Here’s an unfortunate trend: more and more young people (at my age, everyone under 50 is young) are troubled by chronic physical and emotional symptoms. Sometimes there’s a diagnosis: rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s, fibromyalgia. But just as often there are plenty of symptoms and no diagnosis. I can’t count how many times patients have […]
Your Text-Neck and Smartphone Chin(s)
For nearly four decades I’ve lived literally on the campus of DePaul University and every day hundreds of students walk past my house. From my bedroom window, I can look across the street into their classrooms (I imagine that the students looking back see an aging man in pajamas). Except for the fact that I […]
Welcoming (Back) Christine Savas
It’s a source of pride when one of our staff employees, like a medical assistant or someone working in patient or financial services, thinks, “I like WholeHealth Chicago and I like what they do. I’m going back to school and returning as a health professional.” Twenty five years ago, our very first employee, Mari Stecker, managed […]
More On Immunizing Your Kids
By far the most controversial Health Tip I’ve ever written was this one, which explained my position on immunization. I support immunization for children, which clearly either angered or disappointed a whole lot of readers. Unless you’re home-schooling your kids, you don’t have much choice these days. The State of Illinois essentially stopped giving religious […]
The Terrible Health Risks Of Guns
My personal contact with guns is limited, pretty much confined to a furtive glance at the firearm peeking reassuringly or menacingly (depending on your point of view) from a cop’s holster. Except for a brief childhood encounter with a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun, I’ve never held or fired a handgun or a rifle. In […]
Preparing for Less Daylight and Seasonal Depression (SAD)
My staff and I brace ourselves for the autumn day when clocks are set back an hour and the already dwindling sun-filled days diminish to darkness at 5 p.m. Add the overcast skies of winter and the “I’m NOT going outside” bitter cold, and we all may wonder why we’re not living in Santa Barbara. […]
Case History: The Madness of Overmedication
You’d think knowing that the fourth leading cause of death in the US is correctly-taken prescription drugs would push physicians to prescribe fewer of them. But the facts haven’t entered the collective brain of the medical profession. Big Pharma advertising controls both that brain and yours with its ubiquity of magazine, internet, and TV ads […]
Meet Our New Naturopathic Doctor: Caley Scott, ND
It wouldn’t surprise me if you didn’t know much about naturopathy. There aren’t many naturopaths in the US and the 5,000 or so we do have are mostly located along the east and west coasts, seriously outnumbered by 800,000 MDs and 100,000 DOs (osteopaths). Just to remind you: these are difficult days for health care […]
Six Super-Devious Big Pharma Tricks
Just about everyone is experiencing the shock of astonishing increases in their health insurance costs, including, interestingly, members of Congress who buy health insurance through Obamacare plans. We tend to forget that all insurance premiums (health, auto, property, life) are pegged to the benefits paid. People are living longer, so life insurance is actually cheaper […]
Ten Drugs Doctors Should Consider De-Prescribing
Physicians use the word polypharmacy when a patient is taking five or more prescription drugs daily. A recent survey showed that half of women Medicare recipients were taking five or more drugs daily, and 12% of them were taking ten (!) or more. New patients frequently arrive at WholeHealth Chicago carrying bags stuffed like piñatas […]
Moving and Eating To Protect Your Heart
One of the great pleasures of Chicago is summer. We’re outdoors and moving around, whether jogging, swimming, biking, walking the dog, slamming a volleyball, or tossing a Frisbee. And because we’re all wearing fewer clothes, we can tell in a single furtive glance if we’re happy with our weight. “Oh, well,” you think, “I might […]
Making It Easier To Say No To Statins
Patients and doctors alike are understandably nervous about taking/prescribing any of the cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins. You as a patient especially don’t want to hear “You’ll be on this pill for the rest of your life.” And if you’ve followed some of the recent articles on statins, you’ve likely felt annoyance at the mixed […]
Women and ADHD, Part 2: Can I Treat This Without Meds?
“I lose my keys endlessly. I pay big bucks in unnecessary late fees on bills that I put down somewhere and just forget about. After I finished college, I never read another book–it was just too much work. I can cope with a magazine article, but hardly ever remember what I’ve read. I even have […]
Women and ADHD, Part 1
Already ten minutes late for her first appointment, Claire phoned from her car that she’d be in the office in five minutes. Fifteen minutes later, arriving flustered and embarrassed, she blurted “Oh my gosh, I left all the forms on my kitchen table, but I did fill them out” and “My insurance card? I’m sure […]
The Dangerous Myth of Opioid Addiction
Trying to reduce the pain of my patients plays a major role in my day-to-day life as a doctor. When I was in training, there was a big debate going on: Should a doctor prescribe an opioid for non-cancer pain? The answer was Never! In other words, no matter where a patient’s pain was coming […]
Health Screening Offers: Should You Bother?
Like most people, you’ve received one of those brochures in the mail with a headline screaming something like “Health Screening Can Save Your Life!” They’re filled with photos of happy, healthy people on golf courses or with their grandchildren and are liberally sprinkled with quotes like, “Dan’s alive today because an ultrasound revealed his aneurysm.”
Lyme Disease Fundraiser, Just When We Need It Most
Here are some well known people who have chronic Lyme disease: singer-songwriter-fashion designer Kelly Osbourne, TV star Ally Hilfiger (Tommy’s daughter), singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson, punk singer Kathleen Hanna, Marisol Thomas (wife of Rob Thomas), Real Housewife Yolanda Hadid and supermodel Bella Hadid, as well as Alec Baldwin, Amy Tan, and Avril Lavigne. Each of the […]
Your Smartphone Is Stealing Your Brain
Spoiler alert: I don’t own a smartphone. Also, I’ve been reluctant to write a Health Tip on smartphones lest two of my least desirable characteristics–smugness and self-righteousness– surface. But now a very well-conducted research study on how smartphones lead to cognitive decline compels me to warn you that if you value your brain, use your […]
Invasion of the Body Snatchers!
I’d been reading Ally Hilfiger’s new autobiography Bite Me: How Lyme Disease Stole My Childhood, Made Me Crazy, and Almost Killed Me, preferring the Lyme parts to those devoted to fashion and her MTV “Rich Girl” series. Her symptoms were typical of chronic Lyme and simply dreadful. Hilfiger’s very supportive family watched helplessly through hospitalizations and […]
Overlooked Diagnosis: The Most Common Cause
The high point in my medical education was a medical school semester at a hospital in Soho, the very heart of London’s swinging ‘60s. From an academic point of view, I don’t remember much except for one compelling lecture from a very British professor on making an accurate diagnosis. He began by saying doctors had […]