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Tag: lifestyle medicine

Welcome Nurse Practitioner Rachel Gates + Lifestyle Medicine 101

Posted on by Posted in Blog, Fitness & Exercise, Healthy Lifestyle, Integrative Medicine, Knowledge Base, Mental Health, Nutrition, Nutritional Supplements, Vitamins, & Herbal Remedies, W — 2 Comments ↓

This week we welcome Rachel Gates, NP, to WholeHealth Chicago, where she joins nurse practitioners Katie McManigal and Wendy Ploegstra. Like Wendy, Rachel is specially trained in a new (and desperately needed) branch of healthcare called Lifestyle Medicine. More about that later. Indiana-born and raised, Rachel began her education at Purdue University, earning her RN before moving to Nashville, where she worked as a bedside Read More

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Case Study: High Blood Pressure

Posted on by Posted in Aging, Alternative Therapies, Blog, C, Cardiovascular Health, Case Studies, Fitness & Exercise, Healthy Lifestyle, Inflammation, Integrative Medicine, Knowledge Base, Meditation & Spirituality, Men's Health, Nutrition, Nutritional Supplements, Vitamins, & Herbal Remedies, Women's Health — 9 Comments ↓

Phyllis B. was a longtime patient of mine whose medical problems were happily under control and who usually came in only for annual check-ups. As I’d just seen her last month, I expected today’s visit meant some new problem had emerged. “I’m here for Kirk,” she began. I’d only met her husband once, years earlier. An accountant, or bookkeeper, or something like that, I remembered. Read More

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Are Lifestyle Changes Impossible?

Posted on by Posted in A, Blog, Fitness & Exercise, Healthy Lifestyle, Integrative Medicine, Knowledge Base, Men's Health, Nutrition, Nutritional Supplements, Vitamins, & Herbal Remedies, Women's Health — 1 Comment ↓

Many years ago, I became exhausted dealing with a friend who ignored my advice on living a healthy lifestyle. His attitude toward exercise was similar to Oscar Wilde’s “I often take exercise. Why only yesterday I had breakfast in bed.” His attitude toward food, especially restaurant food, was that he didn’t care much about quality as long as the portions were huge. We agreed early Read More

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Pain And How We Perceive It

Posted on by Posted in Alternative Therapies, Blog, Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue, Fitness & Exercise, Healthy Lifestyle, Integrative Medicine, Knowledge Base, Meditation & Spirituality, Mental Health, P, Pain Management, Seminars — 2 Comments ↓

Many people suffering chronic pain and fatigue hear far too often the dismissive “it’s all in your head.” Dr. Edelberg has written frequently on the destructive nature of this statement, which places all the blame on the patient and none on the physician to dig deeper into the causes. As Dr. E wrote in a Health Tip last March, remedies such as Chinese Medicine, supplements, Read More

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Out Of Whack Hormones

Posted on by Posted in Blog, Knowledge Base, O, Thyroid, Adrenal, & Sex Hormone Issues — 9 Comments ↓

“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 Read More

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Will You Live Another Five Years?

Posted on by Posted in Blog, Healthy Lifestyle, Knowledge Base, W — No Comments ↓

Of course you might not want to know the answer to that. Or, having worked diligently on healthful eating and regular exercise, you may want to know if it will all pay off. Now, in a joint project between Swedish statisticians and a half million (!) volunteers in the UK, there’s a simple questionnaire that provides a pretty decent guesstimate on your odds of enjoying Read More

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Protecting Yourself From Overdiagnosis

Posted on by Posted in Blog, Healthy Lifestyle, Knowledge Base, P — 9 Comments ↓

Bill, a healthy looking guy in his mid-40s, came to WholeHealth Chicago because he wanted to get off Lipitor, the widely prescribed cholesterol-lowering drug. Bill had virtually no risks for heart disease and all four of his grandparents were still alive and quite independent, but a few years ago his cholesterol was on the high side and his doctor insisted on the Lipitor. Arthur has Read More

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A Baffling Mystery: Treating Pain and Depression

Posted on by Posted in A, Blog, Knowledge Base, Mental Health, Pain Management — 4 Comments ↓

We definitely treat a lot of patients with chronic pain and chronic depression at WholeHealth Chicago. I could list the potential sources of all this pain, all this depression, but why bother? If pain or depression melt away your joie de vivre, we try to help. Depending on personal preferences, we offer a variety of treatment combinations: prescription medication if needed, along with complementary therapies Read More

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Are Lifestyle Changes Impossible?

Posted on by Posted in Blog, Fitness & Exercise, Healthy Lifestyle, Knowledge Base, L — 6 Comments ↓

Many years ago, I became exhausted dealing with a friend who ignored my advice on living a healthy lifestyle. His attitude toward exercise was similar to Oscar Wilde’s “I often take exercise. Why only yesterday I had breakfast in bed.” His attitude toward food, especially restaurant food, seemed too often that he didn’t care if the quality was good as long as the portions were Read More

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Do I Really Need A Check-Up?

Posted on by Posted in Blog, C, D, Healthy Lifestyle, Knowledge Base — 1 Comment ↓

Posted 06/24/2013 You’d never guess this would be a hotly debated topic among physicians, since an affirmative answer seems so obvious. As for patients, assuming you have insurance, a doctor, and nothing’s really wrong with you, you still might like someone to look things over and ensure nothing’s amiss, no evil lurking inside that will cause you to keel over while you’re still (relatively) young. Read More

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Telemedicine – Now Available at WholeHealth Chicago

In order to maintain your continuity of care, WholeHealth Chicago now offers telemedicine appointments with most of our practitioners. During a telemedicine visit, you and your healthcare provider can review medical history, discuss symptoms, arrange for prescriptions, and more. When necessary, labs and diagnostic imaging can be ordered from a facility near your home, and our Natural Apothecary can ship supplements quickly to your door.

Please contact Patient Services for details and scheduling a telemedicine appointment, or to change a regular appointment to telemedicine by calling 773-296-6700.

We’re looking forward to meeting with you in our virtual consultation room soon.

DIAGNOSE-IT-YOURSELF: COVID-19

Far and away, the commonest phone call/e mail I receive asks about COVID-19 diagnosis.
Just print this out, tape it on your refrigerator door, and stay calm.

ALLERGIES
• Runny nose
• Sneezing
• Red, swollen eyes
• Itchy eyes and nose
• Tickly throat
• No fever

COLD
• Runny nose
• Sneezing
• Sore throat
• Mild muscle aches
• Mild dry cough
• Rarely a low fever

STREP THROAT
• Painful sore throat
• Hurts to swallow
• Swollen glands in neck
• Fever

FLU (Standard seasonal flu)
• Fever
• Dry cough (no mucus)
• Sudden onset over few hours
• Headache
• Sore throat
• Fatigue, sometimes quite severe
• Muscle aches, sometimes quite severe
• Rarely, diarrhea

CORONAVIRUS-COVID 19
• Shortness of breath
• Fever (usually above 100 degrees)
• Dry cough (no mucus)
• Slow onset (2-14 days)
• Mild muscle aches
• Mild fatigue
• Mild sneezing

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