Naturopathy is a distinct system of medicine that is based on a belief in the healing power of nature–and especially in the body’s innate ability to fight disease and heal itself. Practiced by naturopathic doctors (also known as naturopaths or N.D.s), it uses a wide range of natural treatment methods, rather than drugs or surgery, to stimulate the body’s own healing powers. Among the therapies many naturopaths frequently prescribe are diet and lifestyle modifications, nutritional supplements, homeopathy, acupuncture, hydrotherapy, detoxification, spinal manipulation, and more.
Category: Integrative Medicine
Energy Psychology
Energy Psychology is the name of a family of therapeutic methods that address personal, psychological, emotional, and increasingly, physical, issues by working with the human vibrational energy matrix. Typically, energy psychology treatment focuses on disturbances on the meridian, chakra, or biofield level. One of the more popular forms of energy psychology looks like psychological acupressure.
Chiropractic
The best known and most widely used alternative therapy in the United States today, chiropractic focuses on the manipulation of the spine and other joints to help treat a variety of problems involving bones, joints, muscles, ligaments, and tendons.
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is an ancient technique in which a skilled practitioner inserts hair-thin needles into specific points on the body to prevent or treat illness. Practiced for over 2,500 years in China, where it originated, acupuncture is part of the holistic system of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which views health as a constantly changing flow of energy, or qi (pronounced “chee”). In TCM, imbalances in this natural flow of energy are thought to result in disease. Acupuncture aims to restore health by improving the flow of qi.
Alternative Approaches To Everyday Problems
After practicing conventional medicine for years and years, now that I’m working with a variety of alternative practitioners, it’s very satisfying to be learning new ways to treat many everyday illnesses, especially those that mainstream medicine doesn’t have much luck with. It was a very humbling experience to observe how other practitioners, outside the “select” […]
Bioidentical Hormones
If you’re miserable from menopause symptoms, give serious thought to hormone replacement therapy (HRT). You may not realize it, but a diabetic using insulin is using hormone replacement therapy, with the hormone is insulin. Taking Synthroid for an underactive thyroid is hormone replacement, too. Is there a problem with replacing your sex hormones, estrogen and progesterone, when you’re suffering because their levels have gone into the free-fall of menopause?
I Went to the Doctor and I Left Feeling Much Better
Posted 03/10/2009 At WholeHealth Chicago we view health care differently than most conventional doctors, so when patients share sentiments like the one in the headline, it makes our day a very good one. Following the original definition of the word “doctor,” we see ourselves as teachers, not body mechanics (or in my case, someone who […]
Our Governor the Sociopath
Click here for the Health Tip link. For many amateur and professional psychologists, Rod Blagojevich’s diagnosis was a snap. I myself muttered it aloud as the indignant US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald related what he had overheard in those fateful wiretaps. A day or so later, in a New York Times op-ed piece, former TV talk […]
Your Brain: Could an Undiagnosed Medical Problem Be to Blame?
We’ve been talking about the causes of brain fog, forgetfulness, and lack of focus these past weeks. My final suggestion isn’t likely, but it’s worth including.
An undiagnosed medical problem, such as high blood pressure or kidney or liver disease, could compromise your ability to think clearly.
Your Brain: Could It Be Something You Ate?
Sensitivity to certain foods or to food additives/preservatives are less common causes of brain fog, but certainly possible. So is hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar.
Your Brain: Maybe You’re Depressed
Depression is the result of low levels of the stress-buffering brain chemical serotonin trying, but failing, to protect you against assaults of unchecked stress.
The same holds true for similar disorders, like anxiety, fatigue, and fibromyalgia.
Townsend Letter
If you’re interested in the current status of alternative medicine in the US, consider a sample issue of Townsend Letter.
Now in its 25th year of continuous publication under the direction of pioneer integrative physician Jonathan Collin, MD, the publication is subtitled “The Examiner of Alternative Medicine.” I learned early on that a subscription to Townsend Letter was virtually a requirement if I wanted to keep abreast of the many fields of complementary and alternative therapies.
It’s Allergy Season…
…and this year is a bad one. Patients have been contacting me with all sorts of the usual hay fever type symptoms: watery eyes, runny noses, sneezing, coughing. My own allergies progressed to asthma and I was compelled to rummage around for an inhaler to use for a few days this month. (It’s probably not the smartest move to use an old dust-covered asthma inhaler, but that old saying that doctors make terrible patients is often true.)