Some diseases that conventional and integrative medicine focus on may include allergies and food sensitivities, candida and parasite issues, cardiovascular disease, ear, nose and throat, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, gut and digestive concerns, over inflammation, mold toxicity, thyroid, adrenal and sex hormone issues, and weight concerns.
It’s a reflection of the body’s remarkable power to recover that most people do quite well after a stroke. We know that actors Patricia Neal and Kirk Douglas went back to work, but so do teachers, doctors, and cab drivers.
Even more remarkable is how each year the number of people who have strokes declines. This is a dramatic statement about how medications for lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, low-fat diets, and regular exercise are finally paying off.
Since almost everyone gets chickenpox as a child, most of us are susceptible to developing shingles as adults. Each illness is caused by the same virus, which is called varicella in children and herpes zoster in adults. After the chickenpox ends, the virus goes into hibernation in the nerve cells along the spinal cord. Then, many years later, when the immune system is weakened in some way–by age, stress, certain drugs, illness (even the flu)–the virus awakens. At some point along the spine, it travels along a nerve, producing a painful rash along the band of skin served by that nerve. Herpes zoster means “belt of fire”–the name is apt.
People with Raynaud’s disease are at the other end of the spectrum from people who blush at the drop of a hat. But, instead of having blood vessels that open readily, they have vessels that constrict too easily, usually in response to something cold. When you have Raynaud’s, you can walk into an air-conditioned room or even reach into a picnic cooler, and suddenly your fingers feel oddly cold, even numb and tingly. As you watch, the tips go dead white, then blue, and (after you frantically warm them up again), a bright, throbbing red.
When I was a kid, there used to be a magazine advertisement that began “Do you suffer the heartbreak of psoriasis?” I couldn’t understand the connection between a skin rash and a broken heart until I began actually treating people with this skin condition. Psoriasis, which affects about 6 million Americans, is indeed a frustrating disorder, for both patient and doctor. Although the exact cause is unknown, we do know that new skin cells reproduce and accumulate faster than they can be sloughed off. The condition can range in severity from a few small patches to large and unsightly thick plaques that appear just about anywhere on the body.
I’ve had many male patients over age 40 who are not only inconvenienced by an enlarged prostate (usually in the form of a more frequent need to urinate), but who are also concerned that they either have cancer of the prostate or that cancer is right around the corner. I’m happy to report that most of their symptoms turned out to be related to a condition known as benign prostatic hyperplasia, or BPH. And it is indeed benign: “Hyperplasia” simply means an overgrowth of cells.
Multiple sclerosis can seem like the cruelest disease. We’ve all heard of cases where a young adult, once in the bloom of health, becomes disabled and confined to a wheelchair. And while it’s true that MS attacks healthy young people, fortunately very few cases lead to rapid disability. By far the common MS “story” is one of flare-ups followed by very long disease-free periods, so that disability, if it does occur at all, may not happen for decades. Although the cause of MS remains unknown, physicians believe it’s an autoimmune disease, where the immune system winds up attacking its own central nervous system. Doctors are far less helpless in the face of MS than they once were. Disease “modifiers” such as the interferon-based medications Betaseron or Avonex and the drug glatiramer acetate (Copaxone), all have been shown to reduce flare-up rates dramatically and delay the time to disability.
It’s likely that many of the 6 million Americans with macular degeneration first hear about it during a visit to an eye doctor where they’ve come complaining about their declining vision. Most of them leave the office in a very discouraged state of mind, with the phrase “nothing can be done” ringing in their ears. The macula is a tiny spot in the center of the retina that enables you to distinguish the fine detail in the center of your visual field. In other words, all the truly important stuff of looking at things: reading, watching TV, threading a needle, driving a car.
Lupus means “wolf,” maybe because wolves are sly and lupus is the slyest of the autoimmune diseases–conditions in which the trusty immune system, which normally tracks and destroys viruses, bacteria, and cancer cells, suddenly turns and attacks the body. Most of the autoimmune diseases are satisfied with seizing one organ (say, the thyroid or the liver) or the joints. But lupus has imperial ambitions. The skin, joints, muscles, brain, kidney, and all the connective tissue can become victims of the very system that once guarded their existenc
My guess is that there’s never been a human being in the history of mankind who ever answered “Yes, sure, okay!” to the question “Would you like to pass another kidney stone?” We’re not positive why some people get stones and others don’t, but stone formation does run in families, and has less to do with diet than we once thought. When the stone, which forms in the kidney, decides to move, it’s during the l-o-n-g passage down the ureter (the tube from the kidney to the bladder) that causes so much pain.
By far the most common reason patients visit gastroenterologists is for help with irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, also known as spastic colon. Although the condition is not dangerous, nor does it lead to anything serious, IBS is a real challenge to treat effectively. In fact, conventional medical textbooks advise doctors to tell their patients that the condition is incurable, and many patients have come to believe that the best they can expect from conventional medicine is only limited relief. All doctors, including myself, hesitate to use the word “cure.” But at WholeHealth Chicago, we’ve found that a more integrated medical “toolbox” has dramatically improved our success rate.
We doctors know it’s difficult to get our patients enthused about taking blood pressure medicines. Our plea that “this will help you to prevent problems in the future” doesn’t compel most people just struggling to make it through the day. And of course, it’s hard to convince someone to take medicines that often have unpleasant side effects to control a condition that has no noticeable symptoms. A lot of doctors acknowledge that high blood pressure is probably overtreated. Mild-to-moderate pressure levels (140/90 to 160/100 mm Hg) can usually be reversed by lifestyle changes alone. Levels consistently above these numbers do require medical treatment. However, despite the American Heart Association’s statement that blood pressure medicine is a lifetime commitment, if successful lifestyle changes create a new and healthier you, there’s no reason why (with your doctor’s help) you can’t begin to trim down your morning load of prescription pills–maybe even to none.
As unglamourous as they are (and you’ll never see a telethon for hemorrhoids), consider yourself very fortunate if hemorrhoids are your worst experience with ill health. Try as you might, you simply cannot die from hemorrhoids. They may swell and become quite painful. Or itch. Or bleed. But ‘rhoids will never do you in. As you might be aware, hemorrhoids are simply varicose veins that have developed in an unfortunate location. When they do bleed, it’s never very much actual blood. (But don’t ignore bleeding. Over time, you can actually get quite anemic.) The only serious complication (relatively speaking) is thrombosis, when a clot forms within the hemorrhoid, and that is indeed quite painful and usually needs a surgeon’s help.
Because conventional physicians are becoming more skilled at diagnosing and treating heartburn, a condition in which stomach acid splashes upward into the esophagus, this common problem is undergoing some name changes. Strictly speaking, when you used to feel as though Mount St. Helens was erupting beneath your breastbone, it was called “heartburn.” After doctors developed gastroscopes to actually see the irritated esophagus, your heartburn grew into the more respectable “reflux esophagitis,” or “reflux” for short.
We’re constantly hearing about how heart disease is the nation’s “number 1 killer.” Yet if I took a survey of my patients, I’m sure most of them would say they’re more worried about cancer than having a heart attack. Especially my female patients. So when the subject comes up, I take the time to point out that heart disease kills about 500,000 women each year–more than 10 times the number who die of breast cancer–and half those deaths are from heart attacks. To which I quickly add there are more effective strategies for preventing a heart attack than there are for preventing any other chronic disease.
If you’re ever sitting in the dentist’s chair, bracing yourself for an procedure called “scaling,” which cleans out the bacteria in your infected gums, just say to yourself, “This could have been avoided. I did not have to be here.” Some Americans must be getting the message and finally are brushing and flossing more efficiently, because serious gum problems are on the decline. Nevertheless, gum disease continues to cause more tooth loss than cavities, and is second only to the common cold in terms of prevalence (98% of people over age 60 have some degree of gum disease). And now, researchers have linked severe gum disease to an increased risk of both heart disease and strokes
You don’t forget your first gout attack. Pain wakes you up in the middle of the night. Of all things, it’s your big toe that hurts. You try to go back to sleep, but the pain keeps getting worse and by morning, your poor toe can’t even stand the pressure from the bed sheet. Gout, which affects mainly middle-aged men, begins with unusually high blood levels of a waste product called uric acid. Normally uric acid is excreted in the urine, but in a gout-prone person, it precipitates as crystals in certain joints (the big toe, knees, elbows, fingers). The result is a local (and painful) inflammation. The crystals can also accumulate in the skin and in the kidneys (where they can cause kidney stones or even kidney failure).
Having a gallstone or two (or even more) is very common: A third of all women (it’s mainly a female condition) will have them by age 60. Fortunately, most people live peaceably with their gallstones without any symptoms whatsoever. It’s when gallstones act up that you need to do something. A painful “gallbladder attack” may occur when a stone decides to move, or simply may follow bouts of indigestion, especially after a meal rich in fatty foods. A double bacon cheeseburger, fries, and a shake should simply be renamed a “Gallbladder Special.”
Although medical textbooks list hundreds of different illnesses, a bad case of flu is high on the list of those that make you feel the sickest. Those who have really had the “flu” (and I’m not talking about a bad cold, although a mild case of the flu is indistinguishable from a bad cold) will know exactly what I’m talking about. It seems that your every muscle aches; you feel so weak you can barely click the remote on your TV; your mind is so foggy that comic books are challenging; and your throat is raw from a cough that brings up no phlegm. Conventional medicine can offer some help: If you’re at a high risk for flu, vaccines can reduce your risk of getting flu during an epidemic; antiviral medications can help (somewhat) check the spread of the germ to other members of your family; antibiotics can help you deal with bacterial superinfection, if you develop one.
By the time they’ve reached their mid-forties or so, almost half of all women develop some degree of a condition called fibrocystic breast syndrome (FBS) in which their breast tissue becomes either more dense (“fibrous”) or it contains fluid-filled cysts, which can be tender or “lumpy.” In addition, because these cysts are under hormonal control, they often change size during a woman’s cycle and become exquisitely tender and painful during the week or so before her menstrual flow begins.
Occasionally, however, the electrical system in the brain goes awry, and an electrical storm erupts in one tiny portion of the brain. The result is an epileptic seizure. Seeing someone suffer an epileptic seizure is probably scarier than experiencing one yourself–in fact, the person loses consciousness too quickly to be aware of what’s happening. Through the ages, lots of stereotypes (good and bad) have been attached to anyone who had seizures. And it’s well worth repeating that people with epilepsy are just as smart, creative, and productive as everyone else.