Bug Bites! July 24, 2008

Here are some Bug Bite remedies straight from Granny’s natural medicine chest:

• Stick a half a lemon in the freezer and apply to bites as needed.
• Make a paste with water and baby aspirin and apply to bites.
• Apply icy-hot or other cream with Capsacin.
• Dab with Lavendar essential oil.
• make a paste with baking soda and apply to bites.
• coat one side of a penny with vaseline and tape the penny, vaseline side down to bite.
• warm some honey and dab onto the bites
• cover with plain old mud, or if you are so inclined, a cosmetic mud mask for facials

In addition to these home remedies, there are other steps you can take to make sure those itchy bites get GONE faster.

• Make sure you are taking your fish oils or other omega-3/omega-6 fatty acid supplement.  This will help with calming down inflammation.
• Don’t eat the things you know cause you digestive problems or skin rashes.  This only takes focus away from your body’s ability to deal with the histamines from the bug bites.
• Drink at least half your body weight in ounces each day to help your body’s immune system function properly and work out the bites.

The Probiotics Way July 7, 2008

Probiotics have gotten a lot of press in the past year.  Traditional cultures have long known the benefits of eating foods containing probiotics.  Most of these foods are fermented at least partially. A short list of probiotic food choices includes miso soup, some soft cheeses, yogurt products like kefir, sauerkraut and many pickles. 80% of our immune system is in our GI tract, and an imbalance of bacteria in the GI system causes a host of health issues.

This article from Mercola.com goes into a bit more detail about probiotics and their role in healthy living and Naturopathic medicine.  It’s important to seek these little guys out in your daily diet or as part of your supplementation as food processing has changed so much in the last several decades.  We simply don’t get dosed routinely, and as a result allergies, digestive diseases, food intolerances, and auto-immune conditions are on the rise.

Scenes from the Clinic June 27, 2008

Here at the clinic things are growing!  Our practices are growing, our vegetables are growing, and our happiness about being Naturopathic Doctors in a city as wonderful as Portland is, of course, always growing!

We are already able to harvest lots of greens with beets and tomatoes just around the corner.  Always feel free to stop by and enjoy a bit of salad on us!

In your garden. In your city. June 11, 2008

At my home, we are perpetually in the garden. Saturdays and Sundays are spent loving it, weeding it, planting, and harvesting (and then sometimes wondering what else we can do!) We came back from a wonderful camping trip to the Oregon coast this weekend, and within 10 minutes, we were out in the garden, checking on our little plant-lettes. We’ve grown plants from starts and seeds, and even potatoes and onions that were starting to sprout in the cupboard!

There is something to be said about growing your own food, especially in these times of rising fuel and food prices. I find that there is almost nothing more satisfying than fresh veggies straight from the yard and right on my breakfast or dinner plate. The taste is the most satisfying aspect, but a close second is knowing that I’m giving energy back to the earth, and not depleting resources.

At my office, we also have a garden filled with spinach, chard, tomatoes, rhubarb, corn, squash, lettuce, peas, you name it. It’s a teaching garden, and it’s in a totally urban environment. You see, naturopathic medicine roots itself in sustainablilty– Meaning the things we prescribe and teach for our patients are often things our patients can incorporate into their lives gradually, seamlessly, and for good.

Sustainability. I know it’s becoming quite the buzzword, but there is a whole lot to it. There is a brand new magazine called Intentionally Urban (in-ur, for short). They just launched their first issue this month. It is a fabulous magazine that covers all aspects of urban sustainability, including urban gardening and urban chicken-raising. You can read the entire magazine online, and I encourage you to check it out.

Stay tuned to this blog for photos of our office garden. You can watch it grow with us, and maybe if you stop by for a visit, you can sample some of our tasty treats. The garden is health and life. We put love into it, and tend it with care. You can taste the difference.

9 months, 12 months, 3 years later June 6, 2008

Every once in a while, I’ll be out grocery shopping or doing some other errand and run into a family whose birth I attended. It’s always such a a fun experience to see how the family has evolved and who the baby turned out to be. Family medicine is a big part of what I enjoy doing. In my line of work I spend 9 months getting to know a family and this new person joining their family through mom’s abdominal wall, and often there are aspects of their personality apparent during this time. The family dynamics are already there.

There are the quiet ones, the late-night partiers, the ones who play games of hide and seek when you’re trying to listen to their heart rate, the ones who kick and punch for attention. Oh, how I wish someone could do a study on personality traits before and after birth!

They say that how you come into this life often predicts how you live it. It’s interesting to ask your friends and family members if they were “early” or “late” or right on the due date, and see if that still holds true for them. Informal surveys point to many yes answers. For example, I have a friend who was born exactly on her due date, and she is always exactly on time for everything. Not early, not late. I have another friend who was born exactly one minute before midnight. Can you guess this one? She gets things done right at the last minute, but always just before the deadline. It’s fun to think this way.

Getting back to the whole running into people out in public—there’s just nothing like that sense of community, especially here in Portland. It’s a truly special thing to be able to talk to someone (even if they are only 3 years old) and say,” I saw you take your first breath–and now look at you! You’re running and making mud pies and have oh-so-very strong opinions about what mom is putting into the grocery cart.”

I wouldn’t trade my job for anything.

New Space! June 3, 2008

It’s been a busy couple of months in my practice as I have relocated from NE Portland to SE Portland. I’ve joined a Naturopathic practice with 3 other ND’s. We have varied interests from natural childbirth to holistic pediatrics, women’s health, diabetes management and prevention, autism spectrum disorders, and pain management. Below are a few shots of my office space within the clinic.  We’re in a great old Victorian house in the Sellwood neighborhood.  Drop by anytime if you’re in town!

Individuality April 29, 2008

I work with several patients who have arthritis, and it seems like there is no one “right” way to treat this condition.  In fact, I’m finding that to be true about many conditions.  It would be nice if everyone who came to my office with joint pain could be given the same 3 treatment ideas and sent on their happy way.

It just isn’t usually the case.  Each of us has our very own story of how we got to where we are and why our symptoms manifest the way they do.  Since none of us arrive at the same destination for the same reason, why is it then assumed that two people with the same condition need the same intervention?    One patient may have arthritis because  they have played soccer for 30 years and the joint is shot.  Another patient may have arthritis because they have a constant level of inflammation in their body due to food sensitivities.  Through trial, time, and patience, the solutions become clear. The time spent learning the root cause of why someone develops arthritis pays off in achieving healing at a much deeper level.

I marvel at the individuality of each person.  Why are we all the same and all so different?  It makes my job a real challenge and a real joy.

Evidence-based medicine? April 7, 2008

I went to a naturopathic medicine conference this past weekend.  One of the keynote speakers was John Abramson, MD.  Dr. Abramson took a sabbatical from his busy Massachusetts practice to write a book on the medical research community, trends in U.S. healthcare, and how big drug companies are paying for the evidence to get skewed in their favor.  He scoured drug research, and he also poured through research on diet, exercise, and lifestyle modifications and their effectiveness against heart disease, weight management, and mood disorders.  Guess what he found?  Changing diet, nutrition, and exercise was more effective than taking medication in almost all cases.  We’re not even talking just a little bit more effective.  In most cases, taking prescription meds was less than half as effective compared to making lifestyle changes.  We as a nation spend twice as much as any other nation on healthcare and yet we are the second sickest nation in the industrialized world when it comes to preventable disease.

It’s easy to place the blame on MD’s and say that they should be reading the research and limiting the amount of drugs they prescribe.  However, there were a number of MD’s at this conference who explained that they had been indoctrinated into the world of pharmaceuticals as soon as they began medical school.  Some even explained that their professors had been paid to discuss certain drugs during lectures.  The MD’s rely very heavily on the research to guide their prescribing.  This in itself is not a problem.  The problem lies in the fact that large drug companies are paying to have certain research published and other research pushed to the back burner.  It all comes down to money, and very little of it has to do with patient care.

Dr. Abramson’s book Overdosed America covers these statistics and others.  This week there was an article in the Willamette Week about the same topic.  It seems that MD’s are getting fed up with prescribing drugs that aren’t necessarily warranted and aren’t making their patients better.  As a naturopathic physician, I feel fortunate in knowing that the treatments I use really work and really help people become healthy individuals.  I have a newfound gratitude for being able to use whatever medicines I want to use in my practice, not the ones I have been paid to promote.  I commend the MD’s who are starting to question big pharmacy.  It’s time to bring the balance back to patient care.

Where is happiness? February 26, 2008

I’m going to stray just a bit from the straight up health tips today and talk about a book I just finished: The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner.  Mr. Weiner begins by accessing the World Database of Happiness (yes, such a thing does exist—in Denmark).  He learns which countries are the happiest in the world and sets out to discover exactly what makes us happy.

One of the facts Mr. Weiner uncovers is the Swiss eat a higher than average amount of Chocolate, and Switzerland is one of the happiest countries in the world.  It turns out that according to the CHUMP study (Chocolate Happiness Undergoing More Pleasantness) you don’t even have to eat 72% cacao nibs to get the happy buzz from chocolate.  People reported increased happiness from both dark and milk chocolate.  The study was considered a failure because it set out to prove that only dark chocolate would have mood-enhancing effects.  The only people who didn’t get happy in the study were the ones who didn’t get any chocolate!

All this being said, dark chocolate does have additional health benefits beyond happiness—so it’s still your best bet when the choice is yours.

Happiness is responsible for maintaining our sense of well-being.  I feel that a good sense of well-being, no matter how sick someone is, can be one of the most important factors in determining their healing process.

This study shows the very likely correlation between increased happiness and lowered blood pressure.  In fact, if you visit PubMed, an online medical journal database, and type in “happiness” you’ll find that there have been 2820 studies recently on the subject. Lower blood pressure, lower overall inflammation, better detoxification and digestion are some of the examples of the direct benefits of finding happiness.

The Geography of Bliss suggests that it may not be found where we’re looking (well, maybe some of us were looking at chocolate).   The book shows the happiest places and some of the least happy places and cross- references the experiences to divulge the patterns of what makes people happy.  You don’t have to travel to these places to understand the lesson, but if you do, I’d recommend Thailand…and take some chocolate.

Is weight gain costing you money? January 28, 2008

You bet.  This study from the Center for Health Research shows a yearly increase in healthcare costs up to $700 more in patients with a greater than 20lb weight gain in 3 years or under.  The average was $561.  Preventing weight gain and/or reversing weight gain seems to bring those numbers right back down.  So hop off the laptop, lace up your shoes, get some fresh air, and bask in the pleasure of cutting costs.