holistic medicine

The products you use in your home matter. Even if you live a fairly healthy lifestyle (vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free, etc.), the products you use can really affect your life. Items we use around the house on the daily (such as cleaning products, hand soap, and plastic) can cause serious health concerns if you're not careful. You might not even be aware they're toxic until it's too late. Prevention is the best medicine though, so here's how to create a non-toxic home you'll be proud of.

The common misperception about fevers is that something is wrong. This couldn’t be further from the truth, for when the body decides to up the temperature it is not without good reason. Our bodies are absolutely genius when it comes to moving back towards balance and sometimes we need to kill some germs along the way—which only happens with an increase in temperature.

Whole Health: A Holistic Approach to Healing for the 21st Century

The American Holistic Medical Association was founded in May, 1978, to bring together those few physicians who were open to looking at the whole person—body, mind, emotions and spirit. To some extent, this reflected the foundation emphasized by my medical school Chair of Medicine, Eugene A. Stead, Jr., whose favorite statement was “What this patient needs is a real doctor.” He never defined the meaning but demonstrated it in his teaching.  Listen to the patient!

I see many of my patients are living a healthy lifestyle and eating a plant-based diet.  It is especially important for me to make sure that these patients have enough of the essential mineral: iron.  I can determine if a patient is low in iron by looking at the size of their red blood cells, levels of iron circulating in the blood as well as the body’s storage of a form of iron called ferritin.

Essential oils and plant extracts have become increasingly popular in recent years, but health practitioners have been using essential oils for millennia. Health, beauty, aromatherapy, cleaning, and cleansing are some of their uses. Essential oils also have mental, physical, and spiritual benefits as well.

The average shelf life for essential oils is around 3 years, but some may last longer.