Most people at some point in their lives have had an intravenous (IV) line. An adept nurse warned you about the tiny pinch of the needle as it was smoothly inserted and taped in place. Then the fluid dangling above your head slowly started making its way through a tube and into your body. IVs […]
Category: Functional Medicine
Functional medicine is an individualized approach to medicine that focuses on the underlying causes and prevention of serious chronic disease rather than disease symptoms.
Your Body Keeps Score
This may be an emotionally difficult Health Tip for some of you. Imagine you’re a small child and for as long as you can remember, no one’s face has ever lit up with a smile when you walked into a room. In fact, to avoid being struck by a family member, you’ve learned a variety […]
Heal Your Gut…Now
Last week I discussed how naturopathic and functional medicine practitioners usually begin their healing process (and prevent future health troubles) with careful attention to that 30-foot food tube meandering through you from your lips to your anus. The essence of good gut health is essentially how well you’re digesting, absorbing, and using the food you […]
First, Heal Your Gut
About 25 years ago, when I was organizing what today is WholeHealth Chicago, I attempted to learn everything I could about all the fields of what was then called alternative medicine. Since naturopathic medicine, or naturopathy, didn’t really exist in Illinois (perpetually blocked by the Illinois State Medical Society), I flew to the west coast […]
Chronic Epstein-Barr Infection: Diagnosis and Self Treatment
Once, maybe long ago, you came down with variation of mono, what your doctor called infectious mononucleosis. You have the antibodies in your blood to prove it. These are antibodies to a specific human herpesvirus (called human herpesvirus 4), better known as Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). Back then, you may have felt a sudden onset of […]
Welcome, Neeti Sharma, MD + A Functional Medicine Primer
I’m truly delighted to welcome our newest WholeHealth Chicago staff member, Neeti Sharma, MD, a board-certified internist (like me) who earned additional postgrad training in integrative medicine at Dr. Andrew Weil’s program at the University of Arizona Medical School. She also has a special interest in Functional Medicine. Any health-conscious patient with reasonable skepticism about […]
Functional Medicine: Your Wacky Hormones and Adrenal Glands
“Exhaustion is my reality. At four o’clock, I’m wiped, totally wiped. So tired I could sleep at my desk.” Patricia is 33, happily married as far as marriages go, one kid, steadily employed in the usual American lessthansatisfying corporate job, good eating habits, and, until recently, a health club goer a couple/three times a week. […]
Functional Medicine: Your Wacky Hormones and Thyroid Gland
Let me start by saying that the majority of board-certified endocrinologists give me a pain. They’re internists, like me and our newest WholeHealth Chicago physician Neeti Sharma, MD, but they have additional training via endocrinology fellowships. Somewhere along the way, many of them become almost too academic, no longer actually listening to patients but rather […]
The Must-Have Digestive Tests of Functional Medicine
I hope you’ve been intrigued by the Health Tips on Functional Medicine we’ve written in the past month. It’s especially provocative that a growing number of physicians, as well as the Cleveland Clinic, are using functional medicine tests when challenged by a patient with longstanding, unexplained chronic symptoms whose conventional test results have been negative. […]
Understanding Functional Medicine
A couple of weeks ago, I touched briefly on the new field of Functional Medicine and remarked that while it’s far from accepted by the vast majority of conventional physicians, the prestigious Cleveland Clinic had opened their own Institute of Functional Medicine, headed by the popular physician-author Mark Hyman, MD. I added that we at […]
Making Sense of “Controversial” Diagnoses
I’m warning you in advance. You’re entering a minefield here, with explosive views among seemingly conservative health care professionals. At least wear a helmet. Protective eyewear wouldn’t hurt either. You wouldn’t think a slew of conditions you’ve heard about (including chronic Lyme disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic Epstein-Barr, toxic mold syndrome, food sensitivities, intestinal […]
Your Microbiome: Finally Legitimized By Mainstream Medicine
It’s not uncommon for medical groups like WholeHealth Chicago to have their patient charts audited by health insurance companies “for quality.” After all, insurers want to see how their money is being spent and since they’re for-profit businesses with egregiously overcompensated management teams, they do want doctors to keep costs as low as possible. Some […]
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 […]
Porochista Khakpour’s Ongoing Battle With Lyme
In novelist Porochista Khakpour’s memoir Sick she describes her struggle with chronic Lyme disease and her uphill battle with the US healthcare system. Likely she had been bitten as a child by a long-forgotten tick, which is quite the usual case, the average age of acquiring Lyme disease being about 11. As a result of […]
Controversial Diagnosis #4: Leaky Gut Syndrome
Leaky gut syndrome, also known as intestinal hyperpermeability, is a disorder that never appeared in any medical textbook I encountered in school. Nor have I seen articles about it in JAMA or the New England Journal of Medicine. I first learned of its existence at an integrative medicine meeting many years ago, and since then I’ve lost count […]
Controversial Diagnosis #2: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
In the mid-1980s, two outbreaks of what appeared to be infectious mononucleosis appeared in the US. Unlike typical mono, which caused exhaustion for a few weeks, people with this type were left in a permanent state of fatigue, with low-grade fevers, swollen lymph glands, muscle aches, and poor focus/concentration. In some cases, the fever and […]
Reversing Mental Decline and Preventing Alzheimer’s
Reversing Mental Decline and Preventing Alzheimer’s, Part 1 You saw a movie last week and in discussing it with friends simply can’t remember the important parts. Plus you just missed another appointment. Planning to drive to a north suburb, you instead got on the southbound expressway and after 15 minutes of Loop traffic realized your […]
Reversing Mental Decline Part 3: Tests For Alzheimer’s Prevention
Dale Bredesen, MD, author of The End of Alzheimer’s: The First Program To Prevent and Reverse Cognitive Decline, refers to the tests you should undergo if you’re concerned about brain health as a “cognoscopy,” sort of a colonoscopy for your brain. Perhaps thinking back on your own colonoscopy, it’s reasonable to ask, “Do I really […]
Reversing Mental Decline Part 3: Tests For Alzheimer’s Prevention
Dale Bredesen, MD, author of The End of Alzheimer’s: The First Program To Prevent and Reverse Cognitive Decline, refers to the tests you should undergo if you’re concerned about brain health as a “cognoscopy,” sort of a colonoscopy for your brain. Perhaps thinking back on your own colonoscopy, it’s reasonable to ask, “Do I really […]
Functional Medicine 101 + Introducing Dr. Alaina Gemelas
Functional Medicine is without a doubt the fastest growing medical specialty of the 21st century. Public interest in it and public acceptance of it continues to please me. Every day I hear the sentence, “I made this appointment because I wanted a functional approach.” When I ask patients how they learned about it, the answer […]