The winter blues, also known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), usually begin when the days get shorter and the sky clouds over into perpetual gray. Many people with SAD dread late autumn because the clocks move back an hour and, in a single day, autumn twilight becomes dark night. Symptoms of SAD include depression, brain […]
Category: Acupuncture/Traditional Chinese Medicine
WELCOME TO WHOLEHEALTH CHICAGO! ANNGELA LEONE, LAc.
Anngela Leone, LAc. Is a licensed and board certified acupuncturist and herbalist in the state of Illinois. Anngela offers minimally invasive healing modalities that allow your body to heal itself. Chinese Medicine looks at each person through a broader lens where we see you as a whole person, not just a set of symptoms. As […]
Welcoming Sandra Subotich to WholeHealth Chicago
Normally, when I write a welcome Health Tip announcing a new WholeHealth Chicago practitioner, I go right to the person’s biography to illuminate why you might consider making an appointment. Dr. Sandra is a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and her bio is rich with detail, so I’m saving it for the end. First, […]
Hey Doc, When Are You Going to Write Up My Case?
I hear this question virtually every time I see Alan, an extremely healthy, energetic man in his forties who could easily pass for someone in his twenties. He comes to the office once a year for a check-up (he’s always just fine), but since we cross paths at our health club I’m reminded about his […]
When Your Female Sex Drive Is Circling The Drain
I don’t mean to catch you mid-croissant on this topic, but it may have recently dawned on you that your sex drive is not what it was when you were younger. In fact, when you think about it, maybe you never had much of a sex drive at all, no matter which of your decades […]
Case Study: Tracy’s Eczema From Hell
She had wisely trimmed her fingernails to avoid injuring her own skin, but as she sat in my office she continuously rubbed one part of her body or another with the ball of her thumb in order to relieve the itching. Tracy was in her 20s and accompanied by her mother. Although I could see […]
Healing Adrenal Fatigue
In last week’s Health Tip I described the exhausted state of Patricia, dragging herself through the day and crashing completely in the afternoon. At first, Patricia was oddly supercharged in the evening, unable to relax or sleep. Later, this energy burst vanished and she simply couldn’t sleep. She was tired all the time. Before her visit with […]
My Integrative Medicine Comeuppance
About six weeks ago, I was in the Loop just leaving the international Lyme disease conference, briefcase in one hand, shopping bag filled with I-don’t-remember-what in the other, when my foot caught an irregular sidewalk crack and down I went, hard, landing full force on my left shoulder. (Permission to cringe.) I was immediately helped […]
Overcoming Worry
Ask a group of doctors about the conditions they treat most frequently and they’ll likely place stress among the top ten. The factors triggering all this stress seem endless: pressures having to do with work, home, money, relationships, and even how we respond to a daily commute. It’s important to acknowledge that some life circumstances […]
Osteopenia and Osteoporosis, Part 1
As is the case with many of our contemporary ailments, it was a combination of Baby Boomer longevity, the ready availability of devices to measure bone density, and Big Pharma creativity that taught both patients and physicians about osteopenia (low bone mineral density) and its more serious consequence, osteoporosis, in which bones become brittle and […]
Pain Management Specialists Get A Reality Check
The front-and-center coverage of America’s opioid crisis is certainly affecting the two groups most involved: physicians and people in chronic pain. There are so many rules and restrictions on opioid prescribing that many physicians simply don’t bother any more, referring their chronic pain patients to pain management (PM) specialists. As well-intentioned as PM physicians may […]
Your Text-Neck and Smartphone Chin(s)
For nearly four decades I’ve lived literally on the campus of DePaul University and every day hundreds of students walk past my house. From my bedroom window, I can look across the street into their classrooms (I imagine that the students looking back see an aging man in pajamas). Except for the fact that I […]
A Medical Flip Flop for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Initially I thought I’d misread the conclusion of the re-analysis of the standard treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). “The claim that patients can recover as a result of (cognitive behavior therapy) and (graded exercise therapy) is not justified by the data, and is highly misleading to clinicians and patients considering these treatments.” Damning words. […]
Boosting Fertility With Traditional Chinese Medicine
Many couples struggle with issues of infertility, and last week I voiced my concern about the one-size-fits-all approach that most conventional infertility centers take, along with their reluctance to offer simple, inexpensive, and safe nutritional and alternative therapies first. The exact opposite of “everyone’s the same” therapy is traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). When a couple […]
Infertility and Traditional Chinese Medicine
I don’t care much for the infertility industry, though I know some of you are deeply grateful to it for helping you create your precious child. I love kids too. I simply don’t care for the business that infertility has become. In this two-part Health Tip, we’ll explore Western medicine’s approach to infertility treatment and, […]
New Hope for Binge Eaters
That box of chocolate chip cookies you never should have purchased in the first place is sitting there on your kitchen table, luring you, taunting. Your period is due in two or three days and you feel grumpy, depressed, bloated. You’re agonizing. “Just a…couple/two, three at the most” you think, knowing you’ll actually feel emotionally […]
Acupuncture Getting The Respect It Deserves
Before President Nixon opened up US relations with the People’s Republic of China in 1972, Americans knew virtually nothing about acupuncture. It had been mentioned in an 1892 medical textbook by the renowned physician Sir William Osler as a treatment for sciatica, but back then opium, morphine, cocaine, and pure heroin were all available over-the-counter […]
The Mystery Of Sudden Weight Gain
You know who you are. You’ve been eating stable portions of pretty much the same healthy food for years and you consider yourself weight conscious. Long ago you decided that by combining smart food choices and a health club membership, you were not–definitely not–going to be one of those people who added a point or […]
Facial Rejuvenation Acupuncture
Facial Rejuvenation Acupuncture is a centuries-old practice, with evidence of use by the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD) empress and concubines. This is a gentle, safe, and effective method of combatting signs of aging and erasing years from your face while enhancing your health and beauty from within. Acupuncture offers numerous benefits to those wishing to […]
New Hope for Binge Eaters
That box of chocolate chip cookies you never should have purchased in the first place is sitting there on your kitchen table, luring you, taunting. Your period is due in two or three days and you feel grumpy, depressed, bloated. You’re agonizing. “Just a…couple/two, three at the most” you think, knowing you’ll actually feel emotionally […]