Dr. Joe Tatta:
Welcome everyone to today’s edition of the Healing Pain Summit. I am your host, Dr. Joe Tatta. I have a very special guest today and a great topic and a really great story for you, so please stay tuned for this. Today’s topic is a physical therapist guide on healing from surgery. Really important. So my guest today is Dr. Laura Ricci. She is a doctor of physical therapy specializing in women’s health and pelvic floor rehabilitation. She’s also a women’s health nutrition coach. Through her own medical challenges including cancer and a number of orthopedic surgeries, she found a passion for nutrition due to our extensive experience in both areas. Laura has wrote and taught the nutrition pre and post abdominal and pelvic surgery course for the integrated women’s health Institute. Laura teaches nutrition classes, cooking classes, and provides private one-on-one physical therapy, nutrition and health coaching for clients all around the globe. She strives to be a light in darkness for patients, offering hope through her story of love and healing. She lives with her husband and Amarillo, Texas, where she loves healthy cooking, Tai Chi classes and spending time in nature. Dr. Laura Ricci, welcome to the healing pain summit today.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Dr. Joe Tatta:
Great. So you have a tremendous, powerful story of a number of challenges both with cancer and with a number of orthopedic surgeries. Tell us about your experience. Uh, let’s start with the cancer first. I think that’s probably, you know, the most impactful.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
Sure, absolutely. So about four years ago, I got really sick and I started gaining weight and couldn’t figure out why and started sleeping 12 hours a day and just still feeling really tired. You know, I go and work at the clinic and work with my patients and come home and just crash. And I knew something was off and I thought it was something with my thyroid actually. Um, we later discovered that I had Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. Um, but it turned out to be an extremely rare sarcoma called the does my tumor or an aggressive fibromatosis and it was in my abdominal wall. So in those rectus muscle, the six pack muscle, it was the size of a softball and they’re extremely rare, only two to four out of a million people get them only 900 new cases a year. So I, I joke with my husband that I should’ve got a lotto ticket with odd like that.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
Um, but I underwent four surgeries related to this tumor. That tumor had actually eaten part of the rectus muscle, so they had to put synthetic Meshan to hold everything in place and it actually herniated twice. So it was quite a journey. The first time it herniated, they put more synthetic mission. The second time that it herniated, I ended up meeting a complete reconstruction of my abdominal wall where they took out all the synthetic mesh and basically repositioned my muscle to close a 12 centimeter ventral hernia, like right there in the front of my abdomen. So that was quite a surgery. I was in the hospital for five days and I couldn’t bend for three months. And my surgeon basically said, you can’t work for a year, you can’t go back to physical therapy. It’s, it’s too physical right now. You can’t lift anything over five pounds.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
So it was quite a journey. Um, going through all of that and that’s what really sparked my passion for nutrition. These tumors do have a high recurrence rate and I wanted to learn and empower myself and do everything that I could to prevent a recurrence from coming back. And, uh, I remember my oncologist at MD Anderson cancer center had told me, you know, I said, what can I do dietary wise to, to prevent this? And you said, Oh, just just keep eating the standard American diet. That’s, that’s fine. And something intuitively that just didn’t sit well with me. Um, so I started doing research. I found Jessica Drummond with the integrative women’s health Institute. I took her certification in nutrition and health coaching and I just loved it. And about six months after that reconstructive surgery, we discovered that I had adult hip dysplasia and I had bilateral labral tears and bilateral hip impingements.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
Um, so we ended up, I hadn’t up having this hip preservation surgery called a peri acetabular osteotomy or a Pao for short, where they basically fractured my pelvis in four places and separated the socket or the acetabulum from the pelvis, repositioned it to give me better coverage and then put in large screws to hold everything in place. So this is bigger than total hip replacement. I was much bigger. Um, I was on a Walker for a month. I was only allowed to put about 20 pounds through my leg, uh, as that fractured pelvis healed and I had the left hip done. It was April of 2014 I had the right hip done December of 2014 and I had all the hardware moved two months ago. So it was three surgeries related to that. And you know, before these hip surgeries, I did a lot of research on nutrition pre and post surgery to really learn what I could do to optimize my surgical outcomes. And I could tell you from firsthand experience with this stuff works. I, I was off pain medication after two weeks post op with a fractured pelvis. Um, I really had an amazing recovery that I credit to the preparation that I did at a time. Um, but also the nutrition piece and you know, it’s been quite the journey, but I have learned so much through this whole process and you know, it was through these challenges that I just fell in love with nutrition and began to realize how crucial it is for our health.
Dr. Joe Tatta:
Excellent. So, you know, as a physical therapist, my kind of sirens are going off a little bit. So obviously you had this long struggle with, with cancer and then you have these hip problems where the hip related to kind of the treatments you received for cancer, how did those really kind of start?
Dr. Laura Ricci:
You know, I think the hip issues were congenital. Uh, it was interesting. I had this long history of pelvic pain that, and that’s actually what got me into pelvic floor physical therapy. And as a child my hips popped and clunked a lot. Um, but it wasn’t painful, didn’t limit me. I didn’t really think anything of it. I thought, okay, everybody’s hips must look like this. And I was a runner in, in undergrad and I ran a lot of five Ks. And what started to happen was my hips would ache for about a week after I would go for a run. And this was before I was even in physical therapy school. I went to see a physical therapist and after six weeks of PT, it didn’t really change. And he told me, uh, you just weren’t built for running, which technically is kind of right. We just didn’t know.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
Um, but hip dysplasia is something that’s really challenging to get a diagnosis for and you really have to have an expert that can pick that up. And mine was a very rare type of hip dysplasia. It was lack of anterior coverage, not lack of lateral coverage. So it didn’t show up on a typical amp x-ray that they would normally check. Um, so I, I don’t think the two were related necessarily, but it really wasn’t until the issues with my abdomen and the hernia, cause that was extremely painful. It was like, once that was fixed with that surgery, then I started, I could tell in my body like, Oh my hip is bothering me. And I was concerned that that was my abdomen. And when I went back to the surgeon, he was like, no, that’s, that’s your hip. And we went down this journey to finally figure out the root cause of what was going on with um, you know, definitely contributing to the pelvic pain issues, but why I was having issues way back then. Um, as well.
Dr. Joe Tatta:
Excellent. So we have both clinicians and you know, clients, patients on this summit. Um, I just want to talk to the clinicians for a moment cause I think what’s so powerful about your story is as a physical therapist, we obviously help people all day long. Um, we’re always physical people ourselves. Our job is very physical. How do we as clinicians kind of, you know, we’re constantly taking care of other people, which is our passion. It’s what we do. But how do we also become mindful of our own health and make sure we’re preserving our own health in the process as we help other people?
Dr. Laura Ricci:
Oh, that’s a fabulous question. I think that really comes down to listening to our bodies. That’s been a huge issue that, that I’ve learned through experience and not ignoring those little signals that our bodies are giving us. You know, we spend so much time working on people and educating people and it’s important to also listen to ourselves. And I think self care for the healthcare professional is so, so important because it’s so easy to get burned out and to just give and give and give. And so almost setting healthy boundaries in that respect of, of scheduling time for health or self care, scheduling time to, you know, take care of herself, whether that’s, you know, preparing a healthy, nutritious meal for yourself. But I think it’s important for us to remember to slow down. Cause that I was definitely guilty of that when, when I was in the clinic as it was just kind of go, go, go. And, um, you know, I would, I would eat while I was documenting and doing all of these things and, and this was a huge reminder. Me getting sick was a huge reminder to just slow down. It’s okay, just take a breath.
Dr. Joe Tatta:
It’s true. You really have to preserve yourself and preserve your own health so we can take care of others. Absolutely. And you then become the inspiration I think for your patients and clients, you know, you walk the walk and, and they, they pick up on that. Excellent. So let’s get into some of the kind of hardcore tips and strategies you have for people who are maybe entering surgeries. Let’s say we have this, let’s talk about people who know they have a pending orthopedic surgery. Obviously orthopedic surgeries are very popular. What types of things can people do to prepare themselves for a surgery?
Dr. Laura Ricci:
Absolutely. So I think, you know, I would just start with nutrition. I think that that’s a, that’s a really biggie. You want to reduce as much inflammation as possible through an anti inflammatory diet. So, you know, definitely avoiding the processed foods and fast foods. Um, but I would also recommend, you know, really kind of adding more nutrient dense vegetables. So if you can get more fresh organic vegetables into your meal, um, that would be ideal. You know, at least 50 to 75% of your plate with vegetables would be awesome. Eating more organically raised poultry and eggs, wild caught fish. Um, if you’re going to have red meat, get organic grass fed beef, you know, try to minimize the starches if you can, the white potatoes and rice because these can spike your blood sugar levels and just the surgery alone, just going through that trauma can raise your blood sugar levels and make you a little bit more insulin resistant during that time of healing.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
So it’s good to kind of catch that beforehand. Um, you know, gluten, I would, I would take one out. Uh, a lot of my clients when they removed gluten, they notice a decrease in their joint pain. Sugar is a huge one. You know, sugar is a major contributor of inflammation in the body. And, you know, there’d been numerous studies linking high glucose sugar levels with the promotion of cancer cells. I learned that on my cancer journey. Um, you know, sugar can also cause a loss of that tissue elasticity, which is so important for healing after surgery. Um, you know, and it can interfere with the absorption of, of different things and minerals in the body and suppress the immune system. And this is not a time when we’re going into surgery that we want to suppress the immune system. Um, you know, dairy can also be inflammatory and be an issue for some people.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
So soy can be an issue. And then one interesting thing that people might consider is nightshade vegetables like potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, um, paprika, Toma, tilos. You can Google a whole list of them and look at those, but there’s some studies that suggest that they can actually delay the healing process after surgery. Um, and that they might inhibit some important enzymes that process the anesthesia drugs. So, you know, I’m not saying, you know, nitrates might not adversely affect everybody, but it might be wise to kind of avoid them or you can test them, you know, take them out for you know, two weeks and see if you notice any improvement with your health. Um, you know, clinically I’ve seen, uh, patients and clients specifically with joint pain or spine pain benefit from taking night shades out of their diet. Um, you can also add in more anti-inflammatory herbs like ginger and tumeric and green tea.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
All of these things are going to be great to help with inflammation in the body. Um, you know, just be careful with, with ginger because, um, really high doses before your surgery can, you know, possibly cause a thinning of your blood a little bit. So it’s best to check with, you know, I always recommend check with your surgeon, check with your anesthesiologist before surgery. Um, but that just goes to show you the power of food. Um, you know, some other things that you just might want to be careful with is really heavy uses of garlic before surgery can possibly decrease the ability of those platelets to aggregate or stick together. Um, citrus fruits and pineapples, you know, may extinct in the literature, may kind of, um, interfere with the efficacy of penicillin. So, so just some little tips and tricks to kind of watch out for as you’re tweaking your diet and preparing for this.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
Um, but you really want to add in those healing foods like, like bone broth. I’m a huge supporter of bone broth. Um, probiotic and fermented foods are going to be great and green smoothies and soups. If we can blend up these foods, especially, you know, both before surgery and after surgery and take some of that load off of your digestive system and makes it a little bit easier to absorb. That can be really helpful because you are what you absorb. We say we are what we eat, but you’re actually what you absorb. Um, and then even after surgery, you know, that’s going to take the load off and let your body really work on healing more instead of trying to digest and process all of the things that you’re eating. Um, so those are just kind of my big tips with nutrition beforehand and, and what she can do to kind of prepare.
Dr. Joe Tatta:
Excellent. So I want to go back just a couple of frames there and talk about, just stop on. One thing you talked about with Richard was sugar. Um, cause there is some pretty good research about sugar causing cancer and actually making, you know, the tumor worse so to speak. So talk to us about how, and we don’t need to get too into the biochemical details, but just talk to us about that a little bit.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
Oh gosh. Yeah. It should. Or is so inflammatory. They actually on those pet scans, that’s, that’s one of the markers, how they find cancer is giving you sugar and seeing where that shows up in the body. Um, but it’s, it’s just so inflammatory. And this is something that I wish from my personal journey, more doctors where we’re discussing. Um, you know, I wish somebody would’ve told me that when I started researching that I was like, wow. Um, and, and specifically with tumors and related, just wish mine was a large sarcoma tumor. So there is a lot of information out there and really, you know, cancer is going to thrive in an acidic environment and we really want to alkalize the body and sugar, you know, taking that out of our diet is one of the best ways to do that. But it’s hard because it’s so addicting.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
Um, you know, and that can be a challenge in its own. But if we can give people simple swaps, like, um, you know, I really recommend Stevia. It’s a good kind of natural alternative to that because it doesn’t seem to spike blood sugar levels, um, in people. But yeah, that’s a biggie. And, and I was, you know, I thought I was eating healthy because I was doing the, the low fat. Right. You know, but, but all that stuff is still loaded with sugar and you know, when, when you know better, you do better type thing. Um, so that was a big learning experience for me. But, but yeah, especially especially as a, as a cancer patient and you know, like I said, the tumor that I had had a very high or cancer recurrence rate and I’m, I’ll be four years in October, no, no recurrence. And um, which is just a huge blessing. I’m so grateful for that. But I really attribute that to the, the work, the diet, the lifestyle, all of those things. Um, so empowering because you go from being in a situation where it’s like, Oh, just keep doing what you’re doing. There’s nothing that you can really do to prevent this, to taking your power back, which is so exciting.
Dr. Joe Tatta:
Yeah. Congratulations on four years. Cause you’ve definitely done the work you’ve done, you’ve taken the courses, you’ve delved into research on pub med, so you’ve definitely done the work and you deserve all the health that you’re enjoying at this moment. Um, contrast to us how the postsurgical process, what can we do post-surgically to help us recover?
Dr. Laura Ricci:
Yeah. So as far as the nutrition, you’re still going to do a lot of the same things. Um, you know, taking gluten, dairy, sugar, soy, those types of things out of your, out of your diet still is really gonna help. Um, you know, having those, those healthy things after surgery. This is, this was the case for me and I don’t know if it is for a lot of other people as well, but you really don’t have an appetite. Um, you know, you kind of lose that or you’re dealing with, you could be dealing with post-surgery, uh, nausea, vomiting, those types of things. Um, which can be really unpleasant and so eating food, maybe the last thing that you want to do, but it’s really, really important, especially protein after surgery is going to be really, really important for, you know, kind of helping the body rebuild and heal.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
So that’s where, you know, those green smoothies with a really clean protein powder is going to be great. And you know, if you’re not able to drink a whole green smoothie, put some in the freezer, save, save it for later. So when you do kind of get that appetite to come back, you can have that. I prepared by, I made tons of bone broth. I put that in the freezer. I made tons of soups with that and I just had it on hand so that, because, you know, I couldn’t cook for surgery. Um, you know, I needed help to go to the bathroom. I need help to shower. So if you can prepare ahead of time after surgery for those things and you know, give your caregivers a heads up, you know, they knew exactly where it was in the freezer. It was easier for them to pull out.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
It was we were ready to go. And that just makes it so much easier on your, um, recovery time and things. Uh, you know, also, you know, besides the nutrition, I think mind body techniques are so important. Um, and I think a lot of people kind of skip over that. Like, you know, they’re like, Oh, we should meditate. Well, yeah, I don’t have time for that or that sounds kind of hippy dippy, but, um, you know, it’s essential and the body cannot heal in a stressed out state. It just can’t heal. And so doing things that you can to reduce your stress to, you know, some guided imagery or some meditation or maybe just even breathing. And that can be hard because you’re in pain, you know, surgery, surgery is not fun. And, um, you know, I don’t know if you’ve had this experience with, with your, uh, patients, Joe.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
But you know, I had a lot of my patients who told me, I didn’t realize this is going to hurt. Like the doctor didn’t tell me that this is going to be painful and if I would’ve known how, how challenging this was, I might not have done it. Um, so it’s, it’s a challenge, you know, going into surgery that’s, uh, that’s hard on you on your system because you know, we talk about that fight or flight response, we talk about running away from a tiger in surgery. You were bit by the tiger. Like, that’s what your body, your body doesn’t know that your surgeon was skillfully, you know, doing all of these things to kind of help you heal. Um, but it’s a trauma. You know, when we think about that, so doing what we can to minimize that on our body doing, doing the nutrition piece, doing some, um, mind body techniques, um, that can be so helpful.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
And there’s a lot of research behind the mind body techniques that they can actually reduce your pain, reduce your recovery time, uh, shorten your hospital stay that’s going to save you money, decrease the use of pain medication. I found that to be huge. I was like, wow, I don’t need this as much. That’ll save you money because you’re not spending as much on those prescriptions and going into surgery, feeling more calmer, but also after surgery, helping you relax so that you can is, is really important. Um, you know, other things to really help you after surgery, optimize your sleep. Sleep is so important. You need that to heal. And that can be challenging to kind of get in a comfortable position. Um, but you know, again, poor sleep, just one night of poor sleep can affect your blood sugar levels, can make you more insulin resistant for the following day. Um, so, and we’re going to have blood sugar issues after surgery. So really maximizing as much rest and recovery time. You know, surgery is a time to rest. It’s not a time to work from home, not a time to, you know, this is not a vacation or uh, it’s, it’s rest time. It’s, you really need to kind of take that seriously and allow yourself to heal. I think that’s really important.
Dr. Joe Tatta:
Excellent. So as a doctor, physical therapy, obviously, you know, movement is one of the things that you specialize in. Um, throughout your cancer surgeries, you were actually immobilized, mobilized for a period of time where you couldn’t bend your spine at all, you couldn’t bend from the waist, and then you went through a series of hip surgeries. Tell us how your, um, kind of framework of movement and how important it is, has changed throughout your process and what you’re currently doing today.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
Oh my gosh. I think moving is essential. And, you know, even as a physical therapist and studying, you know, the abdominal muscles and the core and how that’s our foundation for movement and movement derives from pear. I didn’t really get it till I had issues after surgery and I was like, wow. Um, how much, just what a challenge it was just to get in and out of bed after the, after that abdominal surgery. Um, you know, how essential that was was for everything. Even our movement, leg movement, all of all of these things. And that is key. And you know, going through, you know, I was a patient in physical therapy for months, um, and still am actually for my hips. Um, but just how essential it is to move and do what you can. And even, even though I was limited after that abdominal surgery, just, just walking a little bit a day.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
And I think that can help with your pain actually too, after surgery. If you can get moving, um, you know, do what you can very gently, but also, you know, I caution listen to your body with that and, and take cues from your body as you progress. But, you know, going into my hip surgeries, I did prehab beforehand. I really, um, you know, started strengthening and doing everything that I could to strengthen the muscles as much as possible before going into surgery. And you know, this as, as a physical therapist, there’s a lot of research that backs up doing prehabilitation doing exercises and strengthening to have a faster recovery. And I, I totally believe in that and do it. It helped tremendously. Um, so I would really recommend to anybody out there if you have the luxury of a little bit of time before your surgery and you can prepare, do, um, meet with the physical therapist, make an appointment, see a physical therapist, learn things that you can do before your surgery ahead of time to help you prepare. Um, that physical therapist is going to teach you what appropriate exercises you can do. You’re going to be ahead of the game. You can maybe even learn what exercises you’re going to be doing after surgery. So you already know them, you’ve been practicing them because you know, after surgery you’re groggy, you’re on, you don’t feel so great. It may be hard to kind of learn some of these new exercises, but just having that preparation ahead of time can make a really big difference in your recovery, in your outcomes.
Dr. Joe Tatta:
Yeah, it’s huge. Um, one of the things that I really try to advocate is the physical therapy profession. Um, you know, I’ve seen tremendous healing happen through the work that we do. Unfortunately over the last couple of years with the affordable care act, our profession really has taken a hit from insurance. You know, they’ve decreased our visits. So patients now come in for less visits. Um, copays are higher, deductibles are in the thousands of dollars range. So it can be a challenge at times to get the physical therapy visits that you need. I know you had a, you know, particular struggle with that after your surgery. How can we help people to advocate for them to really fight for the care that they need? Because physical therapy is such a critical part, especially if you’re undergoing some kind of musculoskeletal surgery or you’re rehabbing from a neurological disease. How do we help advocate for them?
Dr. Laura Ricci:
That’s, that’s a great question. And I think the most important thing to remember is this is your health and this is your rehab. This is, you know, I was looking at this as this is the longterm preservation of, of my hips. And even as a physical therapist, I, like you said, I kind of battled the insurance company because I knew that even with my knowledge that I needed help, I needed those skilled eyes on me. Um,
Dr. Joe Tatta:
yeah, because, because they denied you care for a period of time. Correct. They wouldn’t allow you to have physical therapy after my surgery. You are a physical therapist, you had orthopedic surgery and insurance company said, no, you cannot get physical therapy treatment.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
Yes. Isn’t that, isn’t that crazy? Um, and you know, physical therapy after surgery is standard of care. That’s standard of care. Um, so that was really surprising to me and I was, I was grateful that I, I had the uh, the knowledge base.
Dr. Joe Tatta:
Yeah. The ability to fight and advocate for your stuff cause you have a lot of knowledge. You know what the system is like. Absolutely. But a lot of people when they get that denial letter,
Dr. Laura Ricci:
they don’t know what to do or they think that’s it. I think the first thing is know that you can appeal. No. That, that’s not the final say. Um, the second thing is get your healthcare providers behind you. Get a letter of medical necessity from your surgeon. Get a letter of medical necessity from your physical therapist, from your, your family doctor, from everybody on your team. Cause that’s going to help because we basically, um, unfortunately it’s my belief that that’s how they make their money is by denying people. Um, so you can collect and get that information. So helpful if you have people on your healthcare team to advocate, advocate for you and write those letters of medical necessity. The other option that I would suggest is, you know, with your employer, go to HR of your employer, talk to them, let them know that you’re having issues.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
That was very helpful for me actually. And sometimes there are, um, they may provide a healthcare advocate for you or you know, an outside company that can help you to deal with this. And it’s nice to have somebody who has experience with, you know, dealing with insurance companies and how they kind of work to, to help you and then write your own letter of appeal and submit all of that. So you have your own letter, you’re explaining, you know, your situation from your point of view. You have all of these letters from your healthcare professionals to help you. And basically you have to kind of be a, a bother to them. You know, and my advice for dealing with insurance companies, write down everything. Write down the name of the person you’re talking to, the date, the time. Keep a log, you know, be very diligent but don’t give up because they’re, they’re banking on you to give up. And this is your health. And your birthdate and um, physical therapy is so needed. It’s essential. Um, you know, to, for all of these things. Even even as a PT, my, my physical therapist will pick up neuromuscular things that I’m doing that I didn’t even realize like, Oh my gosh, um, it’s essential to your healing and to your health. So stay on them and don’t give up.
Dr. Joe Tatta:
Yeah, no, it’s great advice. I tell people all the time, I’ve been practicing since 1996 and in my first job I walked in to work the first day and I had my first patient. And on the top of the chart, it’s at 60 visits. So I got 60 physical therapy visits for that patient with no authorization, no paperwork, which was a dream because I could do whatever I wanted, so I can help that patient. I can heal them 100%. Fast forward today in 2015 and the average person gets somewhere between six and 12 visits of physical therapy. So the insurance companies have cut and cut and cut so deeply that I really do think it’s affecting the health of our entire nation. So I really thank you for your story. Um, absolutely. Let’s get back to food for a quick second. So I know you were in the hospital for quite a while. Um, I’ve worked in hospital before and I will tell you that the food pretty much, um, let me say that
Dr. Laura Ricci:
yes it does
Dr. Joe Tatta:
negotiate. How do we be healthy in a setting and eat good quality food when the food around us is of subpar quality. Or even if you go down to the hospital cafeteria or the store, they have, you know, they’re selling cookies and candy and you know, sugary drinks.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
Isn’t that ironic? Right? You’re in a hospital, you’re in a place of healing and, and yeah, the food, like you said, it’s sex. Uh, so, so my tips on that, notify the medical staff if you have any food allergies. Um, you know, and I actually told them like, I have a gluten, dairy food allergy and put that in the chart and that kind of helps will help you a little bit. Sometimes it’s helpful if you ask your surgeon in advance to actually include in your medical orders, may bring food from home so that way it’s an order and it’s followed and, and uh, you know, hopefully you know, nurses and everybody will kind of be on board with that. Um, because the doctor gave you other be okay to do that. Uh, you know, if you can find out ahead of time if they have a or a cooler that you can use, you know, if they have ice that you could just bring a cooler, bring your own stuff, definitely pack your hospital bag.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
With healthy non-perishable snacks, you want to have those on hand. Um, you know, things, if you can prepare ahead of time or have your caregiver, somebody help you, some chopped vegetables, you know, some lower glycemic fruit because even though fruits, a healthy food, it can spike blood sugar in some people. So things like berries and green apples and pears, um, can be really helpful. Like the pre made soups, like we talked about bone broth, which is an amazing food for healing from surgery. Um, you know, all of those things, nuts, nut butters, hard boiled eggs, if you don’t have a sensitivity or allergy to them, can be really helpful to bring them, you know, if not, um, like for me, I, I live in Texas. I traveled to st Louis for my hip preservation surgeries cause there’s just not a lot of specialists to do that.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
So we found a nearby whole foods and we just stocked up. We got green juice, we got soups, they got a bunch of stuff from there. I’m also Chipola is a good option. They are non-GMO, which I am so excited about. Um, so, so that’s an option too. If, you know, maybe your caregiver can run out and get you like in organic salad from whole foods or you know, salad bowl from Chipola or something that’s you know, gluten free, dairy free, easy. Um, you know, if you don’t have that option, do the best that you can, you know, try to avoid the, the fried or breaded things on the menu at the hospital. Um, you know, we’re probably going to lower our standards a little bit, cause like you said, they don’t have it. You know, you’re probably not going to get organic meats, organic vegetables, but you know, know that that’s okay.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
And this is a time to go easy on yourself because you just had surgery. And you know, I would say if your options are limited, if your only choice really is to eat what the hospital food, you know, what they gave you, do the best you can visualize that whatever you’re eating is going to be healthy and healing to your body and just kind of let, let the rest go. Um, and another option is, uh, there’s a great website called meal train, so meal train.com and once you’re home you can set that up and it’s a great place where people can bring you food, can, can sign up and, and you can have some, put some healthy recipes on there. And this may be a great learning experience for, for people to learn how to kind of cook healthy, but they could prepare healthy meals for you and bring them to you.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
Um, and that’s another great option because after surgery, surgery is really a time for accepting and receiving help. And that’s so hard for so many of us. And that was really hard for me to going from being independent to completely dependent on somebody else. But, um, I think that’s, that’s one of the biggest lessons that I learned is it’s okay to accept and receive help without being able to reciprocate all the time. Excellent. So today your health is back to normal and tell, tell us the things that you enjoy. Oh gosh. So I, I just got into Tai Chi and I love it. Oh my gosh, that is awesome. Because I’m, I’m kind of a type a go, go, go. And after all the stuff I’ve kind of learned to slow down. So, um, I don’t know if you’ve ever tried Tai Tito, but, um, I’m a big, it’s good for me.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
I can breathe, I can kind of slow down. Um, that’s been fascinating. Uh, we have a beautiful, so I live up in West Texas, in Amarillo, Texas, and there’s a beautiful Palo Duro Canyon and I love to hike in the camp. Just being in nature is my happy place like that. But just the fresh air kind of clears my mind. So being able to hike again and actually be physical and do some of those things has been amazing. And you know, I don’t take those little things for granted anymore like I did before. Um, but those, those are kind of the things that I love. Uh, cooking healthy cooking. I love, I, uh, that’s one of my passions now. But yeah, those are some of the things that I get so excited for to do. Um, and teaching, teaching nutrition classes. I taught a class last night. It went great. I love to empower people, uh, to let them know that there’s so much. We think that we can’t control a lot of things. Um, especially with surgery. I think people look at surgery as the doctor is going to fix me. I’m going to go into surgery and I don’t have to do anything and I’m going to be fixed and everything’s going to be great. And you know, there’s so much that we can do to improve our outcomes and she’s stepping into your power.
Dr. Joe Tatta:
It’s true. And obviously you know, your physical therapist work very closely with surgeons and some surgeons do amazing work and we need them. But I think it’s important that we really start to open up the eyes of people that after surgery you need to focus on obviously your movement, physical therapy as well as the nutrition to support all of that. So the surgery is important and the surgeon is obviously vitally important, but the rehab process itself can really take you from a place of pain to a place where you’re transformed. So I want to thank you for being on the healing pain summit today. I’m sure people loved your story and they’re going to want to follow you. So please tell us how they can find more information about you online.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
Oh absolutely. So my website is Laura Ricci, that VP web.com, and you can check it out for more information about upcoming classes or events that are going on. I have YouTube tutorials up on the website on how to make different things like homemade coconut milk, homemade almond milk. It’s really, really simple and cheaper than buying it in store and much tastier in my opinion. Um, I offer private nutrition health coaching sessions virtually over Skype or FaceTime for anybody who’s interested there. And you can find me on Facebook over at a women’s health nutrition coach. I’m also on Instagram at women’s health coach and I post a ton on Instagram so you can see, you know, this is what I had for breakfast. You’re selling, here’s some cooking ideas and little short video tutorials. Um, I post pretty frequently on there. So, um, make sure that you check it out.
Dr. Laura Ricci:
Uh, and also check out the free gift that you got when signing up at the summit. Um, it’s my top 10 list of things to kind of help you prepare for surgery. So lots of great tips on there. There’s a bone broth recipe on there for you to check out. Um, and also the great people at a Bach rescue remedy. They, I love rescue remedy. I use that after my surgery. Um, they’re offering a 10% discount for all of the listeners at the summit. So I’m, and rescue army, something you don’t have to use just after surgery, but any kind of stressful events. So, um, that was a really nice bonus. I’m so grateful to them. So check it out for all of those goodies.
Dr. Joe Tatta:
Excellent. So we’ll include clued the links that you just mentioned, as well as your free gifts, which people got when they opted in. Please check that out. So I’ve been with Dr. Laura Ricci on the Healing Pain Summit. I want to thank her for her time, her powerful story, and we will see you on the next episode. Thanks so much.
