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Your First Visit
Two Hours (discussion, exam, & treatment)
Free one hour follow- up (review of Healing Plan & treatment)
See New Patient Pack (including: Intake Form, Policies & Procedures, & Map/Directions)
Often seeing a new doctor for the first time can be unnerving. Hopefully we will be able to communicate well and feel comfortable with each other - anytime we meet someone new we have to access if the relationship will work out for us. Please know that I will always meet you half way, and if you choose me to be your primary care physician, I will go out of my way for you and even guide you ("push you") to find the healing you want.
Our first meeting is about two hours, the majority of which will be discussion, as I try to learn how your symptoms have developed over time and how they exist now. We will spend time reviewing your past medical, social and family history to see how these are connected to your current concerns. Usually at least 15 minutes is dedicated to physical examination so that I may come to understand better how your body may accept different therapies. Certainly I will listen to your heart and take your pulse, but I will also use come Chinese and Ayurvedic Medicine diagnostic tools like looking at your tongue, checking for sore points on your abdomen, and other medical tools that you may not be as familiar. The point of our discussion and the exam is to gain enough specific information to understand your weakest and strongest organs, how they are functioning today and in the past, and how your body communicates with itself and how you communicate with your body. Often the first meeting will contain the ordering of imaging studies or laboratory tests and the taking of a small blood sample. Please bring all of your past laboratory and imaging that you have as this may be invaluable, we will be sure to make copies and return you originals promptly. I try to dedicate the last half hour of our first meeting to your treatment. Since I have most likely already considered
your structure I will ask you to lay down on your back so that you are comfortable. I almost always start at your feet as I look to remove the strain patterns of the body - both in the physical and energetic bodies - though many of therapies discussed in the "medicine" section. This allows me to gain even more information and will help to guide my suggestions for you to try before our second meeting.
The second meeting is at no additional cost, is an hour long, and is scheduled 5-10 days after the first. The period between the meetings allows time for lab work to be processed, gives me the opportunity to study your case, do any research or collaboration with other physicians on your team, and formulate the best options to discuss with you when we meet. During this second meeting I often have more questions and even physical exam to review before I will take the time to give you my thoughts and your treatment plan or Healing Protocol. As time allows I utilize the last half hour for more treatment.
Two important points to remember:
- Please do your best to fill out the intake form completely. Please write down all of the medicines that you are taking - this includes all medicines such as supplements and herbs.
- We find it beneficial to bring in all the medicines (including pharmaceuticals as well as herbs and supplements) that you use so that I can see exactly what you are taking, explain my thoughts and present health options for you.
New Patient Pack (includes Intake Form)
Your Treatment Plan
Healing Plan that is clear, concise, and usually on one page
Discuss what will work for you and your lifestyle
Examples:
On one sheet of paper you are able to see your health plan including your diet, exercise and all your medications in what we call your Healing Protocol. As the name suggests your Healing Protocol will change over time - the healing process. Also implied is that this process is going to require effort that may be in short supply lately. The point is to create a treatment plan that can work in your lifestyle today. We work with our state of health as it exists today and move forward - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. When we start to give the body what it needs in a wholistic perspective our body can balance and heal itself.
Your Healing Protocol will include a list of suggested Procedures (hands-on therapy, acupuncture, IV therapy, etc), Actions that you will need to take at home (specific stretches/exercises, hydrotherapy, writing, visualizations, etc), as well as Dietary recommendations, and a list of all your Medications (this includes pharmaceuticals, herbs, supplements, and homeopathics) and the dosages that you are taking. We have found that having these one or two pieces of paper provides needed structure no matter how busy our schedule.
Healing requires commitment and the Healing Protocol sheet helps us to keep our focus.
See examples above.
Specific Nutrition, Medicine, & Herbs
Dietary supplements can not make up for the SAD American diet
Pharmaceuticals are particularly helpful when beginning healing
Herbs and homeopathics help the body restore function
Each individual can use specific foods to help balance their condition or disease. Certainly the standard American diet (SAD) does not fit the bill for anyone other then some adolescents and the heartiest humans. The vast majority is negatively influenced by the food produced in the modern world. To reach our genetic and physical potential we need to radically change some habits. By using dietary supplements we can help to direct and even restore function in the body quite rapidly, but this can not make up completely for a diet and lifestyle that does not allow the body to balance and then heal. Specific pharmaceuticals are often necessary to support organ function and are often of great help at the beginning of therapy. Specific herbs and homeopathics are also important and have the benefit of being gentler in action, acting more to guide the body to heal, as well as acting as detoxifiers so the body can more easily restore function. We want to heal and we do so by supporting the body as it transitions to greater health.
Neuromuscular Health and Strength
Gaining strength for healing by restoring motion
Everyone wants greater freedom of movement
Body's motto:
- Act Wholistically
- Act Thrifty
- Act Responsibly
Few of us are free from joint and muscle pain or discomfort. Some may only need function restored, but for others, different concerns are more important than their aches and pains. For example, one patient may have no desire to discuss diet or supplementation. Perhaps they just need to have strain patterns removed in the area of pain. My job is to also make sure that adjacent areas have not been compromised and need attention, and look to how exercise and lifestyle can prevent future problems. A second patient might also need similar care regarding the joint pain, but the removal of the pain has the added benefit of helping their body to redirect the lost energy to the more threatening concerns. This is called .getting more bang for your buck. and is particularly important in more serious conditions when the whole body feels like it is falling apart at once.
Therefore you may need unique attention given to your physical concerns even though they may not seem most important overall. The point is to attend to each concern just as the body would - we address all problems (Act Wholistically), get rid of energy drains as quick as possible (Act Thrifty), and dedicate limited recourses to our most life threatening insults (Act Responsibly).
Balancing Hormones
Unification Triad is Key
- Endocrine System (hormones)
- Nervous System
- Immune System
Need to know compensating endocrine and eliminative organs
Is menopause worse than adolescent acne?
Three basics of naturopathic medicine come into view when dealing with concerns caused by hormonal imbalance. First to be addressed is the unification triad or the balance between the hormonal, nervous and immune systems. One of these systems is weak in most of us and the others strain to maintain harmony. When under hormonal stress an important concept is to strengthen these other systems. Further, in disease, it is as important to know which is historically strongest as which is currently strongest. Second, when there is hormonal dysfunction we need to support the hormonal gland that is trying to compensate - often the thyroid or adrenals. Third, by place our attention on the body's eliminative organs; we release unwanted hormones and the chaos of signaling that they generate.
In naturopathic medicine we always support and know that the body can heal itself if given the appropriate respect and raw materials. Fortunately, if these preventative measures have not been taken before menopause, bio-identical hormones or herbs and diet changes are able to ease the transition of hormone production from the ovaries to the adrenal glands. This highlights the need during peri-menopause and menopause for adrenal support and stress reduction. If the adrenals are under excessive pressure prior to or during menopause they can not absorb the extra hormonal responsibility menopause requires. If the body's other adaptive stockpiles are also stressed then the body presents the classical hormonal symptoms of menopause. But, balancing hormones is just as important to the teen age boy and girl who are looking to find themselves amongst the rush of hormonal influences. No matter what the .dramatic. symptoms of hormonal fluctuations, the body can quickly resolve to a balance point when obstacles are removed and the body is given what it needs.
Mental Fears, Spiritual Concerns, and Personal Outlook
Fear can promote bronchitis and inhibit bone healing
"Letting go" is an action of healing and courage
Spontaneous Healing or Sum of your Action
If we have a cold or a broken leg perhaps acknowledging our fears has little to do with the healing. But I have seen psychic hygiene impede healing of infectious bronchitis and pharyngitis despite appropriate antibiotics administration. I have also witnessed bones not knitting together until some degree of self-acceptance was reached. It is not appear that only chronic conditions require spiritual action. And perhaps most important, for some people, is that healing has to occur on a spiritual level for physical healing to occur.
In healing, we often have to have that extra something to help and we often never learn the nature of that unifying spark. It often requires a "letting go", but not to self-pity or to "not living life to the fullest," but a surrender to the process of healing. By relaxing and stopping the fight in the mind, the healing energy of life can move, and then the body can be free to release its maladaptive strains, to recalibrate and to repair what needs attention. Our body can heal itself, if given the opportunity and the raw materials.
Our fear can often get the best of us when we are ill. It is important to not let our natural fear of our survival to overwhelm our ability to make sound decisions. We must review our thoughts with others and then even sit quietly to decide whether it is also true in our heart. Medicine is not all miracles, but spontaneous healing is possible. It involves aligning our mind, body, and spirit through a process of being willing to change and taking action. Interestingly, spontaneous healing can be a miraculous flash, but moreover, is the progression of many surrenders, decisions and actions that cascade into healing synchronicity - the point where the unified body finds balance with the accepting mind and contented spirit.
Assessing Need for Detoxification or Cleansing
Everyone needs some internal cleaning
"I have not seen a clear set of lungs in thirty years!"
What is your strongest and weakest eliminative organ?
We all think of different things when if comes to personal housekeeping. The liver and kidneys are the primary detoxifiers because they have the most enzymes (fancy proteins) that act as cleaners. Yet all your cells work to remove these obstacles. For example our lungs help break down molecules of garlic with interesting consequences: 1) garlic breath can not be cured by brushing your tongue, because as the lungs detoxify the garlic - we exhale the garlic-like odor; 2) garlic is helpful in some infections because the active antimicrobial molecules of garlic are directly released in the lungs.
Our personal housekeeping involves this breaking down of complex molecules in our food and environment. This detoxification is a 24 hour a day process that functions better in some than others in our modern environment. So - "is my toxicity an obstacle to my feeling better and my body healing itself?" To partly answer that question let me relate a story. While doing my pathology rotation at downtown hospital in Phoenix, Arizona I thought I would try to impress after being taught that the first autopsy's lung tissue was cancerous by stating that the second's also had lung cancer. The pathologist was not too impressed and stated that the mottled black and white dots reminiscent of a tumbled granite stone in a creek bed that both individual's shared was actually how we all looked. His humbling words were "I have not seen a clear set of lungs in thirty years!"
So the question is not if we are toxic, but is our body able to cope with the toxicity of our modern world. Paramount is the eliminative organs (liver, colon, kidney, skin, and lungs) that need to be able to release the toxins that come to them in the blood/lymph from other tissues. Our current health and our genetics point to whether detoxifying will heal the body or just overburden us. If we are out of shape, overweight, or have current health conditions that require medication we need to be more cautious. For in such a condition the eliminative organs will struggle to keep the blood clean - resulting in varied symptoms. The spillover of symptoms is also noticed during dieting as the nervous system can no longer maintain equilibrium due to its sensitivity to higher toxin levels, these include: headaches, body aches, tingling, numbness, sweating, irritability, emotional fragility, ringing in the ears, vision irregularities, depression and anxiety, etc. Although low caloric status and fatigue are often used to explain these symptoms I observe that healthier people loose weight during a cleanse without these symptoms.
Reducing our "toxic load" is the key. Then our body can respond to the normal stresses of life with 1) less unnecessary reorganizing, 2) fewer swings toward dis-ease and 3) greater balance, freedom and creativity.
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