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The Loneliest, Saddest Patients In America

Imagine this: one night, you awaken from sleep feeling itchy all over. You scratch and scratch, eventually getting back to sleep. The next day, you feel like your skin is crawling. Your hair just doesn’t feel like your hair. A few days later, you see skin lesions on different parts of your body. You go […]

Commonly Missed Diagnosis: The Three Faces of Lyme Disease 

It’s midsummer and the tick population is exploding. They can latch onto your ankles and fall into your hair and when they bite (which you won’t even feel), they’ll attach themselves and empty their gastrointestinal tract into your bloodstream. Ticks are a cesspool with legs and this story can end with Lyme disease. The total number of Lyme disease cases, caused by the organism Borrelia burgdorferi, is definitely on […]

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 10: The Tick Bite You Don’t Remember

You’re 11 years old. Or 16. Or 30. Like most Chicagoans, you regard Wisconsin and Michigan as places that exist to rent us cabins for fishing, swimming, and hiking in the woods. But after a weekend breathing the fresh air, you return home and find yourself feeling sick: headache, fever, achy. Also, you’ve got a […]

Jonathan Toews, Covid-19, and CIRS

Perhaps you’ve heard about the Chicago Blackhawks captain, his long illness, and the good news that he’s back on the ice. After saying in December that feeling drained and lethargic had kept him from playing, the three-time Stanley Cup Champion said last week that he had CIRS, chronic inflammatory response syndrome. Never heard of it? […]

Introducing Our New WholeHealth Supplement Plans

If you’re a WholeHealth Chicago patient, you’ve likely noticed that we review your list of nutritional supplements during each appointment. Conventional doctors ask what prescription meds you’re taking (and of course we do too), but virtually never solicit a list of supplements. Since our area of expertise lies precisely there, it’s important for us to […]

Commonly Missed Diagnosis: The Three Faces of Lyme Disease 

It’s springtime and will soon be nice and warm. We’re so thoroughly tired of being trapped inside that a woodland romp sounds perfectly delightful. But please remember that ticks are lurking. They can latch onto your ankles and fall into your hair and when they bite (which you won’t even feel), they’ll attach themselves and empty their gastrointestinal tract into your bloodstream. Ticks are a cesspool […]

Lyme Disease In Your Nervous System: Three Cases

“Why am I limiting this to only three cases?” I wondered. Physicians who treat Lyme, like our group at WholeHealth Chicago where we see a lot of Lyme disease patients, would tell you there are so many manifestations of Lyme when it invades the nervous system that I really should list as many as possible. […]

IV Therapies, Part 1: The World Famous Myers’ Cocktail

Over the next few weeks I’ll be writing about the intravenous (IV) therapies we offer at WholeHealth Chicago–what they are, how they work, and who can benefit. There are IV protocols for the immune system, stress, macular degeneration, anti-aging, chronic infections like Lyme disease and chronic mono, toxic metals, and those used as adjunctive care […]

WholeHealth Chicago IV Therapies: Ozone

You should know that we follow the CDC safety guidelines and that all IV therapies are administered in a sanitized room by an appropriately attired staff member. You’ll be alone in the room during your 30- to 45-minute IV session, so bring something to read. It’s definitely worthwhile to have a basic understanding of ozone […]

Functional Telemedicine, Wherever You Are

All things considered, we’ve rather enjoyed our telemedicine interactions with patients. Doctoring this way also recently provided me with an Aha! moment. What I realized was that much of what we do as Functional Medicine specialists, both diagnosis and treatment, can be done online with you never leaving your home. Such a consultation would include […]

Breakthroughs in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

To me, the greatest advance for the estimated 2.5 million adults, adolescents, and children with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) has been the slow but steady acceptance of its very existence by the conventional medical community. This has been a real uphill battle and we’re encouraged to finally see some (guarded) victories. The first description of […]

Six Beefs With Rheumatologists

If you find yourself in the waiting room of a rheumatologist, you’re likely there because your joints hurt and have been hurting, often for years. You’ve been getting by on aspirin or Advil for the pain, but with things worsening your primary care doctor suggests you should see a joint specialist, a rheumatologist. And because […]

The Cleveland Clinic and WholeHealth Chicago

I know, I know. It’s presumptuous of me to mention Cleveland Clinic in  the same line, much less on the same page, as WholeHealth Chicago, though we do have significant attributes in common, as you’ll see today. This research article, which appeared last week on the JAMA website, links the two of us in ways […]

New Hope For Sinus Sufferers

When osteopath Dr. Rob Ivker moved to Colorado in the 1980s to set up his family practice, he had no idea that when he stepped off the plane he’d succumb to symptoms of chronic sinusitis that just wouldn’t go away: stuffy nose, thick mucus, pressure behind his cheekbones and above his eyebrows, dull aching headache, […]

Director of IV Therapies Katie McManigal, BSN, ANP

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 […]

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 Lyme Disease: Best Testing, Best Treatment

Last week I suggested if you’ve been suffering longstanding but otherwise unexplained symptoms, a long-ago tick bite might be an overlooked possibility and you could now be dealing with chronic Lyme disease. I added that your recovery may well be delayed by some totally unnecessary and immature bickering among physicians about the correct name for […]

Chronic Lyme Disease? Me? Are You Serious?

Yes, I am serious. These days, from what we’re learning about Lyme disease (more about its specific terminology later), anything is  possible. If you regard yourself as healthy and were asked, “Overall, how do you feel?” and you answered “Just fine, thanks,” then Lyme in any form is very unlikely and testing you would be […]

Lyme Disease: A Biological Weapon Gone Awry

Prepare yourself for a genuinely frightening Health Tip. I bought Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons, by investigative reporter Kris Newby, this past Saturday at 10 am and finished it at 8 pm. It reads more like a thriller than non-fiction and is chilling in its implications. First, some background: The […]