind of to both of us is that there are medications that were developed to be used short term, say an antidepressant or an anti anxiety medication, kind of like an antibiotic. Somebody really needs it, they need it short term and you know they get through whatever life transition it is if it's something they can't do without medication, but then they're supposed to come off. And I think unfortunately people do end up on long term medications that were never intended for that purpose.

Dr. John Herzog:

Well, I think what happens is you start getting these side effects that any drug is really giving you a side effect. It doesn't affect you positively or negatively. It does make you feel different. But if you understand that your own healing human bio custom compounding pharmacy can be turned on high up to 600% higher just by eating good food and exercising 20 minutes, five days a week. When you exercise, your painkillers and your anti inflammatories in your blood system go up by 600% and you don't really feel that you need to have these other things. Your muscles feel better, your bones feel better, you feel more vitality. And it's just so simple. It blows my mind that everybody isn't into this.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it's so simple. It's difficult though. I mean, I practice this myself. I have my patients practice this sort of thing and I talk to them about it all the time. But there are some barriers, would you agree?

Dr. John Herzog:

Oh, for sure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what are they?

Dr. John Herzog:

Well, the barriers are that you feel, feel so bad you don't want to do anything and you got the clicker and you just change the channel and sit there and have another bowl of whatever. So laziness is a huge barrier, I think. And people that are, you know, have been dealt some bad luck, you know, they've got an arthritic ankle or knee. They did break it skiing when they were a teenager. Now they're paying the price to understand that the worst thing you could do would be to gain £50 and start eating a bunch of butter and cheese. Probably has to be more reinforced. And that would just be changing your diet around, maybe reading that book called the China Study and starting to do what exercise you can. I mean if you've got a real bad hip, let's say you can't go jogging, but you can float around in a pool or you can get on a recumbent bicycle or maybe even a light resisted weight training with a little thing you put in your, on your chair with the pedals. You've seen those on tv.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. They're as advertised on tv. Late night. Yes. Right.

Dr. John Herzog:

I think that's a good idea.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. So it's starting where you are is what you're saying.

Dr. John Herzog:

Exactly. You can't go run the marathon until you do your training.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you think that this is actually one of the problems that we're dealing with in this country is that we have to always run the marathon before we actually learn to walk, that we have to do the big things before we actually take the steps to get to those big things?

Dr. John Herzog:

I think that's certainly a problem that could easily be counteracted with common sense. You know, go try to run around the block. If you haven't done that for a while, you're going to be really sore.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How can people find out more about your practice?

Dr. John Herzog:

They can go to my website orthocareme.com

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

so they can learn more about this PRP, which is platelet rich plasma, and they can learn about ultrasound guided injections and the variety of things that you offer in your practice.

Dr. John Herzog:

That'd be great. And I'm taking the time to really have some educational videos put on my website which explain about cortisone inflammation, diet, exercise, and this thing called prp, which is essentially putting your own blood cells back into an area that's inflamed, that's not healing, like a tennis elbow or a plantar fasciitis. So it's best to kind of look at, at that, I think. And we won't take up this whole show talking about my PRP commercial.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Right. But there's information on your website, so we'll send people there and we will also link to it off of our website and people who are on Facebook who are likers of the Dr. Lisa page, they can find you that way. We really appreciate your coming in. You are a visionary and of course, being a supporter of the show, we know that you're a visionary. That just backs that right up.

Dr. John Herzog:

I'm Aristotle.

Dr. Steven Goldstein:

You are.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But it's calculated and it's going to be well worth it. So we appreciate you joining us and we're truly grateful. We are very grateful. It's good to have you here.

Dr. John Herzog:

I am very pleased and hope to be here again. Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast we feature a segment we call Maine Magazine Minutes, which is hosted by our longtime co host, Genevieve Morgan.

Genevieve Morgan:

Thanks, Lisa. Today in the studio we have Will Winkelman, who is an architect and has been practicing for 29 years. You've been registered in the state of Maine since 1989. I also read that you built a house by hand on an island, which I want to get into later because that's, as we all know, that's a lot of work, but to do it on an island is even more work. You established Winkelmann Architecture in Portland in 2007. Your professional work has evolved over the years from a mix of commercial and residential to a practice focused solely on residential work. So I'm interested that you have a long standing passion for handwork, that you're always making things. And how did your experience building your own house?

Will Winkelman:

It totally changed my perception of what I do. I started my career doing hospitals and commercial work and when I started working just residential, it became personal and much more meaningful. You're dealing with people's dreams and it sounds kind of corny but it really kind of touches you and it really gives a good purpose. And then taking on the construction of my own house, exceedingly naive about what it would take. I'm special, I can make it happen in a year. Whereas actually it took seven. Yeah, a lot of. It'll be one more year, honey, and then we'll have it done. But it was a fantastic education because it taught what a quarter inch means and how to plumb and square a wall when you're framing. We bought tools, didn't have paid labor, money for labor, so had friends kind of pile in and help. So it was a fantastic education and it really informed, you know, I have my own links and you learn and you learn and you learn. I'm on an ocean front setting and so wind driven rain. We need to build boats by and large. And so in building my own house, I kind of made my own bed and had to sleep in it in terms of a complicated form, challenging to make.

Genevieve Morgan:

And how have you translated that experience to dealing with clients and how they interact with space?

Will Winkelman:

Well, the nice thing about being a residential architect that you learn from your own experiences. We all live in homes by and large, and so we learn from our own experiences of what works and what doesn't. What is socially kind of clicks and what gives private away spaces. Everyone's different in terms of what they're looking for. But it's a really good base to then start working with a client and be able to understand really what they're talking about. We all go back to our personal references and so having crafted our own home that was view driven and relating to the outside and trying to work with daylight, the first thing I see are the flaws that were built in. So the learning things. Right. And one of my big educators in doing my own house was learning the power of daylighting. And you know, it's always kind of talked about and you always kind of do something, some big windows to the south and stuff.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, it is one of the first things you notice when you walk into a space that you like. You don't know why you're liking it, but often it has to do with the light.

Will Winkelman:

Yeah, exactly. And a lot of times it's just an intuitive thing. You can't articulate what it is, but it's a wash of light.

Genevieve Morgan:

what we're all talking about today is vision. And vision can be defined in many ways. You've been crafting a particular kind of vision for 30 years. So I'm interested in two things. The first is when you walk into a space that a client wants changed, what do you see?

Will Winkelman:

So my first take on evaluating a space is to essentially zoom out and evaluate it in plan, because functional plan is the bottom line, the starting point for anything. Either you go and look at an existing situation, existing structure, or you're starting fresh, you're starting new. You have to have a plan that responds to its context, its daylighting. It's what's public, what's private, and then on internal relationships of how do they want to socially connect, how direct are they, or how filtered our space is? And that's all planning. So good planning is fundamental and core to any residential work. Then at that point, whether it's contemporary or it's traditional, that's something you can layer on, if you will.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, and that's interesting for the second part of my question, which is you've been doing this for a long time, and we live in a very traditional New England state with a lot of traditional architecture. So where have we been and where do you see us going either in new buildings or revamping old buildings?

Will Winkelman:

It's what I've been doing the residential thing for, like, 20 years plus, and it's been a slow evolution of more and more interest in kind of clean. Contemporary might be the right word. But you can't over. I don't want to overstate how much of that there is here, because there isn't that much. Maine Home has actually done a really nice job of pulling together the pockets of that that's been happening, and you can kind of see it and touch it and forms a community, kind of like what Dwell has done.

Genevieve Morgan:

Yes. And I'll just let our listeners know that Maine Home Design is the sister publication to Maine Magazine, which is why Will is part of Maine Magazine Minutes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And, Will, you've been featured in the magazine at least twice, from what I understand. Is that so?

Will Winkelman:

Yeah, I've had a couple things, and

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

one of them may be covered.

Genevieve Morgan:

Yeah, well, you go ahead.

Will Winkelman:

And so actually, one of those is a good example to talk about contemporary design and to what extent Maine has evolved that way or traditional, which is really the base of what happens here and what gets nurtured here and what clients really want. And so it's evolving a little bit. But as a rule, Maine, you know, you start with the state, it's geographically gorgeous and we're blessed with having these incredible sites that are woods and islands and coastal and lakes and even urban settings that are really kind of special and unique. But the main tradition of sort of forms and image really are what draw people here. And so that's part of the mystique that fits in that geography. And what I found is, you know, as an architect in Maine, you have to be fatally optimistic. You know, find the opportunity in the ordinary and as a rule been really successful at doing it and taking someone who wants, frequently will get a request to have something built new that looks like it's been there for 50 years.

Genevieve Morgan:

Right, the summer cottage.

Will Winkelman:

Yeah. And if you embrace the notion and really go for it and put your heart into pulling it off, then you layer in your daylighting, your manipulation of space so that it gives that special character that a box may not otherwise have. Layering of space, layering of scale of space and fenestration and daylighting, those are all the tools that you can kind of take something that's traditional and make it feel special.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, and I would say I've been lucky enough to visit Dr. Lisa at her offices, which are above a waterfall. And there are different spaces, as you're saying in Maine, that just naturally are gorgeous but also really impact what's being done inside the space and the people inside the space. How does manipulation of space impact the way people feel on a day to day basis?

Will Winkelman:

It's a really intuitive thing. You know, you think about if you've bought a home and it's got a dysfunctional plan and it's dark and the side of the house that has windows to face a neighbor and you kind of feel claustrophobic.

Genevieve Morgan:

You always know that they're just gloomy.

Will Winkelman:

Yeah. You don't feel settled, you're not sort of nested, if you will. And some people can live out of their car and don't notice. Right. Whereas other people, and that's what tends to come to an architect, I presume, for a custom designed home or whatever, they're nesting and to nest and settle in, there are layers to it. But it's all about being feeling settled and comfortable. It's interesting in terms of, you know, I talked about planning, really the way I kind of work is once you've zoned out the relationship of spaces to the outdoors in the view and the environment, once you're orienting the living space, say intuitively, it's not take a box and fill it with furniture. It's. Where's the intuitive center of gravity? Where do you want to sit? Where's your view? Where's your light? Where are you kind of owning the moment? Build your furnishing around that and then wall it. Wall around it. And so it's an inside out, kind of a tailored.

Genevieve Morgan:

That's so interesting. It's almost like your house or your home becomes an extension of your body.

Will Winkelman:

And, you know, I hadn't thought of it this way, but the nesting thing really does play into that because again, it's kind of creating that environment where you just feel really safe and, you know, and the wellness is sort of part of your show's absolutely, you know, thing. And it really kind of fosters that. So it's all connected, actually. I'm lucky. I love what I do for my living. Right.

Genevieve Morgan:

If our listeners out there or anyone wants to get in touch with you or your firm, how do we go about doing that?

Will Winkelman:

The website is everything. It's www. Winkark w I n k a r

Genevieve Morgan:

c h.com and there's also quite a beautiful portfolio of your previous work so you can get a great taste of what you do.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, I just have to ask this. Are you from Maine?

Will Winkelman:

Memphis, Tennessee.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Really?

Will Winkelman:

I got rid of my Southern accent a long time ago.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And so what has caused you to come and stay?

Will Winkelman:

You know, it's interesting. I moved here when I was 27. I'm feeling 53 now, so I've been here a while. And I moved from San Francisco and I moved out to Peaks island the second summer I was here, and I've been there ever since. So it really keeps me here. It's Maine is so fantastically. I always kind of believed if there's this place called Vacationland, if it's so spectacular people want to vacation there, why wouldn't you want to live there year round?

Genevieve Morgan:

Exactly.

Will Winkelman:

So I kind of found an extreme, you know, an island. It's like. And that's kind of worked. It commutes easy enough.

Genevieve Morgan:

Now the house is finished, right?

Will Winkelman:

Yeah. Maintenance cycle. Now there are all those learnings about building inexpensively and maintenance cycle. And boy, you barely bring those forward to your practice. You know, a lot of clients want the no maintenance thing and boy, do I get it.

Genevieve Morgan:

Well, that's another interesting point. Maybe we'll end on that. That. That the art of architecture is a practice and also maintaining and living in a home. And we're all practicing all the time.

Will Winkelman:

Truly. Truly.

Dr. John Herzog:

Yeah.

Will Winkelman:

Constantly learning.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, thank you so much. For coming in today. It's been really interesting to hear this idea of health and wellness from a very different perspective. Will.

Will Winkelman:

Excellent.

Genevieve Morgan:

Yes, thank you, Will.

Will Winkelman:

Yeah, thanks.

Genevieve Morgan:

The exceptional work of Winkelmann Architecture is featured in the Architecture issue of Maine Home Design magazine, the sister publication to Maine Magazine, and is available now at your local bookstore in Newsstand. To read more about Will Winkelman and many other innovative architects working in Maine, subscribe to Maine Home and design@themainmag.com.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Each week on the Dr. Lisa radio hourm Podcast, we read from the book Our Daily Tread, which was written written in honor of our late friend Hanley Denning. All proceeds from this book benefit her organization Safe Passage, which provides approximately 550 children with education, social services and the chance to move beyond the poverty their families have faced for generations at the Guatemala City dump. Visit them online@safepassage.org to purchase our daily tread, go to islandportpress.com this week's quote comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson, do not go where your path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we have a segment we call Give Back in recognition of the fact that health and wellness are not solely the property of the individual. They're about the community and the world at large. And there are organizations out there and physicians, other individuals out there who are doing things to help give back to the community. Today we are honored to have such an individual. Dr. Stephen Goldstein from Casco Bay Eye Care, thank you for coming in.

Dr. Steven Goldstein:

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Let me read a little bit about you because I'm impressed You've been practicing optometry since 1983, beginning as a chief of optometry and an optometrist in the United States army, you began your private practice of optometry in 1987. And this is the part that I find really most touching because I have three siblings who have also served and served overseas. A veteran of Desert Storm. Dr. Goldstein has also received the Army Commendation Medal and the Army Meritorious Service Medal. You received your Doctor of Optometry degree from the New England College of Optometry after graduating from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a Bachelor of Science. I also love this part. You spend your free time skiing as much as possible and playing competitive tennis.

Dr. Steven Goldstein:

That's correct. That was correct when I wrote it and still correct today.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Good. I'm glad that we like the people that come on and actually sort of live their lives fully. The reason you're here today is we're talking about this giving back. Genevieve Morgan, my co host, and I, we love having people in to talk about the things that they're doing for the community. Your organization, Casca Bay Eye Care, participates in nine different local community based programs in which you offer free or reduced services, including free eye exams for people who are referred through community based health clinics, which screen patients based on income. And there are a lot of big names in this list of people you help. The Portland Community Free Clinic, Healthcare for the Homeless, Care Partners, Positive Health Care and programs at Mercy Hospital, MA Medical Center. And you also are part of a national screening system for free eye care run by the American Optometric association called Vision usa, which enables you to see patients through the Portland Public Schools and the Catholic Charities of Greater Portland. This is a big list of people that you're helping from a vision standpoint. So talk to me a little bit about this.

Dr. Steven Goldstein:

Well, we think it's important. There's a lot of unmet need out there in the community. People that really need eye care and just falling through the medical cracks. They can't quite afford eye exams and they don't quite qualify for Medicaid. And that's where a lot of these different programs fit in. Some of them, some are very specific programs. For instance, positive healthcare only takes care of HIV positive patients. That's a very specific one. But some of them are pretty general. Some of these programs, for instance, Vision usa, which is a national program run by the American Optometric association, requires an application where you state what your income is. And then they try to match you with a provider in your area of the country that would be willing to see you at no charge.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you are really helping a group that needs something. I mean, if you can't see, you can't really function very well in your life. And sometimes in order to see, you need things that cost money, like glasses. Even just vision screening.

Dr. Steven Goldstein:

That's correct. We do the eye exams. And this crosses all ages too. From children to adults. In fact, we also participate in wonderful program, another program run by the American Optometric association called Infancy, and that's a little bit newer. Vision USA has been around for a while and I can give you their 1-800-number if you'd like.

Genevieve Morgan:

Oh yeah, please.

Dr. Steven Goldstein:

Dr. And you can post it on your website for people that feel that they cannot afford an eye exam and have no medical insurance. You're welcome to call the Vision USA program at 1-800-766-4466. Again, that's 1-800-766-4466. Or you can go to their website and download an application and fill that out and apply. But we also participate in the program Infancy as an Infant C and it's a very specific program also run by the American Optometric association with its own website under Infant C where we see babies or infants from the age 6 months to 1 year at no charge. And there's quite a few providers here in the state of Maine of which all eight doctors at Casco Bay Eye Care participate in.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How can people learn more about the services that you offer or get in touch with your practice?

Dr. Steven Goldstein:

Well, we have a pretty detailed website at WWE www.cascobayi.com and that lists all the offices. We have five offices here in Greater Portland and we've been here for quite a long time.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So we will also put that information on the Dr. Lisa website and people can get information and call you and they can call your office and find out about some of these reduced cost services that you've been talking about.

Dr. Steven Goldstein:

Yes, for some, some of the ones that are vetted or screened by other organizations, they could call Vision USA and apply directly, but they could call us and we would give them guidance. Yes. About how to reach an appropriate local organization.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, thank you so much for all the work you're doing and all the people that you're working with. As a family physician who deals with a broad variety of age levels, I appreciate what you're doing with the broad variety of age levels and and thank you for the giving back that you're doing to the community.

Dr. Steven Goldstein:

Well, you're welcome and thanks for having me on.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Today as part of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, each week we read from my Bountiful blog. My bountiful blog, as I've mentioned before, began as a means of exploring how to feed myself physically and over time has moved to a place of feeding myself emotionally and spiritually. Every day as I write about my observations on my bountiful blog, I learn just a little bit more about myself. This week's post from the Bountiful blog is called Dragon Stick and is from August 12, 2011. Other people's observations often inform our own. Thus it is important, critical even, to have astute observational skills. On a recent beach walk on Mount Desert island, my dear friend and I spent time casually studying the rocks, driftwood and other sea treasures that comprise the artwork of the shore. He pointed out a dragon stick. I was pleasantly startled. Immensely creative, my friend embraces my whimsical side but rarely reveals his own. My friend actively engages in conversations about La Bella Luna and readily appreciates the photos I take of everyday objects that others might not consider classically beautiful. My friend has a fine aesthetic sense that seldom tips into fanciful extrapolations. Thus, when he compared a sea worn stick to an ancient imaginary creature, I couldn't help but smile we would do well, all of us, to approach the world with such childlike vision. All too frequently we lose our sense of wonder as our existence becomes crowded by the cares of the adult world. It is, however, this very sense of wonder that enables us to realize our good fortune and living with this world at this time time. It is this sense of wonder that allows us to experience joy over small things. It is the sense of wonder that makes our time on this planet interesting and beautiful and grippingly real. It is this sense of wonder that, when shared, transforms a sea worn stick into a treasure and a mere existence into a life. Read this blog post and other blog posts on bountifulpath.com this week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, we discussed the theme of vision from a variety of different standpoints. We talked about physical vision and the foods that one can eat in attempting to keep one's vision strong and healthy. We talked about the vision required to have a healthy life and the importance of eating a plant based diet and exercising regularly and reaching back into the archives of medical wellness and doing what our forefathers perhaps did in order to keep ourselves healthy in the present day. We also spoke with an architect and addressed the theme of vision from the standpoint of space and light and surrounding ourselves with things that nurture us. And we finished with our Give Back segment describing the importance of vision and how one might find help if one is unable to see. We hope that you have been helped along in your process of maintaining vision. We hope that we are furthering the vision of health and wellness in this world. And we thank you so much for joining us here on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast. Visit our website at drlisabelisle.com to listen to our MP3s on a regular basis, to expl our many thoughts on health and wellness, or to find a link where you can subscribe to our podcasts. If you wish, you can also send us an email and get on our email list or be a part of our Facebook page at DrLisa. Thank you so much for joining us. May you have a bountiful life.