Experiencing any condition that involves chronic pain can be a life-changing event. As the patient, you recall your blissful pain-free life with a real sense of longing. As the significant other of someone in pain, you stand by helplessly, wanting to do something (anything!) to relieve the suffering. Interestingly, although there are excellent analgesics (pain relievers) available by prescription, there are also plenty of ways a patient can treat his or her own pain, safely, naturally and effectively.
Category: P
Anxiety and Panic
Everyone has occasional episodes of worry. It’s part of being a person. I mean, you’re almost supposed to worry a bit when your company is downsizing, or you’re unprepared for an approaching exam or the notice of a tax audit arrives in the mail.
Pre-diabetes Prescription Drugs
Click here for the Health Tip link. Q: My doctor told me I need to take drugs for something he calls pre-diabetes. After reading your tips on the pharmaceutical industry, can you give me any advice on whether or not I need to take them? A That’s a great question because it exemplifies how doctors […]
On Their Knees: Doctors and Med Schools before Big Pharma
Big Pharma–the multi-national companies that make up the pharmaceutical industry– gives staggering amounts of money to medical schools for research that virtually always manages to come out favorably for the company. With this much power, physicians-in-training simply don’t learn any means of treating most illnesses short of pulling out their prescription pads. And as a […]
Why Doctors Avoid Prescription Drugs
The massive Physicians’ Desk Reference is distributed at no charge once a year to every practicing physician in the US. Weighing in at about five pounds, its 4,000-plus tissue thin pages are printed in painfully small type across three columns. With publishing costs underwritten by the pharmaceutical industry, the PDR is essentially one immense drug […]
Preventing Flu
Click here for the Health Tip link. The advice in this health tip works for preventing virtually all virus infections, including the flu. Of the 150,000 genetic variations of mushrooms on our planet, it’s guesstimated that about 5% have useful medicinal properties. Of these, we know something about just a scant handful. Like every other […]
Before Filling Your Next Prescription, Think Twice
Click here for the Health Tip link. Ponder these two ideas: we take more prescription drugs per person than any other nation on the planet and in the process, rank about 40th in the overall health of our citizenry. Yes, this is partly because 47 million of us don’t have health insurance, but also every […]
Push Up, Trim Down
If push-ups bring forth the dim (and grim) memory of gym class, stay with us for a minute while we discuss the benefits.
PMS Rx
Click here for the original post. For our new January newsletter readers, let’s review my PMS prescription, explained in far greater detail in The Triple Whammy Cure. When you feel crummy, you’re menstruating, AND your symptoms appear predictably on a monthly (or every-other-month) basis, the problem is definitely hormonal and definitely fixable. Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) […]
Cure PMS The Natural Way…Without Seeing a Doctor
I can’t imagine what PMS actually feels like, but having heard the litany of miserable symptoms from thousands of my patients, it sounds pretty dismal. But just because I happen to be a male physician doesn’t mean I can’t offer help.
An Easier Way to Overcome Psychological Problems
Periodically, a new development in natural/holistic health really lives up to its hype. This is the case with energy psychology.
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?
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.
Four Easy Steps to Save a Bundle on Prescription Drugs
It might surprise you to learn that your doctor usually has no idea how much you’ll pay for your prescription medication. The information doesn’t appear in medical journals, and asking a drug rep usually brings an evasive “Our product is no more expensive than other medications in its class” or “It’s covered by your patient’s insurance.”
Preventive Tests You Need
My women patients are endlessly caring for others: children, partners, parents, and other family members. Right now, think about taking care of yourself.
Melatonin and Perimenopause
I was surprised to see a clinical report using the nutritional supplement melatonin in the Annals of the New York Academy of Science, simply because it’s a very conservative journal, rarely acknowledging the existence of natural medicine.
Pycnogenol: Are You a Frequent Flyer?
Many of my patients travel quite a bit for work. Here’s a tip: pycnogenol (pronounced “pik-noj-en-all”) is a powerful antioxidant extracted from the bark of pine trees and sold in health food stores either under that name or as PCO Extract. A newly discovered side benefit from pycnogenol is that it can prevent the foot […]
The Dark Side of Prescription Drugs
One of the many reasons I decided to learn more about using nutritional supplements to treat various medical problems 15 years ago was this: I was getting nervous about the medical profession’s over-reliance on prescription drugs.