What will you experience as an elite health patient?
I believe this will help you get a vision of what holistic medicine is like here at The Elite Health Practice.
Welcome to patient-centered medicine!
Holistic medicine means fixing the root cause, not just treating symptoms.
The best medicine – and the best solution to any problem – is to always solve the root cause. If you are experiencing fatigue, low energy, bloating, and brain fog, you are experiencing symptoms of several root causes. This cannot be explained away by assigning a label to a group of symptoms – also known as a conventional diagnosis. Hypothyroid, PCOS, Hashimoto’s, and fibromyalgia come to mind. The goal is to figure out WHY you have the symptoms and create a plan to fix those, rather than “treat” the named illness.
What does holistic really mean?
Holistic means the entire being – all aspects are considered, from the biggest to the smallest. From the obvious to the microscopic. Since ALL chronic dysfunction and illness is holistic, we must consider all aspects of your lifestyle.
For example, let’s say someone had a small lesion of cancer in their breast. Conventional medicine will likely remove it via surgery and put the patient through chemotherapy. If no other spots are found, you are considered “cancer-free.” But, this is far from what is actually going on. The surgery and chemo DID NOT cure the cancer as they did not address the root cause.
Any dysfunction in one place is a dysfunction of the entire organism.
This small cancer lesion represents the entire body which is sending a loud warning that the person’s anti-oxidant, immune, and detoxifying systems are failing. Failing everywhere, not just in the breast… that just happened to be the weakest point. More cancer will certainly follow if the entire system does not move toward health. Just removing this one spot does not make the patient “cancer-free,” nor does it answer the question of WHY the lesion appeared.
Addressing one’s entire lifestyle can be a daunting task without professional guidance. What is a cure for one person might be a poison to another. Not only is it overwhelming to consider hundreds of variables, but what will work for you? This is why you need an experienced clinician.
That’s where I come in… here is where I do the heavy lifting.
The Comprehensive Naturopathic Exam is the single best way to assess your entire ecosystem. Common root cause findings are parasitic, fungal, and bacterial infections, Lyme and coinfections, food intolerance and sensitivities, and chemical overload which includes EMF toxicity, emotional toxicity, excessive gut permeability (“leaky gut”), and heavy metal toxicity. Common body systems that are often in poor shape are the lymphatic, detox, elimination, immune, and metabolic systems.
I will also assess your bio-mechanics to find the root cause of any chronic pain.
For the exam, I chose to use non-invasive testing modalities that typically do not involve a blood draw. This is because we will rarely find the root cause of illness floating in the blood. The blood serum is a highly specialized environment that is carefully adjusted to keep you as functional as possible. Research shows testing the cellular level reveals the answers we are seeking.
After carefully studying your exam findings, health history, and goals, I will have an excellent understanding of all your dysfunctions and, most importantly, your root causes.
How do we fix all this: we start with the foundations– lifestyle medicine.
There are nine naturopathic foundations proven to ensure each patient gets the healing response they deserve. Sleep, movement, mental health, and nutrition are just four of them, to give you an example. I design custom recommendations (lifestyle medicine) for each of the nine. But don’t worry, we don’t jump into all of them at once!
Nearly all chronic ailments are lifestyle-induced. So, it just makes sense logically to address the foundation of health which are the nine health foundations. Think of it like working your tail off bailing water out of a sinking boat, but no matter how hard you work, the water just keeps flooding in. This is symptom treatment in conventional medicine 95% of the time. A smarter approach is to put the energy into finding and patching the holes which is the root cause. Then proceed to bail out the boat one time and be done.
To heal, all body systems must be working at their best – note, I did not say perfect! I will prioritize which body systems need attention first, then work our way down the list. Some things will be simultaneous if at all possible to hasten progress. But we work through all this at your pace, adjusting the pace as needed.
The body systems
The most important body systems I will assess and design support for are the elimination systems, known as the B.U.L.L.S. – bowels, urinary tract, lymphatics, lungs, and skin. All these channels must be open and doing their job or you will not achieve a long-term fix to your health challenges.
The metabolic organs which include the liver, kidney, and pancreas must be addressed. Without these, you cannot convert food to precious cellular energy, nor make the hormones needed to run the body.
Upper digestion, which includes stomach acid production, rule out things like gastric h. pylori infection, and sufficient enzyme secretion all have to be addressed.
When it comes to gut health, we must remove the chronic inflammation, heal and seal the gut lining, and get you absorbing nutrition again. A leaky gut damages the entire body, but especially the brain which leads to immune dysregulation.
Then there is the entire mental health and spiritual system – THE most important aspects of well-being. Spirituality does not necessarily mean religion, so don’t worry there. But I need to assess how much emotional toxicity is present, why it’s there, and how to remove it. I need to understand how you process your environment (stress response) to teach you in the language you understand and to avoid overwhelm and miscommunication.
The health portal
We use Practice Better to house all patient recommendations. As we move along, I will build your very own custom recommendations for everything we talked about above such as the nine foundations, organ system fixes, mental health tools, nutrition program, supplements, and special protocols. Special protocols include parasite and heavy metal removal. After all clinical appointments, I will update your portal inside Practice Better. It will have all the action steps required, laid out in an easy-to-follow format.
Inside the health portal is an incredibly helpful feature called DM or direct message feature. Once you are a patient, you can DM me at any time with any concerns or questions. I usually respond within hours but always within the next business day. With DM, we keep you swiftly moving along the healing journey. You will always feel supported.
The basic flow of the plan of care
We typically meet in person or via telehealth at least 1x per month. I will reassess (via testing and interviewing you) your current health status, answer your questions, and adjust your plan. All testing performed in the clinic is included in the visit at no additional cost.
Keep in mind, that the body is in flux and is changing constantly, even though you may not perceive this. It’s not uncommon when you start to heal that other areas of the body start asking for help as they had been suppressed out of survival. Thus, even the best-designed plan on Day One will need to be adjusted at some point and then re-adjusted many more times along the way.
What do the clinical appointments look like?
Some appointments will be for testing to check progress, some will be to sit down and work out some challenges that have arisen, some will be for bodywork as we help your physical movement patterns improve, or a hybrid of all the above.
The key to remember is that we will be doing what your mind-body needs at the time of each appointment throughout the journey. Thus, there is no set template for the entire plan of care. We all own the ability to heal ourselves, given the right plan of care, called Innate Power. We must follow its lead to have success which means we must stay open-minded.
Truly personalized healthcare is the way healthcare should be.
Everyone heals at their own speed and we all have different capacities to learn and implement, based on previous knowledge, motivation, and current life demands. This means healing is an unpredictable and non-linear process. There is no perfect recipe. We must partner together, with clear expectations and communication. This is not a doctor-patient approach; this is two people working together on a common goal. This allows me to do my best work and allows you to get a great healing outcome.
In all my 20 years in healthcare, I have NEVER seen…
- … a generic “one size fits all” approach to get a patient into remission.
- … anyone fix anything with just a few supplements.
- … someone solve complex chronic health issues in a matter of a few weeks.
It will take working on ALL aspects of your lifestyle, plus supplements, plus time, plus plenty of patience, to truly heal. Holistic medicine has a proven track record of healing dating back thousands of years. Yes, there is a lot of work ahead of you, but when you are with the right provider, on the right path, it will pay off!
And don’t worry – I have a “you can never disappoint me” policy: No matter how well or how poorly you implement the recommendations, I will NEVER judge you, talk down to you, or think any less of you. I am here to be 100% supportive at all times. I focus on solutions, not problems.
I hope this gives you an overview of all the complexities of true holistic medicine. If we are a good fit to work together and you are ready to give your best effort, after the exam, I will start designing your custom recommendations to get you well!
I look very much forward to helping you unlock your optimal health and wellness!
