We’ve always known there was a higher rate of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias in women than in men, initially attributed to the fact that women live longer and that the decline in mental function occurred with age. This turned out to be wrong. At 65, a woman has a greater than one-in-six chance of […]
Category: Integrative Medicine
Integrative medicine is an approach to healing and wellness that combines the practices and treatments of conventional medicine with those of alternative medicine.
Nutritional Supplement Shotgun Therapy
I once had a new patient arrive with her forms completed, a stack of medical records under her arm, and a large bulging gym bag in tow, saying “I brought all the supplements I’m taking. I’m hoping you can suggest a few I might not need.” One by one, she placed bottles and jars of […]
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, […]
Dr. Casey Kelley and Integrative Medicine
There’s a most exciting development at WholeHealth Chicago this week, but first let’s take a brief look at the 20-year arc of what we know as alternative medicine. Since the early 1990s, when data started appearing about the unexpectedly wide use of alternative therapies by the US public, there’s been a nonstop conversation about what […]
Six Commonly Missed Diagnoses: Candida (Yeast)
Posted 06/18/2012 Back in 1993, several weeks before the opening of what would be known as WholeHealth Chicago, I was summoned to the office of the chief of medicine at the hospital where I was a staff member. The chief had heard rumors I was opening a center that would combine conventional and alternative practitioners […]
Six Commonly Missed Diagnoses: Parasites
Posted 06/11/2012 If internet scare tactics from companies selling herbal supplements for parasites weren’t enough, the cable TV show “Monsters Inside Me” with its toe-curling film clips has cinched it. We’re in a new “Alien versus Predator” mode, though you might ask which one is us and which them. Those really large parasites you’ll see […]
Six Commonly Missed Diagnoses: Gluten Sensitivity
Post 06/04/2012 The current guesstimate says roughly 20% of the population are intolerant to gluten, with about 1% of that group having a potentially fatal intestinal condition called celiac disease. The remaining 19% or so are classified as having “non-celiac gluten sensitivity.” Despite the dozens and dozens of medical and psychiatric conditions linked to gluten […]
Six Commonly Missed Diagnoses: Subtly Underactive Thyroid
Posted 05/28/2012 I went to medical school in London for awhile and quite honestly didn’t learn much. But it was the 1960s and if you were going to be anywhere on the planet, central London was the place to be. The fact that the hospital to which I was assigned had a pub in its […]
Six Commonly Missed Diagnoses: Vitamin D Deficiency
Posted 05/21/2012 Much of medical care is hampered by the black-and-white thinking of doctors. You either have a condition (symptoms confirmed by positive tests) or you don’t (symptoms, but no useful test results, and therefore “nothing’s wrong with you”). Doctors are uncomfortable with grey zones, like when test results seem normal but on closer inspection […]
Six Commonly Missed Diagnoses: B12 Deficiency
Posted 05/14/2012 You’re pretty sure you know your body and you tell your doctor you’re just not feeling right. You’re tired, maybe a little depressed, a bit achy. Maybe your digestion is “off.” The list of foods you can’t seem to enjoy is definitely longer. Your doctor’s empathic, not at all dismissive of your symptoms, […]
Welcome Casey Kelley, MD
Finding Dr. Casey Kelley has been an 11-year project for me. That’s how long I’ve been scanning the horizon for the perfect holistically oriented MD associate. And believe me this project was no walk in the park.
Overall, newly minted MDs avoid primary care specialties (family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics) because by choosing one of them they’ll earn barely enough to pay off their medical school loans. Each time I’d actually locate a well-trained primary care physician, I’d quickly discover that while he or she might “like” the idea of integrative medicine the number who’d actually be willing to devote their professional career to a holistically oriented practice was excruciatingly small.
Lady Gaga, Madonna, Andy Warhol, and Me
There’s an exhibit opening next month at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London entitled “Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990.” You’re puzzled, I’m sure, by how a subject as confusing as Postmodernism could relate to a health tip, but it actually does, in a big picture sort of way.
The Extraordinarily Persistent Patient
Despite my admonishments to stay well if you want to avoid the multifarious problems of our health care system, sometimes–and through no fault of your own–you’ll get sick.
Your best chance of emerging unscathed from whatever ails you is having what’s called a “self-limiting condition,” namely, one that goes away by itself, with or without doctoring. With any condition that brings the phrase “if symptoms persist, see your doctor” to mind, well, best of luck. Most of the time, the gods will be on your side, your doctor will figure out what’s wrong, and you’ll do just fine.
Doctors and Lab Tests
When I was in pre-med (back in the Pleistocene Era, to many of you), I worked as a lab technician in a small hospital. All those blood and urine tests you’ve had whose results are now fully automated were once processed slowly and painstakingly by hand (mine among them). The so-called metabolic profile of about 20 tests that today takes a few seconds to complete would have occupied me for nearly a full workday.
Biography as Biology
I’d first come across this phrase during a lecture by psychologist and medical intuitive Carolyn Myss, PhD, at a meeting of the American Holistic Medical Association and later reading some of her books, especially Why People Don’t Heal. In it she explores the common problem of people with chronic symptoms and negative test results, delving into how these symptoms develop and what might be done to help them.
Another Mystery Rash
In last week’s Case of the Mysterious Rash, a young man’s near-daily eruption of hives turned out to be triggered by a latex sensitivity he’d developed while walking the sandy beaches of Hawaii wearing rubber flip-flops.
This brings to mind another patient. Liz, too, had seen a bevy of dermatologists, none of whom could identify the culprit behind her hives. Liz knew from her internet research that the trigger is discovered in only about 60% of cases. Still, she persevered. There had to be something behind her rash, which had been coming and going for years.
The Case of the Mysterious Rash
Although dermatologists are very good at what they do–glance at a rash, make a diagnosis, and write a prescription–it has always (very mildly) irked me that they do this so quickly.
Flu Shots, Mercury, and Ideologic Medicine
I must say I was surprised by the degree of hostility I received when I recommended flu shots.
Should I Get the Flu Shot?
When it comes to flu shots, I admit I take a far more conventional approach than many patients at WholeHealth Chicago and regular readers of these Health Tips might expect of a doctor who calls himself “alternative” or “integrative.” I’ve recently been reading some of the alternative medicine newsletters online warning people away from flu shots. The conclusion often seems to be “…and I’ve got this product you can buy instead.”