In the physiology and neurology classes of medical school, you learn a lot about the importance of something called the “blood brain barrier”. You’ve seen blood, of course. The bright red liquid carrying oxygen, nutrients, etc., etc. But your brain and spinal fluid should always be crystal clear, unless infected or inflamed. Separating blood from […]
Category: Covid
You Can Get Better Sleep
You may have discovered as you travel this weary road of life that you’re not sleeping quite as well as you did when younger. Gone are the glory days when you fell asleep next to Mom listening to a bedtime story, and then it was morning! “Why?”, you ask (and probably too often), “Am I […]
I Have So Many Symptoms and Have Seen So Many Specialists!
I knew exactly where this conversation with new patient, Mary, was headed (for me). In fact, when I read through my associate Brett Eaton’s intake notes, Brett herself had made Mary’s diagnosis during her first visit to WholeHealth Chicago. She was seeing me for ‘confirmation’ and to discuss treatment. But equally adept diagnosticians are any […]
LONG COVID: Our Most Troubling Epidemic
You may not see anyone wearing masks anymore, but COVID is still out there. The real problem now is LONG COVID; that plethora of debilitating symptoms potentially lasting for weeks, months, and sometimes longer, following what on the surface may have been anywhere from a mild case to a devastatingly severe case of COVID. Furthermore, […]
Heart Disease Prevention Part 3
The (alleged) BIG NEWS in health care last week, that spread through CNN, Prevention Magazine, NYT, Journal of the AMA, etc. etc., was the publication in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology which compared the cholesterol lowering effect of statins to those of several nutritional supplements (cinnamon, fish oil, garlic, red yeast rice, […]
Heart Disease Prevention Part 2: Getting Started
Checking Your Family History Most people aren’t certain what illnesses run in their family and how dangerous these might be. Probably best not to spend much time agonizing about this, unless you’re pretty sure there was an unusually excessive amount of premature deaths (50’s, 60’s) from heart disease. Better to work mainly on yourself. Hearing […]
Covid Distracted Us, But Heart Disease Remains Our #1 Killer
About 700,000 of us will die of heart disease every year; most of which is preventable provided we become proactive patients. But you do need to know that for most “heart patients”, dying does not come quickly, like a dart falling from the sky, fatally nailing you, as you clutch your chest, your friends desperately tapping 9-1-1 on their […]
Protect Yourself From the Chemical Swill In Your Body and All Around Us
The American Medical Association estimates that 80,000 to 100,000 people will die unnecessarily every decade because of our government’s failure to respond quickly enough to the harsh EPA rollbacks that occurred during the Trump administration. Things are getting better but not quickly enough. For example, just a few days ago The Guardian uncovered documents about […]
Ready For This? There Are 115 Known Manifestations Of ‘LONG COVID’.
“But,” you splutter, “I read everywhere how the COVID numbers are going down. Nobody’s dying of COVID these days. And what about those boosters?”. Yes, the numbers appear to be going down because boosters have made cases milder. People aren’t racing off to emergency rooms or urgent care centers. They’re not even bothering to self […]
Where are we with COVID? Overall, We are Not in a Good Place
It was like magic. After three years of sickness, death, lockdowns, masks, taking our temperatures, measuring oxygen levels, suddenly everyone on the planet seemed so shout “Don’t talk to me about COVID anymore!” The CDC loosened its guidelines, schools reopened, retail stores, big events, public transportation all became masks “optional.” When I’m outside about 3% […]
May, June, July: Covid, Ticks, Long Haul, Chronic Lyme, What Next? Oh My!!
COVID-19 is certainly still with us. Last week, the U.S. death toll crossed the one million mark. Suburban Evanston returned to the high-risk zone for COVID transmission, yet much of Illinois, especially downstate, remains woefully unvaccinated (only 37% are VAXed and boosted). I receive at least three or four emails a day, variations on “flu-like […]
Root Causes of Chronic Fatigue, Part 15: Long Covid
Doctors who work with patients who have chronic fatigue, chronic Lyme, and fibromyalgia have remarked on the similarity between people with these conditions and those suffering the frequently disabling symptoms of long Covid. Like chronic Lyme, in which many patients don’t remember either a tick bite or Lyme disease, patients with all the features of […]
Chronic Fatigue/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Fibro and Covid-19
Regular readers of British mystery novels from the 1930s and 1940s are familiar with the old trick where the detective actually turns out to be the murderer. Or where Character A, innocent and charming, is none other than Character B, the poisoner. In other words, the villain can be highly elusive, and every once in […]
Covid Compassion Fatigue
Having a practice where just about every patient is immunized has its benefits. Despite being in the midst of Covid-19’s fourth surge with the Delta variant, we’re seeing no new Covid cases. Phew! Other physicians aren’t having such good fortune, as this doctor reports in The Atlantic, the first place I’ve seen the term “ […]
Covid Could Vanish
First, I was really pleased that the kerfluffle I expected in the wake of last week’s Health Tip asking (no, begging) Dr. Joseph Mercola to stifle his anti-vax stance never materialized. He, of course, does have his disciples. Otherwise he wouldn’t be coining $110 million a year. But a good number of our readers are […]
Dear Dr Mercola: Please Stop
As some of you know, Dr. Joseph Mercola, multi-millionaire osteopath entrepreneur of mercola.com, began his practice in the Chicago area. Sometime in the early 1990s, he and I crossed paths at alternative medical meetings and I remember just one exchange. JM: “The future is on the internet.” Me: “What’s that?” JM: “Don’t you know what […]