How to Rid Your Home of Toxins with Dr. Rhea Mehta, Molecular Toxicologist, integrative nutrition advisor, and leader in health advocacy. This is a series of articles of a podcast that our founder Dr. Rhea Mehta did with Mind Body Green. Hope you’ll enjoy this!
How health-related struggles led to the launch of a giant wellness venture
Rhea was first diagnosed with Rheumatoid arthritis at age 13, which is an autoimmune condition with a poor prognosis. She was later diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, a complex and hard-to-treat chronic pain condition that impacts 4 million Americans (2% of the population). Such issues in her teenage years were a big question mark rather than a full-fledged chronic disease, thanks in part to her strong sense that her misdiagnosis was a reflection of the medical system simply not knowing what was wrong with her. Rhea was challenged with co-existing with this chronic health condition, as well as a few other digestive complications for years. Early on in her journey she was heavily medicated with painkillers and muscle relaxants to try and address some of her debilitating symptoms, which seemed to work temporarily. Her symptoms would always seem to come back with a vengeance, and she lived this way for as long as she can remember through her teens and up to mid way through her twenties.
Making the Decision to Forge a New Path
Things got even more severe when she entered her University life as these complications had turned into a health concern of a much greater magnitude. One year into her Ph.D., she had to undergo surgery on her internal sphincter due to years of chronic constipation, mostly as a side effect to the medications she was on, as well as due to deficiencies in her diet. This seemed like a big blow as she was not able to make a decision or do the right thing for herself despite, in her own words- stepping into my power as a scientist, a leader in the field of nutritional health, liver health, and still had no idea as to how to get things started, the start to the finish line.
Also, things were not the same as high school or undergraduate level, where people helped and assisted her immensely. As a PhD in training, she was tasked with being ultra self-sufficient and taking initiative. Her back spasms and surgery had her missing work, which upset her supervisor and delayed the progress of her colleagues. It’s when these problems truly got in the way of her life and started to impact others that she felt like she had to take some action and look for a new solution. She started to introspect and dig deeper into her own story.
She didn’t know what she had to do, but she knew that her current medical approach was not working. She decided to say no to medications and instead got very curious and inquisitive about her health and personal situation. She started asking questions to herself, to her peers, and to her practitioners with an acknowledgement that she desired guidance. When Rhea surrendered to her own experience and started to call in help with an openness to different opinions and practices, her life took a turn in a different direction.
The Struggles that Empowered Her
But life, as they say, only aims to skyrocket when it hits the baseline or rock bottom. Amidst this great switch in her life came a significant incident that changed her life and propped open her heart. Her father got diagnosed with a metastatic gastric cancer, which was very late stage and “incurable” as she was told by the specialists. Within three weeks of starting his chemotherapy regimen, Rhea lost her father. Just as she was given the thumbs up to write her doctoral thesis on the topic of environmental toxicity and nutritional healing, she was forced to put aside her personal views when it came to her father’s treatment plan, and be the daughter of a dying patient instead. This traumatic experience moved her to a position where she became adamant about making a significant contribution to the world, specifically by helping people better navigate the complex and confusing healthcare system and take their health into their own hands.
Dr. Rhea Mehta, Molecular Toxicologist – To the World of Molecular Toxicology
Rhea used her own health issues and her father’s illness to fuel her curiosity and creativity in healthcare. Her health struggles led her to the world of nutritional sciences, holistic medicine, and eventually digital health to understand what was wrong with her and with the world today, and ultimately how to help people better help themselves. She would eventually become an authority and leader in holistic health advocacy and privacy-enabled health data management. If Rhea could change anything about her twenties, she would have asked for help more. She would have liked to seek guidance from more mentors. Mentors are allies to help you achieve yours dreams and we all deserve to have a personal advisory board of teachers and guides.
In the next article of this series, we will see how Dr. Rhea Mehta, Molecular Toxicologist, integrative nutrition advisor, and leader in health advocacy, made changes to her life and started the RAWjuvenation community.