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Doctor's Notes
What is it? IV nutrient therapy is the use of vitamins, minerals and other natural compounds that are delivered intravenously (IV). This safe and effective treatment allows for the application of active nutrients to treat various health conditions and to increase your sense of wellbeing, lasting from several days to months. Why receive IV nutrient therapy? IV doses of vitamins and minerals such as vitamin C, magnesium and B vitamins are safe and effective. We can replace nutrients that are depleted because of long-term stress, chronic disease, medication or alcohol use.  High doses of certain vitamins, namely vitamin C, are antiviral. These doses are much higher than we are able to absorb from food or supplementation and thus are more effective. What are the benefits of IV nutrient therapy? Prevention and treatment of the common cold and influenza viruses Enhancing athletic performance Improving stress management Decreasing anxiety and insomnia Improving mood and mental clarity Replacing depleted nutrients Please post any other questions below! Read more >
What do I recommend for staying healthy this autumn? Your best bet is several-fold: get plenty of sleep, wash your hands regularly and get a high dose of IV vitamin C. I offer intravenous (IV) vitamin C treatments to patients who are hoping to prevent catching the circulating cold bug, to avoid getting sick AGAIN or to treat the bug that they already caught. These treatments are about 1-hour long and you receive a high dose of vitamin C with many other vitamins and minerals that help bolster your immune system. What is it that makes the IV effective? Firstly, vitamin C is antiviral. A Chinese study in 2012 showed that high dose (pharmacological dose) vitamin C is active against the influenza virus inside of human cells.  A US study in 2014 showed that IV vitamin C was not only helpful at eliminating the virus that causes mono but also replaced the deficiency of vitamin C caused by the virus. The minerals in the IV are also helpful to improving your immune's response to viruses. Specifically, zinc is essential to have a healthy immune system. This mineral and others such as selenium give you a fighting chance against a cold or flu. Clinically, I have found… Read more >
I prescribe an elimination diet to patients several times a week. This diet is specifically designed to discover food sensitivities affecting your skin, your gut, energy or weight gain. It’s not easy to make drastic changes to ones’ diet so I prescribe the same diet to myself annually, just so that I can help guide patients through it for success. I am well into my annual elimination diet and I learn something new every time. This year I needed to appreciate my allies. Allies can be found in foods, people and habits. I suggest you find your allies to ensure success on your elimination diet. People: It’s tough to make major changes in your life. Even tougher if you are doing it alone or you keep running into resistance from the people who surround you. If you can put this therapeutic diet into practice with a friend, or even a loved one, your chances of success are much better. Food: Your go-to foods that are convenient, easy and quick will likely be tossed to the back burner. So before you start, do some searching and find foods that will also serve you and fit in this elimination plan. Stock up… Read more >
Elimination diet Autumn renewal
The temperature drops, the light changes and I feel an ache in my chest when I think about the end of summer. My lofty goals for the summer months this year: beach time, plenty of swimming and getting a wicked tan. Since I have been successful on all fronts I now turn my attention to Autumn. I’ve always loved the fall (after mourning the end of summer). It starts with my birthday and ends with Thanksgiving and big family gatherings. What’s not to love? This fall I am looking forward to warm socks, knitting projects and weekends away. Every year I like to do an elimination diet. It allows my body a reset and I tune into the foods that I eat and their effect on how I feel. I often prescribe elimination diets to patients when they suspect they have a food sensitivity or they have classic symptoms related to food sensitivities such as digestive or skin issues. This week I will start my second elimination diet of the year. In February of this year, I started an elimination diet only to have it crash and burn about 1.5 weeks in. It wasn’t the right time; I was between… Read more >
Hi, I am just wondering what, or if, you have any innovative ideas about fibromyalgia? Good Question! My approach to care is in Functional Medicine. You can learn more about this approach here. This approach to care, in itself, is innovative. I am trained as an expert in health, not disease. So my treatments focus on creating health:  removing causes of disease, treating body with natural (or rarely pharmaceuticals) substances to foster health... all the while palliating symptoms to improve quality of life while healing is the ultimate goal. With fibromyalgia in particular I find that healing the gut, finding and treating any toxic exposures or infections and decreasing inflammation are the main targets I use. All of this takes time and patience and trust in the process. In addition, I recommend taking advantage of the wealth of health care professionals at Qi Integrated Health to augment care. Acupuncture, massage, and other therapies are excellent additions to help manage stress, decrease inflammation, improve sleep and other important quality of life factors. I hope this note helps you understand our approach to care. Sincerely, Dr e Read more >
When I talk about belly bugs, technically known as gut microbiota, I usually talk about them in terms of digestive function and treating gut problems like IBS, IBD, constipation or bloating. But now there are new studies from Nature.com exploring the effect of the microbiota on mental health. Mind Control, science fact. The highlights are that a vaginal birth can affect a baby's tendencies toward anxiety or depression. The microbiome passed to the infant through the vaginal tract is important and if babies are born via C-section (and not receive the mother's bacteria) they are more likely to have anxious and depressive moods. And this can continue to be true for the entirety of their lives. Another study showed that the lack of the bacteria Bacteriodes fragilis in a mouse's digestive system caused autism-like symptoms. When replaced, the bacteria the mice recovered normal behavior and digestion. Furthermore - a bacterial product found in their blood was injected into normal mice who then displayed the autism-like symptoms. All this leads me to deduce that bacteria are amazing at mind control! [caption id="attachment_171" align="alignright" width="134"] Healthy Digestion and Mental Health Depends on your Microbiome[/caption] The article linked above also discusses leaky gut and its role in allowing… Read more >
So you think you react to what you eat. Perhaps you have a food intolerance, or allergy, or sensitivity? How do you uncover your food reactions? The medicine around food reactions is changing. It used to seem so black and white: you have a peanut allergy, which is obvious, or you don’t. But these days we have blogs and news and conversations around other types of food reactions. First: lets start by breaking down the potential reactions to food you or your loved ones may be experiencing! Food Allergy This one seems familiar, although relatively uncommon. An allergy is typically an immediate-type reaction to a food. This one can also be very dangerous in the most severe forms. They may begin to swell in their airway and this can become a medical emergency. The most common allergies are peanuts and shellfish. Food sensitivity Hmmm, does this one exist? I have read a few well-meaning web articles that want to convince me that there is no such thing as a food sensitivity, especially in regard to gluten. However in my clinical practice I see food sensitivities every day! These are more delayed-type reactions. They can occur from 1 hour to several… Read more >
‘Tis the season. The season for stuffy noses, achy fatigue and coughing in your elbow (not on your neighbor). Its also the season for cold and flu remedies to fly off the shelf as we seek relief from bothersome symptoms. Do you wait for the cold to catch you? Do you run to buy Vitamin C or Echinacea? What do else can you do for prevention? Here are some simple yet effective health hacks for beating the seasonal illnesses. Each of these can be used as needed or on a daily basis incorporated into your wellness routine. Are you brave enough to try out these classic naturopathic cures? Magic socks I learned early on in my practice not to call these ‘cold and wet socks’. No one likes cold and wet socks… but Magic socks?! Way better. What you need Short cotton socks, big wool socks, cold water, a freezer, warm feet, warm bed How to execute Wet the cotton socks. Wring out as much water as possible and stick them in the freezer. In about 10 minutes slip the cotton socks on then put the wool ones on top. Go straight to bed. Immediately your feet will be cool but… Read more >
Many people come to me with very unhappy bellies. Seriously. Their bellies cause them a terrible amount of pain and severely disrupt their quality of life. Because of their bellies they are missing work, missing sleep, depressed or at just at their wits end. I see people with inflammatory bowel disease like crohn’s and ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome and other functional bowel conditions like gastroesophageal reflux or constipation. The approach to assessment and treatment of each person is unique. It has to be! Everyone is different! After a full health history and various lab tests there are general treatment objectives and questions I ask myself: Remove Are there foods that are causing dysfunction, are there bad belly bugs that are infecting the gut or altering its ability to detoxify environmental inputs? Replace Are there nutrients or factors missing required for proper digestion? Reinoculate What happy belly bugs need to be reintroduced to help digest food, crowd out the bad belly bugs and make nutrients essential for health? Repair Is the gut lining damaged, are there food particles getting through into the blood and exposed to the immune system? Rebalance What other factors are influencing digestive and overall health? Are… Read more >
Hi Erica, if I'm eating no yogurt, other than taking supplements, how can I ingest probiotics through normal food? Is it only in fermented foods like sauerkraut? During the elimination detox I didn't eat any fermented foods. Does that mean we can be healthy from a diet without probiotics? Good question! In my opinion we can be healthy without taking probiotics. The microflora (bugs found in probiotics!) that are good for our body are found in many types of food, but the best sources are fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, home made yoghurt, kefir, kombucha, etc. The little bugs live in our bellies, on our skin, in our noses and everywhere else. They are quite capable of keeping balanced and healthy in a robust body system. However, when our systems are out of balance or we are exposing ourselves to things that affect the health of our microflora (chlorine from our drinking water, air pollution, toxic metals in our bodies, nutrient poor foods and on and on) then they get killed off and other less friendly bugs can take their place which can create symptoms or disease. So: I see taking probiotics or having a healthy diet that includes fermented foods… Read more >