Content directory for medical teams

Hey, I’m new here. Hi :wave:

I have a few neurological conditions — most proeminente ones being ASD/L1, ADHD and GAD — and while talking to my medical team about having joined the program it was clear how skeptical they were about it — from the moment I mentioned the word “plants”.

In some degree, I do get their point for being skeptical. There were/are lots and lots of cases in my country of people rejecting help from science and trying to cure themselves with “alternative” medicines and techniques only, most often than not, leading to unnecessary deaths. Not to mention the rise in antivax moviment led by political reason in the past couple years — but, well, that goes beyond my point.

That being said, I think it would be helpful to have a directory (or index) with contents and, preferably, scientific publications — either by Pioneer or third party — corroborating with the tests (“why” and “what” tests) and, perhaps if already available, demonstrating their results. That directory could be where we, the users, can point our physicians or medical teams to for more information. Then, hopefully, relieving some time of their worries & skepticism.

I’m sorry in case such directory already exists. If that’s the case, I’d appreciate if someone could point me to it :slight_smile:

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Hi @rwillians, and warmest of welcomes to the sofi treehouse! We are really excited to have you onboard and to hopefully unlock some better sleep for you. I could only guess that the skepticism is quite natural, and after-all - not all alternative remedies are reliably safe. I will tag our in-house medical herbalist @pamelaspence, as no doubt this is a conversation she will have some experience with.

We do ensure that all the plants we use have significant safety data, minimal ingredients (100% plant-based), and very low reported side effects.

For specific ingredient specs and any drug interaction information that you may want to go over with your medical team, you can find this available for each plant at:

While we do plan on publishing our scientific white papers / research reviews in academic journals soon, you can always find them available in the following topic using this link:

And for an overview of each of the plants we have activated so far on the sofi system, see here:

introducing our first formulation: valerian

meet our second sofi formulation: passiflora

activating our third plant based formulation: ashwagandha

For more on our analysis of the effect of valerian on Pioneers, including myself, you can see the results of our S1 trial here.

I hope that is a helpful place to start, and should you have any questions, anytime, it would be my pleasure to put them to our wider team :blush: :sofi_moon:

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I also want to thank you for posting this question, as we know we still have a long way to go until plant remedies become an accepted (and recommended) standard of non-urgent care. But it’s our mission to help people discover the plants that can help them in their journey for better sleep and reduced anxiety and to combine both scientific analysis, individual analysis (N-of-1), and personal experience (as told, and journaled by us, as Pioneers).

There are some posts in the treehouse by Dr @stephendahmermd that help to explain the importance of this in part, so I’ll link those below for anyone interested, as well some related articles from the discussion section of the sofi blog.

Blog posts:

10 reasons for the disconnect between plant-based medicine and mainstream healthcare

how traditional plant remedies become our modern drugs

the synergy of plants and modern medicine with Dr Stephen Dahmer

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I have had a basic to almost intense ‘discussion’ to put it politely as possible with a key worker and GP here in the UK after I dared to mention my involvement in a plant based sleep trial. They wanted a Gestapo style interview about all the details of Sofi which they were told to look into themselves!

Being told that I was to discontinue Sofi immediately as I had not consulted either of them first. I

I responded by telling them that their medications didn’t work, they are funding big corporations and drug companies whilst taking very little interest in my well being so long as I keep swallowing endless, useless pills. Pointing out that the valerian pioneer program is natural very well researched tested and probably on par or better than their pharmacy medications, plus the Sofi support program has been of far more help along with the great team and community here. Valerian has helped me far more and now that I am confident in the benefits of valerian I don’t any longer require any of their doctor caused illnesses , which I made very clear to them.

Then for those who don’t know the doctor caused illnesses have a read on Google, a name for it and basic explanation I have copied and pasted here:

Iatrogenesis is the causation of a disease, a harmful complication, or other ill effect by any medical activity, including diagnosis, intervention, error, or negligence.

Some dr’s are great, I am unfortunately yet to meet one that has actually helped me, other than with basic things and doing an amazing fix of my multiply snapped femur after chasing an offender and slipping on ice about 20 years ago ending a a loved police career, but that’s a very long story!

To the original author of this post welcome to our community and if you don’t mind me asking are you in the UK or elsewhere in the world?

All the best to you all :heart:

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Oh and I also reminded the above Dr and key worker that many of medications today originally came from plants and to have a little think on that too!

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Thanks @alexwalkerjones for the contents, I’ll definitely check it out.

If I may just point out, I’m not skeptical myself. In fact, I’m descendent of indigenous native americans, from both my father’s and my mother’s sides, so it’s most common for me using plant-based medicine — and I’ve seen it do a way better job to some “non-urgent” illness than pharmaceutical drugs.

That being said, I just want to make it clear that such directory wouldn’t be intended for me or other users, but rather it would be a resource for our physicians / medial teams. A directory made by specialists for specialists.

Again, thanks for the contents you pointed me to!

Hey @oliver75gaskell, thanks for sharing your experience. I hope valerian helps me as well.

I’m not in the UK, I’m in Brazil. Fortunately (most the time), using plant-based medicine is a fairly common thing for non-urgent cases. Also, for physicians here, it would be considered rude, impolite and likely even anti-ethical (reportable offense) if they say something like “you must not take that [x plant based medicine]” without a reasonable cause. Yes, we still get some weirds looks of disapproval and skepticism when it comes to “alternative” medicine — or, paraphrasing you, “ancient medicine” — but, unless there’s evidence suggesting a serious risk, they can’t “order” you to stop. At least I’ve never seen something like that happening.

In my case, given my combination of neurological conditions, I’d likely follow their advice had they said no. But gladly, so far, two out of three from my “main” doctors are ok with me joining the trials — I still need to the remaining one, and she’s the “chief” doctor and the “responsible” for me & my team. I think she’s gonna be fine with it though as long as the other two specialist are ok with it.

I did get that weird look of skepticism — that face that looks like “suuure, let’s see how it goes [but at the first sign of anything bad I’m gonna blame that plant and you’re gonna drag your sorry *ss back here for me to fix it]”. So, yea, it would be most helpful to have that directory of information (or even a landing page + links) for specialists who take care of users like me. With that, hopefully, users like me wouldn’t have to deal with the disapproval/skepticism looks from the specialist to whom I depend on for my well-being, you know.

That look in their face is a “hard pill to swallow” when you are someone who literally needs help remembering you gotta eat or shower & you depend on them to tell what to do so that you’d fell better — better meaning being able to function like a regular human being.

So, hope we can have something like that directory to forward to doctors, because even gathering these spread contents takes a lot of energy — and I have a very limited battery.

If you are curious on the “limited battery” thing, take a look at “spoon theory”. It’s a way of explaining energy limitations for a given disease (don’t remember which, right now — I don’t have it) and it’s analogous to my case.

That’s for the warm welcome you all, have a great rest of week!

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Absolutely @rwillians, and we couldn’t agree more. To have an eventual directory where all this information is contained is a no-brainer - and I feel would be helpful to a great number of our Pioneers as they navigate discussing sofi with their there own health care team / physician.

I would love to see this fully implemented when we go to re-do our website, and am making note of the features you listed as paramount to have there. Particularly, it strikes me that a third-party review would be of value, and perhaps bringing forward a little more the expertise behind our own incredible team of scientists, doctors, nutritionists, medical herbalists, botanists. :pray: :sofi_moon:

Thrilled to have you as a part of sofi, and for this to be an on-going conversation here in our community.

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Thanks @alexwalkerjones, I’m glad to help.

Improving our society’s understanding and management of subjects like sleep quality and anxiety are vital for the future of neurodiverse people like me. Where:

  1. sleep quality has a directly effect on our energy levels; and
  2. anxiety (especially generalized — AFAIK/IME) can be both:
    2.1 potencialized when on low-energy (“energy conservation mode”); and
    2.2 a cause for energy draining, leading to low-energy levels.

So, please, do let me know if I can help on anything — from feedback to designing a solution that could be more in sync with neurodiverse people’s needs.

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We couldn’t agree more @rwillians, and would love to have your input specific to making sofi accessible and beneficial for everyone.

In fact, we are putting together a Pioneer Advisory Group, comprised of a small handful of Pioneers who have played a great role in the development of sofi thanks to their ongoing feedback and steadfast contribution. I will send you a quick email with more details, as we’d love to have your perspective as continue to grow - should it be something you are interested in!

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