The Bite Size Podcast with Lorayne Michaels
Welcome to the BITE SIZE Podcast! 🎙️✨
This is the podcast for high-achieving women ready to renew their minds, optimize their health, and confidently walk in their God-given calling.
Here, we talk about faith, mindset, and holistic health—helping you break through self-doubt, overcome limiting beliefs, and step fully into the life you were created for. Through real conversations, expert insights, and transformational stories, you’ll learn how to heal from the inside out—mentally, physically, and spiritually.
Your story isn’t over. Your mess can become your message. Let’s do this together! 🔥
👩⚕️ Functional Nutrition | Wellness Coaching | Faith-Based Mindset | Speaking & Teaching
The Bite Size Podcast with Lorayne Michaels
Finding Hope When Traditional Medicine Falls Short
Curious about what functional medicine actually means and how it differs from conventional approaches? Nurse Practitioner Joanie Jackson pulls back the curtain on this growing field that's changing how we think about healing chronic conditions and even cancer.
When your car's check engine light comes on, you don't just cover it with tape—you find what triggered the warning. Similarly, functional medicine views symptoms like high blood pressure, anxiety, or insomnia as your body's warning lights signaling deeper imbalances. Rather than simply prescribing "a pill for an ill," practitioners like Jackson dig deeper through comprehensive testing to uncover nutritional deficiencies, inflammation levels, gut health issues, and other root causes that conventional medicine often overlooks.
What makes Jackson's work at Freedom Integrative Wellness particularly groundbreaking is their approach to cancer care. Through treatments like high-dose vitamin C infusions and other supportive IVs, they're helping patients outlive grim prognoses while maintaining quality of life. These alternative therapies don't replace conventional treatments—they can work alongside chemotherapy and radiation to create an environment where cancer cells struggle while healthy cells thrive. For patients who've been told nothing more can be done, this integrative approach offers renewed hope.
The journey through functional medicine isn't always quick or easy. As Jackson explains, healing takes time—often proportional to how long you've been sick. The process isn't linear; expect steps forward and backward along the way. But for those willing to invest in their health beyond symptom management, the rewards of addressing root causes can mean freedom from medications and a return to vibrant wellbeing. Ready to explore a different approach to your health? Visit Freedom Integrative Wellness online or in Fort Mill, SC to learn how functional medicine might transform your healing journey.
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Welcome back to the Bite Size podcast, where we talk all things faith, fitness and functional medicine, and today I'm so excited to have a local expert with us, ms Jomi Jackson. She's making a headway in South Carolina and quickly becoming known for alternative cancer treatment. What I love most about Joni is she is so compassionate about healing and transformation at Freedom Integrative Wellness, and so this isn't just a business for her. She's literally on mission and so full of compassion and kindness. She literally treats patients like family, and so I can't wait for you to hear from Joni and learn all about what she's doing and maybe come visit us at the practice. So welcome, joni. I'm so happy you're here.
Speaker 2:Thanks. Yeah, I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So let's just dive right in. What led you to functional medicine and ultimately here at Freedom, integrative Wellness.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, to be completely transparent, I was looking for something different during the pandemic. I was working in a long term care nursing home setting at the time and was just starting to put some pieces together. You know, obviously, given the pandemic and the vaccine, and I was just like something's not right about this, didn't know the first thing about anything holistic or functional, was completely naive. But there, you know, there was a job posting here and so I told them and I was very just, straightforward in the interview I'm willing to learn. They know I'm starting to put pieces together and there's got to be an alternative path. And they were willing to take me on and just completely taught me. And the more I started to learn, oh my gosh, I was all in Like both feet jumped right in. There was no turning back. It was a matter of and it still is a matter of just relearning medicine, everything we learned as a nurse practitioner. Relearning everything, but with a functional lens and looking at it differently and really trying to get to the root of the issue.
Speaker 1:Yes, what a perfect tee up that was. So can you talk a little bit about, like behind the behind, functional medicine? So what functional medicine looks like from a root cause perspective versus managing symptoms?
Speaker 2:Yes, so I can say a lot of these things because I was trained in the conventional system. The difference between the two you know. A lot of times when patients go to their doctor or their nurse practitioner, primary care, they are having symptoms and they're looking for a solution, and the providers you know are doing what they know best, based on how they were trained, and that's usually using a medication. But that's not really getting to the root of why we're having the symptom in the first place. I often will explain to clients and it's almost like your, your check engine light, your symptoms, whether that be high blood pressure or anxiety or insomnia um, that is your body's check engine light and it's saying that something is out of balance, something's not right.
Speaker 2:We need to look into this a little bit further and that is functional medicine. We're doing the deeper dive. We're looking at things, you know, not just surface level, not just 15 minutes. Here's a medication or a pill for an ill which we know is just a bandaid. It's covering up that check engine light. It's not getting to the root of the issue. So what we do in functional medicine is we often do different tests or more comprehensive testing. Unfortunately, it's stuff that insurance generally will not cover. But by digging deeper and really pulling back the layers we're often able to get to the reason behind and then get people off of these medications or at least find you know the solution to the issue in the first place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So how do you integrate the holistic side and the conventional side for whole body healing with your patient?
Speaker 2:Well, there's certainly a time and a place for medicine.
Speaker 2:You know, a few weeks ago I had a client come in here and her blood pressure was extremely high, to where you know.
Speaker 2:My number one concern was I don't want you to leave here and end up having a stroke or some other issue because your blood pressure was dangerously high, high.
Speaker 2:So I had the conversation with her at this point in time like we might need to use a medication just to get you out of that danger zone, bring you back, bring it down, get it under control while working on lifestyle and dietary interventions and things that we know that are going to change the body, change your microbiome, change your level of inflammation.
Speaker 2:You know, when we talk in functional medicine we talk a lot about inflammation and the gut and we know these two things are kind of the root of all disease. So if we can get that under control, then ultimately the goal is that you don't have to stay on that blood pressure medicine and in fact we have a big plastic container at the front of our office where you know it's a good release for patients and it's a good visual for other patients coming into, like when they're no longer needing these medications, we have them, toss it in there and it's just, it's therapeutic for them and it's, like I said, a great visual, but it's it's just showing that you know, again, it's a pill for an ill, it's just covering up that it's a bandaid.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, so having that conversation with the clients and then there's a time and a place for medicine and making that decision with the client to make them feel a part of obviously is a part of their, their health and their outcomes yeah, so I know alternative cancer treatment.
Speaker 1:That's becoming more widely known and your clinic is, like I said, the head of that and it's becoming a more accepted part of medicine and patients are very much interested in it. So what can you talk about? A little bit more about what your clinic's doing and what that looks like.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when we started offering IV therapies, you know started initially with just kind of like the basics that everyone else was doing. Every type of hydration clinic was offering a wellness or a Myers cocktail or some type of immune support the more research I started doing on cancer in general because the Lord just put that on my heart I don't have a personal cancer story, I don't. I haven't been affected, luckily, by someone close to me with that type of diagnosis but it was just became a passion of mine and I think I do think part of it goes back to the surge in cancer that we're seeing since the COVID vaccination and it's just not fair. It almost makes me like just frustrated that now patients are having to deal with this, and so I started just really diving into what are some alternatives.
Speaker 2:I started seeing things. I started with high dose vitamin C and that was the first one that I started offering your gateway, yeah. And so high dose vitamin C is great and that's probably our most popular drip right now in the clinic because it's so good for the body, it protects your cells and it's harmful to cancer cells and we've seen where it improves energy and appetite and just so many things with our clients, with or without chemo. If they're doing other, you know other therapies, it's helpful across the line. So I started with that and then one thing led to another and it's like, oh, we can do this service and oh, well, we can add in this therapy as well. So we offer several different IVs now to help support clients dealing with that diagnosis. And it all goes back to supporting the mitochondria, you know, giving the body the nutrients that it needs, energy and things that are basically creating an inhospitable environment for those cancer cells to continue to grow and metastasize. So ultimately it's helping to lead to apoptosis or that cancer cell death.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. You mentioned patients that are doing both. They come to you for the alternative cancer treatment, but there might be going and getting chemo and radiation as well. That's something that they can do?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely, that's awesome about that, and so there is always often that having that conversation with clients about what they're doing, specifically because they certainly don't want to cause any sort of fear or uncertainty that anything would conflict with other therapies that they're doing. But there is supporting evidence that all of the things that we're offering here are, in fact, safe and can be used in synchrony with chemo and radiation.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's awesome, that's comforting and I'm sure that brings a level of hope for you know, the patients that are just really wanting to rid their body of this. Can you talk about any success stories or give us an insight behind the curtain of maybe someone who came in with no hope, at their wit's end, and then saw real results from the treatment that you provided?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, I will say I started these therapies mid to late last year, so I don't have an actual like no evidence of disease yet, but I know there's one coming. It's just trying to be patient, but we have had success stories where patients came in and had a you know. We're given a diagnosis, we're told that they would live four to six months, and it's been nine months to a year.
Speaker 2:Wow and they're still out living their life, they have the quality of life, they're enjoying this added time with their family. When they came to us with no hope and they were just, yes, like let's just do something, let's see what happens, yeah, and then, in particular, some of these are clients who were, you know, doing things alongside chemo and radiation. I'm not one that's. I'm not one of those providers that's like, well, it's because of what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:Like I don't care where the credit goes.
Speaker 2:As long as my clients were thriving, I want them to have that quality of life back and that time with their family that was going to get taken from them. So that's what I want is to see them thriving through cancer and beyond. So we have had several instances where, you know, they were given that extra time back. And then not only that, I have one client right now who I just he's near and dear to my heart. He's an older gentleman and he is so spunky and it's so fun to see him come in for his infusions.
Speaker 2:And his wife will tell us and she's like yep, you know, he went and mowed the grass last week and it was like he wasn't doing this type of stuff before. You know, he his his quality of life, his energy, he's wanting to go out and visit with friends and he's wanting to go to church and things that before he wasn't doing. So again, it's just, it's that added time, it's that quality of life. One day we're going to get that no evidence of disease. I haven't been doing it long enough or, you know, even have reached the amount of clients to maybe get that result.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's. That's so encouraging. What would you say to someone who is battling cancer or a chronic illness, who feels like they've tried everything?
Speaker 2:Yeah, mindset is the biggest thing, like I feel like that is so, so important and in fact we give a devotional guide to all of our clients that are coming in for our IV therapies because you have to believe it. I mean number one when you wake up in the morning, you know what your outlook of the day is going to determine how you, how your day goes, and if you're doom and gloom, there have been studies and reports that have shown that to where patients who have a positive outlook of like we're gonna nip this in the bud and we're gonna keep fighting, and they live so much longer. So it's easy to get burdened down by that. I can totally understand that. You're at your wit's end and obviously this is taking time. The therapies are taking time away from work and time away and they can get costly. So I understand the frustration, but not trying not to lose hope, having that positive mentality, because, going back to those studies, they have shown where, if you are doom and gloom or it doesn't make a difference what I do, because ultimately the outcome, you know, is going to be this.
Speaker 2:Then they were um one of the cancer conferences I went to. They talked about a case study like that. And I mean, and she was she passed in a year where, as someone who else, who lived like 20 years, it was an active diagnosis the entire time. So it was. It definitely goes back to whether you're a spiritual person, or if you believe in a higher power, um, or if you were just, you know, having that positive mindset, believing in something bigger, um, and not giving up and keep doing things like. There's so much more literature coming out. There's constantly new evidence and new supporting therapies that we're learning about all the time. So don't just settle on what you've been told. Get a second opinion, keep fighting, because there's always new information that's being released.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that you said that, cause I recently have been talking about that, about your mindset and your body won't go where your mind won't allow it. And of course what I was talking about was from a fitness perspective. But it's the same concept and if you can't wrap your mind around it, if you can't see it in your mind's eye and you don't talk to yourself but you allow yourself to listen to your thoughts, you're just it's going to go down a negative rabbit hole, because we naturally do that and we just have to get control over it. You know, not to be conformed to the world, but the renewing of your mind and just having that constant dialogue with yourself. I think that makes all the world of a difference, absolutely. Yeah, kind of switching gears here. On the education side of it, what is something that you wish people knew or understood about functional medicine?
Speaker 2:Probably the biggest thing is that functional medicine takes time. It is not a quick fix and it's again. It's frustrating because we live in this society where it's like a microwave what's it? Microwave mentality you want it done now or in 30 seconds. You know you want it done the sooner the better. And you go to your doctor for a sinus infection and they give you an antibiotic and a steroid and, yeah, you're better in 48 hours. But you can treat that naturally and it might take a week in that case. So it's all in. Going back to mentality, having the appropriate expectation. Do we want the antibiotic that's going to destroy our gut microbiome and then lead to other issues Also, not to mention that antibiotics are overprescribed in so many cases.
Speaker 2:If it's truly a viral illness and wouldn't have responded to the antibiotic anyways, you would have been better in seven to 10 days regardless. So if you had just waited and done your due diligence, you probably would have gotten over it anyways. So and obviously that's just one example of a sinus infection is something simple, but people go to their doctor all the time for that and they're out 15 minutes later with an antibiotic. Obviously, there's much more complex things that we treat with functional or in functional medicine gut issues, sibo, autoimmune conditions, lyme mold, these things. I mean we're talking about months and in the example of Lyme, a Lyme life cycle is like 18 months. So it's a journey. It's not going to happen overnight. You're gonna. We expect our like journey to healing to be like a ladder where we're just moving up and it sometimes is one step forward, two steps backwards, or you know, two steps forward, one step backward. You're gonna go both ways. As you're healing With functional medicine, when we are addressing the person as a whole, looking at their lifestyle, looking at their sleep, looking at their stress, looking at their hormones, it's not just one issue, one single issue.
Speaker 2:It's a whole bunch of things that have compounded. Also, if you think about how long you've been sick, it's going to take you that long, if not twice as long, to get better. If you've been dealing with something for two months, well, it could take up to four months to get better. We've been dealing with something for two months, well, it could take up to four months to get better. If you've been dealing with something for two years, you can't expect to feel better in a month or two.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's certainly just trying to set that realistic expectation. That time is the is important with functional medicine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I love how you mentioned looking at them as a whole because thinking, you know, with conventional medicine, when you go to the doctor, for you know this symptom, that's all they're treating and not to discredit them at all, they're just doing what they're taught, but that's all they focus on is that symptom, whereas what you do is you look at everything because it's all connected and you're absolutely right about what the whole healing process is. It's just like a diet. You know you didn't become overweight overnight. It was years of this habit and that led you to this, and now it's not going to just reverse in a week of you eating good and working out, it's going to take another.
Speaker 1:you just have to relearn everything all over again and address the whole issue. I love that. What is a myth about functional medicine that drives you crazy that you wish everyone knew the truth?
Speaker 2:That functional medicine doctors which I'm not a doctor, I'm a nurse practitioner, but still functional medicine providers are quacks that all we do is use supplements, which I mean I will say there's good and bad to every field and there's good and bad providers in every field. So I'm not going to say that there aren't some functional medicine people that solely rely on supplements or are just trying to push as many supplements down your throat, but supplements are a bridge, and if you're deficient in nutrients, like, we need to rely on supplements for a period of time, it's in a different sense than like a medication. So, yeah, I feel like a lot of times it's meant that you know oh, and functional medicine is so expensive? Well, that's because we're not spending 15 minutes with you, like, we're having to do testing that insurance doesn't cover. We're spending a lengthy amount of time to really get to know you know your whole history, you know all of the things, so that we can take better care of you.
Speaker 2:It is expensive. It is. It's an investment in your health, though, because where are you going to get? With conventional medicine? Most of the times, you're not going to get the answers that you're looking for or the solutions or the help. So those are probably the things that drive me crazy the most especially probably the supplements and the pills.
Speaker 1:It's like so much more than that, yeah, yeah, for sure I know. So, as we're wrapping up, how can patients or our listeners contact you? What's the best way to get into the clinic or hear more about it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we're located in Fort Mill. You can certainly check us out on our website, the freedomintegrativewellnesscom, and all of the therapies that we're able to offer. And you know we have the direct primary care offer. And you know we have the direct primary care.
Speaker 2:So we see all ages, newborn through adults, to care for your whole family, for those primary care needs where you have options and where you have medical freedom hence the name. So definitely in giving that integrative approach. So the direct primary care or IV therapy or cancer therapies all of that's listed on our website. You can certainly check us out on our social media and then also just give us a call at our office. We'll get you connected and go from there.
Speaker 1:Awesome, I'll make sure to put everything in the show notes Real quick, though I'm going to do a rapid fire question. Try not to think about it. Are you ready? Yes, what is your favorite scripture for healing? Jeremiah 29, 11.
Speaker 2:I love it and that covers so many things, but yeah, we don't know our plans and we don't know his or his plan for us and we want to try to rationalize everything and I'm the type of person that I like to plan and I want to know why. 100%.
Speaker 1:It's structured a plan and I want to know why 100% it's structured A to B.
Speaker 2:I want that plan and if A to B is not working, I want plan two. We have to trust that he has. He has everything under control and he knows why.
Speaker 1:Yes, all right. Second one, one health practice that you never skip.
Speaker 2:Goodness, oh goodness.
Speaker 1:Try not to think about it?
Speaker 2:I don't. I guess I'm not consistent about it. It um, I don't. I guess I'm not consistent about it, so I don't know, and I guess I do skip it definitely trying to get.
Speaker 2:I mean, goodness this is. I'm sitting here thinking like water grounding, but I'm not consistent on things every day because life just happens. Um, trying to get outside probably at some point, more than just from the car to the office and vice versa, like going outside getting sunshine, whether that be a walk, or just going outside and grounding for a few minutes, but trying to spend some outside time in nature, outside, I love that In some form or fashion.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love it. Okay, last one Bone broth or coffee Bone broth?
Speaker 2:Are we talking about for health benefits, or like favorite drink you in general, bone broth or coffee? I mean, I would prefer coffee, but I was sitting here thinking like wait a minute, bone broth is so good for you All right, joni?
Speaker 1:thank you so much for being with us today. I've absolutely enjoyed talking with you and learning more about what you do at Freedom Integrative Wellness, and I can't wait to see what the future holds for you and you are doing amazing things out there and I just pray that your light continues to shine and the growth of the clinic is abundant. Thank you, thank you, bye.