Green Health Spot

Preventing Joint Replacements in Your Future

Arthritis, injury and poor body alignment all contribute to excessive wear and tear on your joints and ligaments. If you are in regular and consistent pain during or after activity your body is warning you of joint stress and deterioriation. Visiting your chiropractor to realign you without addressing the underlying cause of loose ligaments or inflamed tendons leading to joint instability is only part of the answer. Many of you know of Prolotherapy and it's use for regenerating torn ligaments and deteriorating cartilage.  Now, research and innovative therapies are providing us with 3rd and 4th generation joint regenerative techniques that are worth considering now if you are dealing with continuous visits to the chiropractor and osteo or rheumatoid arthritis.

What therapies should you consider to repair your joints?

• Biopuncture injections: Joint injections of homeopathic substances that can assist the stabilization of the immune system so inflammation can be manage and the joint allowed to be healed is an excellent first step to consider. It's relatively painless, and in simple inflammatory conditions can repair things quickly and easily, often with only one or two injections.
• Prolozone: For active osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, torn meniscus, thinning cartilage, torn ligaments etc. A two part injection including a fluid aspect to bathe the area of treatment with the important vitamins, nutrients and homeopathics necessary to assist the joint repair. Followed by ozone injection, a gas,  into the joint as an oxygen donor.  Ozone injections to the back has been demonstrated to be more effective, and less invasive, than disc surgery for protruding discs. Slight recovery time of about 2 days, very little discomfort during and after injection.
• Platelet Rich Plasma: Fixes most osteoarthritis and joint degeneration in as little as one injection. for moderate to severe arthritis, pain, tendonitis, torn ligaments, torn meniscus, joint instability etc. Uses your own platelets to stimulate the healing process, often done following a series of Prolozone injections, especially for severe cases of degeneration or pain. Platelets can repair almost anything they get close to, which includes tired or lined skin. Check out our post on Vampire facials.
• Prolotherapy: The original joint repair using dextrose (a sugar) to stimulate the inflammatory process and to kick start repair of a joint. Innovative and often used in conjunction with PRP or Prolozone. Injections are relatively painless however, the few days following the procedure you will experience soreness in the area.

When you are finding yourself going regularly to the chiropractor to get repeated alignment and adjustments, consider joint and ligament regeneration treatments to improve the strength of your ligaments so realignment is not necessary. Your joints will thank you in the future. Who knows, you might be able to keep your own joints well into your 80's or 90's.

IV Vitamin & Mineral Therapy for Chronic Pain

Pain of any kind is the number one reason people visit their doctors. Chronic pain is debilitating and depressing. It affects your life, your outlook and your hope. Will the pain ever end?

No matter the cause, IV nutritional therapies might just be the answer for your chronic pain.  I treat patients with chronic pain on a daily basis and find that some people who are suffer from extensive inflammation or degeneration from rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia or other auto-immune problems there just aren't enough appointments available to treat all the varying painful problems some people suffer from. Sure, a knee, an elbow or a neck or shoulder are easy to treat by using other treatments that we have discussed previously such as neural prolotherapy or traditional prolotherapy or biopuncture.  Muscle spasms in your back, no problem. Nerve pain in your leg? No problem. Neural prolo or traditional prolo can take care of most issues. But what about those of you who are suffering from severely chronic and degenerative problems. Many are looking at back surgery, knee or hip replacement or are chronically debilitated with rheumatoid arthritis or multiple locations affected by osteo arthritis. Are you stuck with pain meds and narcotics that make your head fuzzy but don't take the pain completely away? Or are you finding that your pain medications are increasing over the months and years? How to break away and stop the pain and inflammation cycle in your body?

IV therapies might just be the ticket to your way out of the chronic pain trap.  IV therapies for chronic pain can provide just what your body needs to stop the pain cycle.  Many people with autoimmune disorders or fibromyalgia are not only suffering from the pain but they are also suffering from imbalanced hormones and nutrients.  Consequently, they have difficulty detoxifying, their tissues are very acidic which further compounds the problem.  If the detoxification process is overloaded the body's way of taking out the trash is slowed and hence the body becomes overwhelmed by it's own toxins which further exacerbates the pain and inflammations cycle.  What nutritional IV therapies do is start to give the body a break by rebalancing your cellular function so that the cell's ability to transport nutrients in and waste out of the cell is regained. Many varying vitamins are used for this function. MSM is a favorite of many who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia or chronic regional pain syndromes. Vitamin C for tissue repair, Taurine for rebalancing cell communication, B6 for nerve repair, b12 and folic acid, magnesium for the muscles, calcium for the cells, various amino acids for repairing the connective tissue and cartilage. 

Your unique body chemistry and condition is considered when your doctor makes up for you a pain relieving cocktail.  By no means is this a panacea, however, many stubborn pain cases have found that their pain is virtually eliminated. Of course, there are the quick fixes for migraines, headaches, hangovers and acute injuries but those who have suffered from 20 years of back pain or knee pain or hand or foot pain will find it's certainly worth your while to investigate further the use of nutritional IV therapies for your chronic pain condition.  The side benefit is usually that your brain becomes sharper and energy becomes stronger, so what are you waiting for? Check it out!

Natural Sciatica Recovery

The sciatic nerve is the largest nerve bundle in the body and it's impact goes from your lower back into your buttocks and down your legs to your feet. No wonder this large nerve has such a profound impact on your well-being and pain level. Many people develop sciatica out of the blue. After an airplane ride, a long car ride or just after many hours of sitting. The diagnosis of sciatica comes after irritation of one of the nerve roots from your lower spine or sacrum that join to make up the sciatic nerve. Commonly compression or inflammation of the sciatic nerve leads to pain, numbness, tingling, weakness, difficulty with walking or moving your leg.

How We Treat

• Biopuncture (micro dose homeopathic treatment)
• Neural Prolotherapy (Lyftgoft Technique)
• Traditional Prolotherapy (ligament/tendon/disc or joint stabilization & strengthening)
• Electro Myopulse Treatments
• Diet change and regulation
• Hormone Balance
• Nutrient Assimilation and balance (vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids)
• Detoxification (Heavy Metals, pH balance, liver, colon)
• Auriculotherapy (ear acupressure)
• NAET Allergy & Energy/Meridian balancing

Most causes of sciatica are a result of disc prolapse in one of the lumbar discs that protrudes and irritates the nerve root leading to the sciatic nerve. Sciatica is mostly one sided so your symptoms are rarely noticed on both sides of your body. Spinal stenosis or narrowing of the outlets through which the nerve roots pass is another common cause leading to nerve inflammation. Piriformis syndrome, cause by the sciatic nerve strangling the sciatic nerve is also a problematic cause of chronic sciatica.

Treatment of chronic sciatica includes treatment for the disc degeneration through the use of traditional prolotherapy, the use of neural prolotherapy to address the painful and tender points down the leg into the foot. Often irritation of the nerve follows the nerve distribution leading to tender spots down the leg. Biopuncture is often employed to reduce overall inflammation and to assist in rebuilding the disc if necessary. Usually only one or two treatments are sufficient to repair all pain and to get you back into a normal activity, no matter how long or how chronic the problem.

See too, our article on Low back pain.

What to Expect

• Elimination of pain in 1-3 treatments.
• Increased mobility & flexibility
• Reduction of swelling and tenderness
• Prevention of surgery in many cases of degenerative joint disease
• Drugless reduction of inflammation
• Improved sleep
• Back to normal activity within one week

 

Low Back Pain & Natural Treatment Options

via naturopathicoptions.com

Quick Recovery For Low Back Pain

At first glance many people who have been suffering for years with low back pain are skeptical about a quick recovery. But the truth is that we've often found that back arthritis or bulging discs rarely prevent us from recovering low back pain quickly. All pain is sensed through nerves and these nerves often repeatedly register pain and aching long after an injury has subsided. This has to do with the pain cascade and the various pain signals that can be stuck in the "on" position after an injury. Our treatments such as Biopuncture or Neural Prolotherapy or traditional prolotherapy deals specifically with the originating cause of the pain. Whether this is a disc cause or nerve pain/impingement or arthritis, the pain and flexibility can be repaired through the use of vitamins, minerals, herbs and homeopathics to address the inflammation, injury or continuous pain signals generated from the nervous system.

Many of our patient will go to their doctor with chronic back pain with little obvious cause on examination and radiologic findings. Conversely, some of our patients will have a MRI or CT scan that diagnoses severe disc degeneration only to have little or no pain at all. No matter how long you've been suffering from back pain, we have the answer....without surgery, drugs or degenerative steroid injections.

Some of our patients respond in just one treatments with others needing up to 6 treatments for permanent relief.

How We Treat

• Small, often painless, injections of vitamins, minerals or homeopathic preparation placed at the site of injury or trigger points along the body to dissolve the pain signals that trigger further inflammation, swelling and immune response.
• Change diet to an anti-inflammatory diet, removing food sensitivities and allergies.
• Nutritional support to reduce inflammation and assist in muscular repair.
• Detoxification to assist the body in eliminating the toxins built up in the muscles.
• Hormone rebalancing for adrenals, sex hormones and thyroid to optimize repair of the muscles, tendons, and ligaments.
• Sleep repair for those who are unable to get deep restful and regenerative sleep.

What to Expect

• Reduction of inflammation
• Reduction or elimination of Pain
• Increased healing
• Increased flexibility
• Increased strength
• Improved detoxification
• Improved immune reaction
• Improved sleep
• Improved energy

Other Pain Treatments

• Biopuncture (micro dose homeopathic treatment)
• Neural Prolotherapy (Lyftgoft Technique)
• Traditional Prolotherapy (ligament/tendon/disc or joint stabilization & strengthening)
• Electro Myopulse Treatments
• Diet change and regulation
• Hormone Balance
• Nutrient Assimilation and balance (vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids)
• Detoxification (Heavy Metals, pH balance, liver, colon)
• Auriculotherapy (ear acupressure)
• NAET Allergy & Energy/Meridian balancing

  

 

How to Avoid Surgery for Chronic Pain

 

For many people knee or hip replacement, chronic pain, back surgery, joint degeration, torn ligaments, strained or sprained tendons might all be a thing of the past. In this video I discuss some techniques such as traditional prolotherapy, neural prolotherapy and Biopuncture to repair joints, tendons and ligaments.  These therapies can provide increased stability and decreasing excessive wear on your joints and cartilage thus eliminating the need for minor or major surgery.  These options provide an alternative to cortisone injections that can lead to further deterioration to the integrity of a joint.  If you are considering surgery or experiencing chronic pain from arthritis, neuromas, bunions, tendonitis, bursitis, nerve or muscular pain, you owe it to investigate your non-surgical, non-medication related options.  Know the pros and cons of your options before settling on a treatment strategy.  Naturopathic medicine has many powerful options that many people are not familiar with so learn and listen to your choices. It may just get you up and running in no time. Good luck.

Video on Natural Pain Management Therapies

 

This video describes some of the interesting and innovative natural pain techniques available to you.  Dr. Wang describes the use of Biopuncture, Neural Prolotherapy, and Traditional Prolotherapy and how they can be used to help successfully treat chronic nerve, muscle and joint pain.  Each therapy have unique and synergistic actions to help your body repair faster and provides a break in the cycle of pain which can permanently stop the continuing pain.  Pain separates us from who really are, it keeps us from being the happy, vibrant, joyous and active individuals that we are. Share this video with friends or family in need of support to be free of pain.  It's possible and there is hope.

Neural Prolotherapy--A Miraculous Cure for Pain

I believe in miracles, always have. But sometimes it's tough when I see so much pain and suffering in my day to day practice to continue to believe in these miracles that sometimes seem elusive.  In my practice treating pain has just been part of what I do.  Almost everyone has pain and there are many things one can do to change diet and take supplements to reduce inflammation and pain.  However, there are few treatment modalities that I've come across that are so absolutely stunningly wonderful for pain treatment. 

Neural Prolotherapy or the Lyftogt Technique is one such miraculous treatment.  I first came across the concept of NPT a few months ago and ultimately the doctors who have been doing this innovative new technique the longest can claim about 4 years of experience.  It's a new concept and stunningly simple in implementation and far reaching in it's impact. Years of chronic pain will melt away almost immediately.  NPT uses a weak dextrose solution in sterile water to address a pain neuropeptide called TRPV1 which triggers the release of other pain and inflammatory peptides that lead to what we all experience as pain. 

Neural Prolotherapy addresses the peripheral nerves, these are nerves close to the surface of the skin that are often an overlooked cause of pain. A thin injection needle is used to deliver the 5% dextrose in sterile water along the course of the superficial nerves leading to complete freedom of pain in that area immediately after injection.  NPT relies on identifying and injecting areas known as CCI's or Chronic Constriction Injuries that are affecting the nerve's health and stimulation of pain.  The treatment procedure is complete when the patient is completely pain free.  The simplicity of the technique and the immediacy of the relief makes some people suspect to how long such a seemingly simple technique can last. Across the board, when the superficial nerves are being treated, the pain goes away immediately when the correct nerve is addressed.  How long the effects last depends on the underlying tissue and nerve constrictions and how quickly the constrictions can be repaired by the dextrose.  On average it takes 6 treatments for a cure.

One 57 year old man that I had treated 3 weeks ago with the NPT technique has had his 30+ year old mid-thoracic pain be completely eradicated in minutes without any return yet of discomfort. He had disc degeneration issues that caused the back pain but the neural  prolotherapy relieved the pain and allowed for completely normal activity immediately. 

Before and after range of motion improvements are evident immediately.  From frozen shoulders, sciatica, lower back pain, achilles tendonosis, to carpal tunnel and stiff necks, NPT is an exciting and extremely viable treatment for acute and chronic pain relief without the use of medications or cortisone injections. As more and more doctors are trained in the technique of Neural Prolotherapy we will all see how quickly pain management steers away from addictive and ineffective drug or surgical approaches to simple and curative treatments that address the underlying cause of the pain. For more information or a treatment, read more here.

Inflammation...Your Worst Enemy (and What to do About it)

On your road to optimal health, you will encounter a major hurdle whose name is Inflammation.  Inflammation has been known to play a role in heart attacks, cancers, arthritis, allergies etc.  But you might not know that it also plays a role in diabetes, ADD/ADHD, OCD, Alzheimer's disease, anxiety, autism, tendonitis, obesity, auto-immune disorders, migraines etc.  In general, inflammation is a reaction where your immune system participates in trying to maintain balance in your body in the presence of injury, poor diet, toxic exposure, viral or bacterial infections, parasites and other things we all do to our bodies on a daily or yearly basis.  If you are having trouble losing weight and are considering having your stomach stapled so you are relegated to a Dixie cup sized portion of food.  Or if you are battling repeated injuries that don't seem to heal, or have memory loss take heed now.  Managing the inflammation in your body will go a long way to helping you lose excess weight, help your brain perform optimally and your body be painfree.  Inflammation is the major reason why statin drugs used for lower cholesterol don't actually increase life span or significantly affect risk of heart attacks or stroke.  Inflammation is kind of a nebulous term that can be used to characterize almost anything related to health. The most important thing that you need to know regarding inflammation is that your for sure have it and how to reduce it's negative effects.  Local inflammation in response to an injury or activity is temporary and normal.  However, chronic inflammation is a huge challenge given the toxic and fast-food world in which we live. 

It is chronic inflammation that I am going to help you start to manage.  Let's answer the two major questions that you might be asking.  First, do I have it? The answer is almost always yes.  Chronic inflammation is silent and in the long run deadly.  If you have any chronic disease such as asthma, allergies, eczema, migraines, arthritis, thyroid dysfunction, hormonal imbalances, ADD/ADHD, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, trouble losing weight, acne, chronic infections, yeast infections, parasites, Irritable bowel syndrome etc. You can for sure check that box for chronic inflammation.

The second question is what to do about chronic inflammation.  I'll give you my top five recommendations that I give to my patients. 

1. Diet: Know your food sensitivities and allergies and AVOID all of them.  I've spoken about food sensitivities before and there is much that you can do to keep your diet from adding too much to the chronic inflammation problem. If you have one of the above listed problems or have been diagnosed with a chronic illness find out what your food sensitivities are and avoid them or get treated for them so they do not continue to produce inflammation in your system.
2. Toxicity: Air pollution, water and food contamination all contribute to chemicals that your body needs to eliminate or seqester.  Know what your heavy metal load is, a heavy metal urine test is imperative for this, a blood test in insufficient to identify stored heavy metals. Eat organic, especially the fruits and vegetables that are most toxic.  Use a reverse osmosis filter on your water or buy bottled water that has been reverse osmosis'ed.  Be careful what you put on your skin and use the Environmental Working Group's Cosmetic Safety database to check toxicity for common household products.
3. Supplements: My 3 musts do supplements are a high quality probiotic remembering that not all probiotics are created equal, a CLEAN fish oil high in EPA and DHA, my favorite is Super EFA from Genestra and finally Mito Life from Mitogenx. 
4. Biopuncture: For those with moderate to severe chronic inflammation going on, Biopuncture to the local area and systemic approaches to inflammation are extremely helpful.  Biopuncture is the use of ultra low dose injections of herbs and minerals to assist the body in modulation of inflammation.  I can't overstate the efficacy of this therapy to improve the overall status of inflammation in the body. 
5. NAET Acupressure treatments: To modulate inflammation, allergies, balance organs and enhance absorption of nutrients. This technique seems quite unbelievable in it's simplicity but suffice it to say, that I've used this technique for years to successfully assist in detoxification and support the body's health.

If you need more tips on how to modulate inflammation and to bring your chronic inflammation levels down, give our office a call and schedule an appointment for further testing and treatments. In the meantime, stay healthy during the winter months.

Winter is Coming, are you Prepared?

It seems quite early in the season for me to be seeing so much contageous illness. The weather is still intermittenly warm in the Bay Area and although we have gotten some uncharacteristically early rain the weather in between the rain is still ranging from between the mid 70's to mid 80's. 

That having been said, I'm getting  a lot of reports of my patients getting sick early this season with upper respiratory infections, pneumonias and the common cold.  Up at UC Berkeley there has been a Mumps outbreak which is quite unusual, as many as 44 college students up there have contracted the painful and debilitating virus.  I remember when I caught the mumps when I was a kid and to this day, I can't think of any infection that was as painful and miserable as having the mumps. 

Since there was so much cause for concern locally for infections of viruses and bacteria I thought I would take the time to review some good ideas to keep you healthy for the winter...or at the very least to minimize the time you are sick.  Here are my major pointers:

1) Wash your hands and avoid contact with people who are sick.  I can't emphasize enough the importance of hand washing with warm water and soap in the prevention of infections. I'm not a huge fan of regular use of antibacterial hand wipes because I think they breed antibiotic resistance but if you are in contact with someone sick, it is a very good idea.

2) Minimize sugar intake (and alcohol).  Avoid eating sweets, drinking juice and alcohol when you feel you are fighting something and for sure when you are sick.  Desserts, fruit juices (including orange juice) and alcohol lower your resistance and are food for the bacteria and viruses allowing them to overtake your system and pretty soon you have a major cold or infection.

3) Vaccine alternatives, many people catch the flu from vaccinations so in my office we do vaccine alternatives.  I use NAET treatments, an effective acupressure treatment that helps strengthen your system to a particular virus or bacteria.  I use the NAET treatments instead of flu vaccines every year and by doing this my patients who have had the NAET treatments for flu fare better and almost never get the flu. This also works for Mumps, Measles, Chickenpox, herpes, shingles etc. The treatment is painless and needle free.

4) Follow my cold flu protocol.  Amended for this upcoming year, to strengthen your immunity to fight off what your immune system is facing. The cold/flu protocol was initially written when the H1N1 Swine flu reared it's ugly head a couple of years ago.  I've sinced perfected the protocol and if you follow it you will feel much better quickly or prevent the cold/flu altogether.  This works regardless of swine flu, influenza, bacterial or viral infections.  For prevention of stomach bugs and stomach flues stay tunes for the stomach flu prevention protocol recently developed due to the recent prevanence of Listeriosis infections in canteloupes this September.

Obviously get rest and don't exercise if you are coming down with something and minimize contact with places that are breeding grounds for infections if you can help it.  Stay healthy this season and call my office if you get sick and need extra help fighting it.    

Aches and Pains Be Gone!

Arthritis, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, headaches, migraines, tendonitis, irritable bowel syndrome and much more are often significantly relieved by an antiinflammatory diet.  However, what is considered an antiinflammatory diet depends on the person's sensitivity or allergies to foods.  Many people try gluten free diets or casein free diets or diets free of red meat etc only to find limited relief of their pains and discomforts.  Enter in food sensitivity testing and finding the absolutely perfect diet for your body.  I've been doing food sensitivity testing for over a decade and the only one thing that I can assure my patients is that there are no two results that are the same. 

Many people chock up their aches and pains to aging symptoms or degenerative symptoms and those might be two key factors but the aches and pains are always amplified by inflammation caused by incorrect diet.  Also degeneration of joints or aggravation of a repetitive stress injury is also accelerated by a pro-inflammatory diet.  Diet, for the most part, is an easily controllable method of moderating  inflammation from a root cause perspective.  Unfortunately, many people who have many of the chronic pain problems listed above end up finding out that there are many common foods which they currently enjoy that are contributing to their ails. 

Food sensitivity testing is not food allergy testing. It is a test that checks a different portion of your immune system and whether or not immune reactions exist separate from an allergy which is an immediate hypersensitivity reaciton.  Food sensitivities are delayed hypersensitivity reactions, often delayed 2-72 hours after consuming a food to which your body is sensitive.  These foods are often commonly eaten foods which then brings about an inflammatory reaction in the body contributing to aches, pains, headaches, brain fog, digestive disturbances, skin allergies, acne and other problems.  Because the reactions are not as obvious as an allergy, where symptoms often show themselves within 20 minutes, a person has difficulty isolating the offending food or foods.  Often there are a series of foods that provide a slight bit of inflammation adding up to much inflammation if eaten together during a day.  Yeast, corn, wheat, oats, almonds, cranberries, beans, eggs, tomatoes, lettuce, rice, soy are all possible offenders.  Few people ever consider a cranberry, almond or lettuce a pro-inflammatory food but for some people this is true. 

Fortunately, after testing, one can easily avoid the foods and for foods that are hard to avoid or all-present in a diet can be treated for and desensitized by using NAET, an acupressure technique that helps to rebalance the body to a food that initially caused inflammation and sensitivity.  Once treated by NAET, a person can often resume the consumption of the food with no further problems.  If you are dealing with chronic pain and discomfort consider getting a food sensitivity test from your doctor and follow the results by eliminating them from your diet.  In two weeks you should feel incredibly better.  A word of caution is that this test is not an easy one to do for labs and most labs have poor reliability and reproducibility.  My favorite lab is Immunolabs in Florida because I've had the most reliable and consistent results from them.  Once on your new diet you'll find yourself much more comfortable, energetic and invigorated. A giant step toward your healing.

More about Pain Management: Biopuncture

How Anyone can Feel Great: Managing Toxicity and Inflammation

The greatest underlying issue I have to deal in my patients everyday is the problem with toxicity and inflammation.  Accumulated toxicity and how to improve the body's functioning by reducing toxic load and allowing the body to return to optimum health is essential to healing.  Toxins is an over-used term but by far the most appropriate for what the body is dealing with on a day to day basis, especially in those who are sick.  So what kind of chronic illnesses are we talking about? And what kind of toxins are we dealing with? Chronic illness is by definition an illness that you have been battling with for over 3 months or one that has no foreseeable cure.  Good examples are chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, autism, autoimmune disorders, high blood pressure, diabetes, allergies or chemical sensitivities.  Toxins are defined as a food, chemical, bacteria, yeast or virus that disturbs the body's normal functioning and health.  Toxins can be such things as allergens, foods that they body is sensitive to, a chemical like a solvent, a pesticide or a hormone disruptor.  These toxins cause oxidative stress or damage directly to the cell's DNA or mitochondria and thereby inhibit the normal function of the cell.

Many people who suffer from chronic illness are often overwhelmed with toxins so much so that the body's ability to recover from the chonic pain or fatigue is compromised.  My job is to help my patients identify and "detoxify" these toxins from the body, reducing the overall load of toxins that a body needs to deal with on a day to day basis so that inflammation can reduce and the healing can truly begin.  The term "detoxify" is again an overused and vague term that I define as reducing the overall load of toxins in the patient so that the body's own natural ability to heal can work.  Not all "toxins" are toxic to every body, many foods can be considered toxins to some or many but not everyone.  An example is gluten, a protein found in many grains including wheat, oats and rye.  Some people have bodies that are intolerant to gluten leading to the body considering gluten containing foods as toxic.

Major avenues of detoxification in the body are the liver, colon, kidney and lymph.  Minor ones are lungs and skin.  I treat many, many patients with chronic illness from unknown origins and we take profound steps toward stimulating the major pathways of detoxification to start working better.  I do this by removing the things that cause the most toxicity in the body including food sensitivities, heavy metals, yeast, viruses, allergens etc. and use high antioxidants to help support cellular function and antidote the high oxidative stress in the body.  I use homeopathic remedies to keep main avenues of elimination open and biopuncture to support liver and kidney pathways, especially.  By maintaining an open elimination pathways, the person starts to feel relief from their symptoms as their overall toxic load starts to reduce so inflammation can subside and healing can begin.  Surprisingly, this doesn't really take that long.  Most people start to feel relief and see changes in their laboratory information in a few weeks.  I cannot exphasize enough the importance of detoxification in chronic illness.  Knowing what to detoxify is the tricky part.  Is the toxin fat soluable? Is it water soluable? Is it a heavy metal that needs to be chelated? Will detoxification be helped by pH changes or changes in electrostatic charges in the body tissue? If you are working with a doctor in helping your chronic illness heal, keep a few ideas in mind. 

Some people have very high toxic loads and have overwhelmed elimination pathways.  Initial detoxification is imperative and must be done slowly to prevent overwhelming the body with toxins and worsening the situation.  Unclogging the "drain" is not an easy task for some people and the "drain" in this case is your capacity to detoxify.  Once your drain in unclogged, then the detoxification part is much easier and has few side effects.  Many people subscribe to the belief that detox symptoms need to be tolerated and waited out.  Like Herkheimer reactions or die off reactions, many doctors think this is normal but it is evidence that your detoxification pathways are overwhelmed.  Pushing through the detox reactions is like ramming a large thing through a small hole.  The best (and most comfortable) way of doing this is to first make the hole bigger then pushing through what needs to be pushed through.  Brain fog, nausea, joint pain, headaches, muscle aches, diarrhea are all signs of reduced detoxification capacity and the need for ensuring focusing on helping the detox pathways before one starts to detoxify. 

The body has an impressive ability to heal, just given the correct healing environment.  When choosing your doctor, make sure you understand that addressing the underlying cause of your illness may take a bit of time.  I usually can overcome most detox problems in about 2 months and then helping the body heal becomes much easier.  Finding a doctor who can fully understand your chronic illness and who can help you address the detoxification problems associated with the healing of your illness is essential.

Kick Start Your Weight Loss

At the risk of sounding faddish we are introducing Lipotropic weight loss injections at the office this week.  I've been really frustrated with people ruining their health by taking prescriptive drugs to lose a few pounds.  Weight loss is important for those who are not blessed with the skinny gene and who have been caught between lack of exercise, fatigue, kids and a sedentary job.  We've been working hard to put together a reasonable and healthy weight loss program that is sustainable yet flexible for anyone who needs to lose anywhere between 10 to 100 pounds. 

Our program is monitored for safety and encouragement, balanced for diet, exercise and hormones.  Added to this we bring Lipotropic weight loss injections to assist in the fat loss and maintaining energy and muscle.  The mixture of amino acids and vitamins in the injections are designed to improve metabolism and mobilize fat cell breakdown.  I couple these lipotropic injections with injections to assist the body's detoxification from weight loss.  Lack of detox assistance leads to a build up of toxins around the cells which can lead to inefficient metabolism or water retention.  Fat cells are a favored repository for fat-soluable chemicals or other toxin storage, including (but not limited to) things such as pesticides, solvents, drug metabolites, and formaldehyde.  Many people feel lethargic and tired as they are losing weight partially due to this breakdown of the fat cells and being re-intoxicated with chemicals that the body hoped to keep out of circulation. With the biopuncture for detox injections this maintains lymphatic drainage and assists in liver and kidney support during detoxification.

Successful weight loss programs assist your body in maintaining good blood sugar balance and regulation of stress and thyroid hormone production.  Many people nowadays need that extra boost of support to get the body's metabolism moving.  If you or a friend are interested in turbo-boosting your weight loss, check out our website regarding the lipotropic and detox injections or call our office for an appointment.

Chronic Fatigue and Environmental Toxicity

Need more energy? I treat chronic fatigue on a daily basis and it's easy to miss the most important cause of chronic fatigue and that is environmental toxicity.  Toxicity and its relationship to chronic fatigue is a complex subject but essential to understand that there is a very real relationship between fatigue and chronic environmental exposure. Toxicity can be associated with our day to day exposure and there are many factors that affect people who have chronic toxic overload. These factors include toxic exposure in work, hobbies, and home. 

Common sources of work exposure include chemicals, solvents, printer toner, computer circuitry, manufacturing and agricultural.  In the typical office environment, stress, new carpeting, new paint, office furniture, building materials, reduced ventilation and offices that lack windows that open to the outside all contribute to toxic accumulation in the body. In the home, renovations, mold, toxic cleaning agents, lead paint, carpeting, water contamination, pesticide or herbicide usage, pets that have flea and tick treatments, skin care products, hair care products, hair coloring products, asbestos, chemical sprays or air fresheners are all sources of toxicity in the home.  Hobbies are often a place where people are exposed to toxins without realizing the detriment to their health. This includes oil painting or painting of any kind with cadmium containing colors, automotive work, especially brake work, stained glass, smoking, golfing (due to pesticides), target shooting, camping and the use of bug spray, gardening and herbicides and non-organic pesticides all contribute to our day to day load of chemical accumulation in the body.

As long as our bodies are not overly stressed and with a good genetic gene pool we generally can do well to detoxify our bodies and recover from our toxic exposures easily and without much difficulty. The problem with chronic fatigue is that our cells and the mitochondria within them are being over run with toxins which then suppress the cells and their power supply, the mitochondria to do their normal activity. With the mitrochondrial function suppressed many people feel lethargic, fatigued and often find themselves gaining weight. They end up developing thyroid problems, adrenal problems and are diagnosed with anxiety or depression. People then are prone to catching infections and  have difficulty fighting off viruses and bacterial problems. They can be prone to developing yeast infections and allergies all which further indicate that their systems are unable to deal with the toxic load.  People who live in agricultural areas or who have toxic water supplies coupled with stressful lives are all susceptible to chronic fatigue.  Sometimes the chronic fatigue is insidious and difficult to pinpoint exactly when one develops the fatigue and sometimes it is a result of an infection or injury or working too many long hours that takes it’s toll on one’s body.  Regardless of cause, the resolution starts with becoming aware of chemical toxins in your food, water and environments of work, play and home.  Improving ventilation, eliminating as many toxic foods and chemicals out of your life is the first step toward health. I like the environmental working group’s website call the cosmetics database, originally started to help us identify toxins in our skin and hair care products but has expanded to most home care products including detergents, soaps, sunscreen etc.  Check our your product’s toxicity level at the Cosmetics Database.

The second step in recovering from fatigue is to help reduce your body’s load of toxins.  There are many ways to do this but the most useful is utilizing a detox protocol that I use in my work with Mitogenx as their Chief Science Officer. This protocol is safe and effective for adults of all ages and health conditions with little to no side effects.  The products were designed by Dr. Walter Crinnion who is an expert in treating environmental illnesses.  The protocol is as follows:

• MitoLife at one ounce twice daily to improve mitochondrial function, reduce allergies and improve immune system response.
• Amino ICG: 1 scoop twice daily to improve glutathione production to assist your body in detoxification and anti-oxidants to reduce the effects of the toxins.
• Freedom Formula: 2 capsules, 3 times daily: for reducing the production of stress hormones and improving regenerative sleep.  Stress hormones affect the pH of our body’s tissues making it much more difficult for us to detoxify in the presence of stress hormones.
• Clear and Restore: 4 capsules at bedtime with 8 ounces of water. Especially important if you are constipated or irregular but very important if you have toxic overload in helping the body bind and eliminate fat soluble toxins that the liver is excreting.
• Extra credit: Primary Toxin Shield: 2, capsules, 3 times daily A terrific multiple vitamin with extra detox support in a form that your digestive system can easily absorb and utilize.  Great for day to day support and as a part of a comprehensive plan for detoxification.
• Extra credit: R-defense: An extra boost of anti-oxidants to assist the body in its repairing process. 1, 3 times daily is optimal, especially if you are dealing with a serious chronic illness or need extra support in dealing with toxins.

As we all become more aware of the toxicity that we are battling on a day to day basis, it’s no wonder that many of us are dealing with chronic fatigue and the effects of life’s toxicity weighing us down. For those with chronic fatigue, this gentle detox process should be continued for 3-6 months.  In my practice, I usually combine a process called cellular drainage to enhance the detox process and test people for heavy metal toxicity which needs to be dealt with separately with a version of the above treatment plan.  If you want to get started on a detox protocol of your own, give my office a call, I find that many of us can get back into our routines now adjusted for toxic exposure so that we can live a full and vibrant life without the burden of fatigue.

A New Look At Natural Pain Management

I have been so excited lately about running across a new pain management approach pioneered by some innovative European doctors from Belgium and Germany as a natural way of healing pain. Not only do these remedies address symptomatic pain but it also helps to stimulate the body's own healing process by helping support detoxification pathways and healing damaged tissue.  Biopuncture combines the use of naturally derived homeopathic remedies with acupressure points to manage pain and reverse inflammation. This can work for a diverse group of problems originating from acute & chronic pain due to injuries or repetitive stress for issues ranging from tennis elbow, peripheral neuropathy, and migraines to degenerative issues like disc compression in the back. Injections can be placed in local areas of injury or inflammation or in acupressure points associated with the area of interest. 

Recently, Dr. Oz did a show on biopuncture and interviewed some doctors on the subject. I've included the videos here.  If you are experiencing pain and are interested in the treatments, give our office a call and set up an appointment soon.  We are in Palo Alto or Walnut Creek at 650-327-2053.

This new treatment combines homeopathic remedies with the principles of acupuncture. Some say it can cure any type of pain, but is it safe? Hear from...

Part 2 of Dr. Oz' video

Stop Migraines in Their Tracks

The pain from migraines can be horrendous and so little in conventional medicine addresses the underlying cause of migraines. I've treated migraines for years and am surprised that millions of migraine sufferers haven't sought alternative care for migraine resolution. There are many triggers for migraines such as hormones, PMS, foods like chocolate, MSG and aspartame.  Often migraine sufferers start to find that their world gets smaller and smaller as the number of foods that trigger their migraines grows. So the journey to find relief from the pain and backlash of a migraine brings us to addressing some of the underlying causes of migraines. Today, I'll share with you how I treat migraines and how migraine sufferers should know that the pain they are experiencing is unnecessary once the underlying causes are addressed and the body if brought back into balance.

Migraine relief is found in 3 distinct goals:

1) Appropriate Diet

2) Detoxifying the body

3) Reducing Inflammation.

The diet is relatively easy to figure out since we run a comprehensive and extremely accurate food sensitivity test that identifies the foods that the migraine sufferer needs to avoid. Usually avoidance starts with a 2 week strict adherance to the dietary plan coupled with NAET allergy elimation treatments so that some food favorites can be added back to the diet without triggering more inflammation or headaches.  How long you will be off a particular food or group of foods depends on how well a NAET treatment can desensitize you from the food. It usually takes anywhere from 1-4 treatments per food but generally 1-2 can do it. NAET is an easy and painless acupressure technique that rebalanced your body while being exposed to an allergen and after a 25 hour avoidance of the food that you were treated for, most of the time returning to the food will result in an allergy-free experience. In some cases it may take more than one treatment but generally speaking this is quite an amazing technique.

Detoxification is done through the use of homeopathic remedies and antioxidants to assist the body in getting rid of chemicals, excess hormones and other toxins that need to be eliminated and strengthening the avenues of elimination so that in the future toxicity doesn't build up in the body again. This focus is generally on the liver, kidneys and colon with particular care to ensure that the digestive system is functioning well.

Finally, Inflammation needs to be addressed simultaneously for which I use a combination of electromyopulse treatments to repair spasming tissue, biopuncture injections with homeopathic remedies that brings down both local and systemic inflammation and auriculotherapy, a set of acupressure points applied to the ear used for reflexology and healing varying body areas of inflammation. Muscle spasms eventually will be a thing of the past as well as the neck tightness associated with the tension found in migraine sufferers.

Once all 3 of these plates are up and spinning the migraine sufferer is usually free of pain on a daily basis with fewer and fewer flare-ups decreasing in frequency, intensity and duration.  Hope these guidelines help you better understand how migraines should be a thing of your past.

Not Celiac Disease But Still Gluten Sensitive

So you all know I treat a lot of patients with autism, allergies and irritable bowel syndrome (among other things). Many of you may also have had our famous food sensitivity test done to assess sensitivity toward various foods, including gluten and gluten containing foods. Today on the Wall Street Journal, we are reading what mainstream medicine is now starting to observe to be true and that is that one can have a sensitivity to gluten and gluten containing grains but not have Celiac disease? Of course this may be old news to all of you savvy readers and patients who have been hearing me talk and lecture about food sensitivities for years.

Diet is an incredibly important aspect of health and healing and the correct diet is imperative for reversing any chronic illness.  Many people come to see me and tell me how healthy their diet is but they still feel awful and have a seemingly difficult to treat diagnosis. The number one thing I do in my practice is to assess for food sensitivities. Let's be clear, these are not food ALLERGIES which are an immediate hypersensitivity reaction but food sensitivities are delayed reactions. Delayed hypersensitivities can take 2 to 72 hours to come on and are never acute or immediately severe like allergies can be. We usually all know if we have been exposed to a food or environmental allergen that causes an allergy because almost immediately (or within 20 minutes) we are experiencing typical allergic symptoms like a stuffy nose, runny or puffy eyes, throat constriction, asthma or breathing difficulties etc.  But food sensitivities are more stealth than the average allergy and you could be consuming a food you are sensitive to and it could be causing you to be miserable.  Many find after testing for food sensitivities that their "healthy" diet was not necessarily "healthy" for them.

This is especially true for people with arthritis, diabetes (especially type 2 but type 1 as well), high blood pressure, asthma, eczema, headaches or migraines, obesity, chronic fatigue and ANY irritable or inflammatory bowel disease including IBS, IBD, ulcerative colitis, chrons disease, diarrhea, constipation or celiac disease.  Also in this list would be thyroid issues, especially hypothyroid, and any and all autoimmune disorders like Grave's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, mixed connective tissue disorders, and Srojgren's disorder.  Gluten is a protein in many grains like wheat, oats, rye and barley.  More and more people are finding themselves unable to tolerate gluten containing foods but when their doctor does a test for celiac's disease, they come up negative.

Finally, the conventional medicine population is finding out that gluten sensitivity is possible without the markers for Celiac disease to be present. I'll go further and say that in my years of practicing I've found that it is possible for a person to be sensitive to wheat or oats and not be sensitive to gluten or have Celiac disease. In fact, it is possible to have a sensitivity to just about anything you consume if your body has a problem with it, your body will start to react to it. Just like when you have an allergy to a food or environmental contaminant such as dust mites, mosquitoes, bees, pollen, carrots, strawberries, peanuts etc, anything is possible.

So if you are finding that your health has been suffering in the past few years and you are dealing with a chronic illness, give a call to your naturopathic doctor so that they can find out for you what your food sensitivities are. Incidentally, you'll find that most of the listed illnesses or diseases listed above are all wholly or partially reversible by being on the correct diet for YOU.  Also, check out NAET and how a simple allergy elimination technique which includes an acupressure (no needles) process to re-balance your body to a food sensitivity or allergen so that you no longer react to the food once consuming it.  I've found that NAET is a reliable, easy and painless way of desensitizing people from foods or allergens that make them sick. 

Oh, one last thing about food sensitivity testing, it is not easy to do and I've only ever used one lab called Immunolabs in Florida. Not all food sensitivity tests are created equal, I've historically relied on other lab's tests only to find out that there are a lot of false negatives or unreliable results on retesting. So save yourself some grief and make sure you find a lab that knows how to do a good reliable test or call ImmunoLabs and find a doctor near you who can do the testing for you. (No, I don't work for them and they don't pay me to say this stuff, it's just been my experience). Good luck and let me know how you feel after a couple weeks off the foods you are sensitive to. To YOUR future health!

For further reading, check out my article about the autism diet and why avoiding gluten and casein just isn't enough.

Vaccine Backlash, Are Our Children Acting as Test Subjects?

As many of you know, I've been very cautious about the 2009-2010 Swine Flu epidemic and the over-hyped need to get vaccinated for the "Pandemic" that never happened. I'm really disheartened to hear that latent effects attributed to the Swine Flu Vaccine in Finland and Sweden are starting to surface. Narcolepsy, a debilitating and severe illness, has increased 9 fold in children vaccinated with the Pandemrix swine flu vaccine administered to children between the ages of 4 and 19.  

My caution is to parents who have children, especially children who are particularly susceptible to their environment.  This includes children who are allergic, have asthma, eczema or digestive disorders or children who have tics, ADD/ADHD or developmental or autistic symptoms.  These are often the types of children I treat in my practice and I can tell you under no uncertain terms that these children are more sensitive than the average child.  If your child tends to be the one reactive to foods, food coloring, preservatives or just is dispositionally difficult or defiant, you should really pause before considering vaccinating them with, in the swine flu example, a particularly understudied vaccine with no previous history of safety or long term effect.  

When your doctor recommends a vaccine, it is up to you as your child's advocate to say yes or no based on what you know of your child. No one else can do this except for you. Keep in mind that doctors who recommend a "safe" vaccine for the good of your child does not know your child's particularities and uniquenesses like you do.  Swine flu was not a particularly deadly flu, as flu's go it was known to be much less deadly as the normal influenza that circulates every winter.  It was, however, inconvenient and very transmissible.  Enter, the swine flu vaccine. Safe enough to pass FDA standards of not killing anyone or giving them obvious illness shortly after administration, but clearly not well tested. Between the time that the swine flu was first identified and a vaccine made and put to market, there was a lag of about 6 months.

Not at all a long enough time to test for long term effects of the vaccine. In the case of the Pandemrix and narcolepsy it took 2 to 10 weeks for symptoms to show up.  Since percentage-wise the number of children who developed narcolepsy was small this may have taken a bit of time for doctors to do a double take and ask they question of "why?"  I know vaccines are touchy subjects, especially in the medical community where they are revered like the second coming but vaccines are not for everyone. In my treatment of autistic children, the rule is "NO!" vaccines and no antibiotics unless what I give them fails. Children (or adults) are not all the same so the same vaccine should not be given to all children or adults unless it is clearly warranted and the likelihood of developing a regrettable disease complication is remote.  

This chapter on side effects of the swine flu vaccine is not yet finished. It may take awhile to identify what long term effects show up but the take home lesson here is that you as the parent is in the best position and most qualified to know if your child is likely going to have a problem with a new or untested treatment. My rule of thumb when it comes to medicine is opposite of what I choose for electronics. When it comes to the newest and latest electronic gadget, I'm the first in line for one but when it comes to a new drug or vaccine, you can count me out unless it has a LONG history of safety.

More information on Dr. Wang's cold/flu prevention protocol.

Flu Vaccines: Are there Alternatives?

This is one of the most frequent questions I have been getting lately. It's so easy to get a flu vaccine nowadays, and then have a sense of invincibility when flu season kicks up into high gear. I however am writing this to give you pause about what seems to be a no-brainer decision to get yourself and your kids vaccinated this year. Obviously if you have an egg allergy the decision is made for you because the vaccine's contents have been grown on an egg culture and are a no-no for those of you who have allergies. But what about the rest of us? Isn't it better to just get the shot and be protected?

Well, first, the shot does not guarantee your immunity. It may take down the severity of the flu but will unlikely give you a free pass for the season. Also, with a good immune system (and we're all about prevention here), your susceptibility to the flu and colds too for that matter are greatly reduced.  Last year around this time we discussed some long term concerns about flu vaccinations and the introduction of new flu strains into the world. Those who have had long term and consistent flu shots tend to fare very poorly with a new flu species is introduced into the population because there is very little cross-immunity that has developed in your immune system. For those of you who are interested in more of the details, check out my article on the Dark Side of the Flu Vaccine. The flu vaccine, unfortunately still contains some dreaded things like Thimerosol, made with mercury as a preservative.

So what are the alternatives to the flu vaccine? Well for those of you who are fortunate enough to be reading this, there is actually a lot you can do to strengthen your immune system for the year. One main thing that is helpful is to come in and get the acupressure NAET treatment to strengthen your immunity to the 2010 flu itself. As many of you have experienced, NAET is a painless and simple acupressure technique to desensitize you to food allergies and environmental allergies. So too, can this technique prevent the dreaded influenza and H1N1 strains of the flu.  We instituted these treatments last year during the H1N1 swine flu pandemic and are making these treatments available to adults and children alike this year. For more information, check our last years post on the subject. Incidentally, no one who was treated last year with NAET for flu prevention got the flu. Pretty cool, huh?

Finally, there is the ever important Cold/Flu protocol list. We've had this on our website for almost 2 years now and it works like a charm. Keep these supplements on hand at home and use as directed if and when you have caught a cold or the flu. It shortens duration and severity of the flu. Of course, following the practical aspects of personal hygeine always helps you stay healthy as we round the corner toward the holidays. Good luck during the season and I hope to see all of you in for your NAET flu treatments.

Deep Breathing Exercises

 In preparation for our 2 week summer detox program, I thought I would describe to you how to do circular deep breathing exercises. You should do 20 full circles of breathing, twice daily. This will assist with both stress reduction as well as helping with lung detoxification.

1. Inhale deeply and slowly until your lungs are full
2. Hold your breath for a count of 5
3. Exhale steadily and at the same rate as the slow inhale until as much air as possible is out of your lungs.
4. Hold your breath for a count of 5
5. Inhale deeply and slowly again, repeat for a count of 20 full circles.

A word of advice. Many people breathe very shallowly without knowing it.  Holding your breath without fully expanding your lungs will not benefit you as much as consciously taking in full, deep breaths and then fully exhaling. This is to be a conscious process so take the few minutes it takes to do the breath circles. Full oxygenation of your body helps with focus, memory, brain function and energy as well as helping you detoxify and decrease stress. Enjoy

Your Environment and Cancer. Closer Than You Think.

 A 240 page report just out from the President's Cancer Panel states in strong language that our daily exposure to chemicals and toxic environmental pollutants have a significant impact on cancer in the US.  We've spoken about Bisphenol A or BPA in previous posts and despite the dangers of BPA the chemical is still unregulated in it's usage.  This report outlines the importance of studying the impact of chemicals on cancer and our health. 

"The Panel was particularly concerned to find that the true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated. With nearly 80,000 chemicals on the market in the United States, many of which are used by millions of Americans in their daily lives and are un- or understudied and largely unregulated, exposure to potential environmental carcinogens is widespread. "

In my practice I find that many people's health recover quickly by taking some simple steps and reduce their exposure to chemicals in their daily life.  From hypothyroidism (almost a national epidemic) to autism, chronic fatigue, anxiety and fertility concerns all of these health problems are affected by daily exposure to chemicals like pesticides, herbicides, formaldehyde, bromines, fluorides, fire retardants, perfumes and heavy metals. 

Many of us spend copious amount of money at places like Whole Foods and other grocery stores to buy organic foods only to completely forget that this is only one step toward managing our environment's impact on our health. Diet is one aspect. I've had patients develop anxiety and heart palpitations after buying and sleeping on a new mattress for a few months. Look around your home, especially your bedroom and find out what can be affecting your health.

 Indoor air pollution is much more of a concern to your health than outdoor air pollution (not that you don't have to worry about the outdoor stuff too).  Fragrances from soaps, detergents, fabric softeners, air fresheners all can be toxic and affect your hormones and immune system. Many of us sleep next to closets filled with dry clean clothes off-gassing into our bedrooms. Dry cleaning fluid HAS been studied and is know to be a cause of cancer. Cooking with Teflon pans also affects your health. 

The first step toward reducing your risk for cancer starts with awareness. Here are a few simple things to do to reduce your health risk from your environment:

• Filter Your Drinking Water (No, a Britta pitcher won't do it) Why? 
• Avoid drinking bottles containing BPA Why?
• Stop eating Farmed Salmon Why?
• Think twice when buying new furniture Why?
• Eliminate synthetic fragrances from your home (air fresheners, scented hand wipes, detergents, perfumes, fabric softeners) Choose unscented ones
• Air out your dry cleaned clothes for 2 weeks. Or choose a cleaner option. Why?
• Buy organic for the Evil 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables. Which ones?
• Toss your non-stick pots and pans Why?

Start now! Good luck!

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