Integrative Medicine: Diagnosis and Treatment
Many people who come to us have previously been treated by many different practitioners, who have used a variety of approaches and techniques on them. Despite all this, they still have their problems, and often they still don’t really know what is wrong with them. Most doctors are specialists and see each case only in the context of their specialized training. Modern health issues, however, tend to be complex and multidimensional, and often don’t fit neatly into standard diagnostic categories. A general, integrated approach is necessary.
Because we integrate a variety of philosophies, arts, sciences, and methods of healing, we can often see the big picture of your situation, and help you understand why and how the various aspects of your case are actually related and make sense. We have been told many times how relieved our patients are to finally get an accurate diagnosis and explanation after years of searching.
And, because there is no one approach that can fix all problems, we can bring together a confluence of healing strategies, the combination of treatment modalities necessary to help you, whether in our office or with members of the team of excellent doctors we refer to, in the most expedient, cost-effective manner possible.
Drug-free alternatives
While drugs can be lifesavers in the right circumstances, they often merely cover up the symptoms of a health condition without fixing the cause, like turning off the fire alarm without putting out the fire. And drugs all come with side effects, sometimes as bad, or worse, than what the original problem was. Sadly, many people are prescribed a series of drugs, each one for the side effects of the last.
We once had a patient who had been prescribed diet drugs (Fen-phen) to help her lose 10 pounds. The diet drugs gave her insomnia, so she was prescribed a sleeping pill (Halcion) which caused her to become suicidal. She was then prescribed an anti-depresant (Prozac) after which she started to twirl her hair and pull out clumps of it (trichotillomania.) That’s when she came to us. Wild!
Many conditions such as anxiety and depression, ADD/ADHD, migraines, allergies, arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, and gastric reflux, among many others, are customarily treated with drugs, but they don’t necessarily need to be. Even those times when the drugs work to control the symptoms, they typically don’t address the cause of the problem. Fortunately, non-pharmaceutical alternatives are often available, which don’t have harmful side effects. And these alternative treatments are designed to deal with the cause of your problems, not just mask the symptoms.