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SICKO Part One

Three movies in my entire life have moved me to tears, and Michael Moore’s SiCKO was one of them.

(The other two? Walt Disney’s Snow White–I was four, the witch–and at 25, Star Wars, utter boredom).

Last month I saw–twice, in fact–this devastating critique of the American health insurance industry and its collusion with the federal government. Health insurance is a very sensitive issue for me. Every hour of every day the endless confrontation of doctors and their patients with the health insurance industry increases everyone’s stress and interferes with decent medical care.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Big Pharma Evils, Blog, Health Insurance Issues, Knowledge Base, STagged ,

Solving Adrenal Imbalance

They’re about the size of walnuts, your two adrenal glands. Picture them there, resting comfortably, one on top of each kidney. If you reach around your back with your hands open, your thumbs will be about where your adrenal glands are perched.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in A, Blog, Knowledge Base, Thyroid, Adrenal, & Sex Hormone IssuesTagged , , , , , , ,

Q&A: Herbs Control PMS Palpitations

Q: In a health tip on hormones, you wrote that virtually any cyclical symptom is probably caused by hormone fluctuations. You described a patient who got such severe heart palpitations that her cardiologist considered heart surgery before one herb managed to get her hormones under control. Could you tell me which herb was used and how it worked?

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Blog, Knowledge Base, Nutrition, Nutritional Supplements, Vitamins, & Herbal Remedies, P, Women's HealthTagged , , , , ,

Measuring Hormone Levels

First let’s discuss a strategy to get your health insurance to pay for as much of this testing as your policy allows. Good hormone testing is pricey.

(Those $30 kits that test all your hormones are only moderately accurate, especially when it comes to estrogen and progesterone. If you’re having periods, levels of these hormones change virtually every day, and trying to get an accurate picture with a single day’s result is a waste of your money.)

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Blog, Knowledge Base, M, Thyroid, Adrenal, & Sex Hormone Issues, Women's HealthTagged , , ,

“My hormones are out of whack!”

That’s the single most common sentence I hear from my patients.

It can come from a 25-year-old with irregular periods and industrial-strength PMS whose energy has gone down the tubes. Or from a 45-year-old (on the threshold of pre-menopause) who continues to gain weight even though she’s eating less and exercising more, and who adds that her brain feels like mush and her sex drive is a distant memory.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Blog, H, Knowledge Base, Thyroid, Adrenal, & Sex Hormone Issues, Women's HealthTagged , , ,

Prescribing Happiness

Many good studies have proved that an optimistic outlook has significant long-term health benefits. According to an article in Family Medicine, a journal for primary care doctors, some holistically oriented family physicians are recommending daily exercises in optimism to reduce the risk of developing all sorts of illnesses, both physical and emotional.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Blog, H, Healthy Lifestyle, Knowledge Base, Mental HealthTagged

Pre-Menopause Anxiety

One of the most common symptoms my patients tell me about during their pre-menopause years is a pervasive sense of mild depression and anxiety. No particular reason for it, they report, just a sense that things aren’t going right, wanting to cry for no reason over little things that never bothered them.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Blog, Knowledge Base, M, Mental Health, P, Women's HealthTagged , , , , ,

Another Idea Sixpack

Posted 07/23/2007 Here are six more ways to reduce stress and improve your overall well-being: 1. Feeling upset? Change the channel on your immediate surroundings (“I’ve gotta get out of here for awhile!”). Take a break and walk as you breathe deeply and look around. It’s a quick perspective fix…and a calmative. Pushups work too. […]

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Blog, Fitness & Exercise, I, Knowledge BaseTagged ,

Idea Sixpack

Click here for the original post. Six easy ways to reduce stress and feel better: 1. Want a natural stress buster? Aerobic exercises like brisk walking, cycling, or swimming are some of nature’s best tranquilizers. Exercise increases your serotonin, a neurotransmitter (brain chemical) that buffers stress. 2. Finding it hard to get motivated? Set some […]

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in Blog, Fitness & Exercise, I, Knowledge Base, STagged

Menopause and Bioidentical Hormones

Right now, thousands of women are having their first menopause-related hot flash. If you’re one of them you’re not alone: about 40 million US women will go through the menopause transition over the next 20 years, and virtually every one will experience a symptom of shifting hormones.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in B, Blog, Knowledge Base, M, Thyroid, Adrenal, & Sex Hormone Issues, Women's HealthTagged , , ,

Q&A: Low Blood Sugar

Q: You mentioned in one of your tips that low blood sugar was a controversial diagnosis. Would you explain why?

A: To my thinking, the controversy over low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) got started when the book Sugar Blues came out 30 years ago and doctors couldn’t cope with patients asking questions about a condition they knew little about.

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by WholeHealth Chicago
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Posted in B, Blog, Diseases, Healthy Lifestyle, Knowledge Base, LTagged ,