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NUTRITION
Nutrition plays a large role in all our treatment plans. The adage "you are what you eat" is an understatement. The whole picture is, "you are what you digest from what you eat". Our first goal is to improve digestion with food elimination and products that will aid in that goal. In our office we use food testing (which is fast and easy) to make our initial plan, but with a good history and adjustments as we proceed (this of course takes longer) we can usually get good results.
Food Sensitivities
In our estimation, addressing the avoidance of food sensitivities is vital as we cannot afford to have our immune system stressed by trying to deal with foods that are not good (stressor) for us as individuals. The fear of viral infections like SARS and West Nile are very real. We must close the gate before the horse gets out. Keeping our immune system primed and ready for action is very much a multi task exercise. Taking some echinacea and popping a few vitamin C will not cut it! We are moving into a much more serious situation. Prevention is our only hope, treatment is very unpredictable, as we have already seen with the SARS outbreak in Toronto. Folks with West Nile have suffered CNS damage requiring them to be in wheel chairs. Viruses are so clever in changing their "coats", treatment is not reliable. When we get something that works, they slip into a new jacket and we are helpless.
Diet is the foundational building block of our physiology/health.
Depending on your symptom picture other nutritional supplements will probably be suggested. We try very hard to work with the wishes of each patient not ignoring your input. Actually this is welcomed. We are all individuals and need an individual treatment plan. E-mail makes this fast and easy. Initial consults really are best done by telephone with email follow ups.
In acute or long standing chronic situations we will administer IV or IM nutritional supplementation as required. Detoxification for mercury amalgams or chelation for certain cases of advanced arteriosclerosis / atherosclerosis would be examples of chronic disorders. Cancer patients can augment their nutrition when eating becomes more difficult, (we do not consider this a cure but rather palliation and improvement in quality of life.)
