Treat the Cause

Oral contraceptives (OCPs) are increasingly popular with young women.  Surely this is not surprising, as the media has popularized the pill, advertising the control women gain over their lives by simply taking one pill a day.  No doubt the feminist movement in the 60’s influenced this. Many women also use the pill to control their menstrual cycle, regularity, menorrhagia, and acne etc. Despite all the potential benefits, I don’t believe women are being adequately informed of the risks associated with taking OCP’s. I also believe women are not getting to know their bodies as we use to in the days of the Calendar method.

The many benefits to the pill are definitely understandable. The freedom for women to choose when to have a baby is a definite advantage to OCP’s. When there was discussion of thrombotic disease in the news, many women discontinued the pill and induced abortions went up by 11%.  Although it does help with cycle regularity and flow, there are other natural ways to treat this that doesn’t involve artificial hormones. Acne is another concern for young women who go on the pill. Again there are natural ways to battle this uphill struggle for girls.

Women walking into a doctor’s office today to discuss contraception are immediately told about the pill and how it will be a wonderful addition to their daily life. There is no immediate discussion about other options, or of risks associated with the pill, or about their monthly cycle and how their body works. The risk of deep venous thrombosis (DVTs), certain types of cancer and STI’s seem to be a fleeting thought. From Nelson’s textbook on Pediatrics (2007): “Thrombophlebitis, hepatic adenomas, myocardial infarction, and carbohydrate intolerance are some of the more serious potential complications of exogenous estrogen use”. I wonder how many doctors actually told their patients about these risks before talking about how wonderful it would make their patients life?

Lastly, many women don’t even know when they ovulate! Explaining the cycle in a simple manner is an excellent way for women to get to know their bodies better. Learning about the changes in cervical mucus to help understand ovulation, gauging their cycle on a calendar and paying attention to other physical changes in their body are ways women can better understand how their bodies are made to function. There are all kinds of app’s online that help you determine when you are ovulating. There are devices now that take a sample of saliva and can tell you when you are ovulating based on ferning due to increased estrogen in the body. The body temperature of a woman also changes during her cycle and can help indicate ovulation. Learning that the egg that is released from the ovary doesn’t necessarily live all month long and that sperm can live in the woman’s body for 3-5 days, are all important details in understanding your body and your cycle better.

Furthermore, the transmission of STI’s is increasing, and although many STI’s are treatable with antibiotics, many are not. Hep B is sexually transmitted, as well as HPV and HIV. Long term effects of STI’s are also a major concern. “STIs can lead to genital warts, blisters, infertility, spontaneous abortion, cancer and death. “

“In 2003, 854,817 people aged 15-49 who have ever had sexual intercourse reported ever being diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection”

“Close to 63,000 cases of Chlamydia were reported in 2004, the highest number of cases since the disease became reportable in 1990.“

Although the pill may prevent interrupting the spontaneity, perhaps better knowledge of one’s body in combination with the use of condoms is an important step in preventing unwanted pregnancies and STI’s, without the risks associated with constant hormone subjection.

Spending 20 hours with Dr. Saine just isn’t enough! Observing Andre as he takes cases has been an amazing experience for me as a developing homeopath. The questions are always open-ended, well-formed and thorough, and Dr. Saine’s decades of clinical experience are vividly clear. 

I have to say that what I learned just this week through observation, was more valuable than spending the last quarter in clinic as a secondary student working directly with patients! Watching homeopaths that really know what they are doing is something all students new to homeopathy should experience. I learned so much about how to take a case. I saw Andre go through the symptoms the patient reported on the initial intake and follow-up on each of them. If a patient mentioned they had been irritable, he would ask how has the irritability been since you’ve taken the remedy. Instead of asking the long drawn out question to ddx nat mur, how long could you sit in the sun on a park bench with no hat, no sunglasses in 80 degree heat, he would simply ask, how are you in the sun?

Watching Dr. Saine listen to patients was also interesting. In the Medical Observer, we read about how important it is to carefully listen to be able to catch the moment when your patient says something important. Dr. Saine really demonstrated how that was done. I could tell when he was differentiating between remedies as well. His questions would bounce back and forth between characteristic symptoms of a few remedies as he tried to narrow it down. It really showed me how valuable a strong understanding of material medica really is.  Watching him use MacRep also made me regret my decision to buy Radar. MacRep is so much simpler to use. He would use something like EH on Radar continually to read the reporting’s of old doctors cases to see if something was comparable to his current case. It was also really interesting to see how patients who were sensitive to remedies were prescribed doses. I never knew that Hahnemann had recommended that sensitive patients smell the remedy, or take it via olfaction, as Hahnemann put it. It was amazing to hear these patients describe how much of an effect such a small dose had.

After this week with Dr. Saine, and my last few weeks with Dr. Kellerstein, my passion for homeopathy is stronger than ever and I am excited to get back to school to start applying what I have learned. I would recommend preceptoring with both of these amazing doctors to all students interested in learning homeopathy the way Hahnemann had originally practiced it.

Over the last two weeks, I have been preceptoring with Dr. Joe Kellerstein. The number of patients coming in and out of the office was amazing to see as a future doctor. I was able to see such a wide variety of patients and pathology.  The experience was also invaluable to my homeopathic knowledge development. I saw new patient intakes and patients on follow up visits, which allowed for further development of my case-taking skills and materia medica knowledge. As a student, I can’t even express how valuable it is to watch experienced doctors take cases in an efficient and effective manner.

A question that Joe asked me multiple times over the two weeks was what is holism? What a daunting question for such a young student! Although I was taken off guard the first time, I managed to describe the importance of treating the whole person and not just looking at individual patterns of disease. Many times I answered and Joe replied giving me a bit more of a clue to what his idea of holism really was. Finally, after being asked many times, I responded that whole is greater than the individual parts and the whole communicates with us through physiologic responses in order to provide the physician with an understanding of the disconnects within the being. We are trying to look at how the whole experiences the disease process, and not just the specific disease. Holism means to look at what the person’s physiology is screaming at us to fix first, and see what is most important in their healing path.

A great book Joe recommended I read when I was in my undergrad was “Molecules of Emotion” by Candace Pert. It was a great book that really took my understanding of neuroscience to a new level. Although most people know that molecules make up our world and our bodies, sometimes we forget that molecules are the factors that influence our mood and our health. Those molecules make up hormones that act on different receptors in our body to make us feel the way we do. Everything in life has a physiological basis and if we, as physicians, can learn to listen to the physiology of the body, we can truly treat the cause and help establish well-being in our patients.

After spending time with Joe, more than ever I feel that homeopathy is the only way to truly help a person’s body re-establish health. I have seen that every person’s body has the ability to heal, and it’s our job to recognize the symptoms and provide a remedy that in a healthy person causes that same pattern of symptoms. I have seen the importance of what Hahnemann refers to as hygiene, and what I refer to as nutrition. Finally, I have seen the importance of looking at the totality of symptoms as they express the outer image of the internal essence of disease, and the importance of focusing on this as the only means by which we choose a remedy. 

As many people know, garlic is a delicious flavoring that can be added to many meals. The flavor of the garlic is stronger when it's added to the dish near the end of cooking.  This is generally a good idea since allicin, the antibiotic compound found in garlic, loses it's antibiotic properties while cooking. Garlic is anti-microbial, immune system enhancing, an anti-oxidant and alkaline. It seems to be that the best way to keep the medicinal properties of garlic is to eat it when it's raw. Here's an excellent way to incorporate raw garlic into your diet: 

I know that sometimes the biggest obstacle to eating healthy is coming up with the recipe ideas to do so. Here's a fast and healthy snack that will help you get your greens in, decrease your carbohydrate intake and fill you up!

Ingredients:

1 leaf	Swiss Chard
2 large slices	White rotisserie, deli cut Turkey
1 tsp	Yellow Mustard

Directions:

1.     Wash the Swiss chard leaf and dry well.

2.     Spread mustard over the leaf.

3.     Place turkey on the leaf and roll it up. Fasten with a toothpick.

You can make a few of these and pack them to take with you to work.

Swiss chard is full of vitamin K which is important in patients with liver diseases because vitamin K helps the liver make necessary coagulation factors that are important for normal blood clotting. Thus, increasing your intake of leafy greens is important to talk to your doctor about if you are on an anti-coagulant medication, like Warfarin. Vitamin K also reduces the risk of developing liver cancer, and is important in maintaining bone strength. Vitamin K is made in the gut by our beneficial bacteria. When you take an anti-biotic, all of the bacteria in your gut dies, so you temporarily have low levels of vitamin K. This is just another reason taking probiotics are beneficial.

Other interesting fact: Historically, mustard was used as a digestive aid that leads to extra vitality because of its active constituent glucosinolate.

Wow! Thanks for all your comments on my presentation! If I get the opportunity to speak with a great group of young adults again, I will definitely take your recommendations into consideration. I would like to say thank you for paying such close attention and taking what I said so seriously! Here's my reply to some of the comments I saw in the papers you wrote: My references to humans as savages, was just to provide a basic relation to our ancestral diet. We use to have a more hunter-gather style diet. This included a ton of veggies, fruits, nuts, seeds and meats from animals, including fish. A large part of our diet prehistorically was protein (24%) and now is much less (15%). When we ate animals, it was much different than now because we ate as much of the animal as we could. We even ate the organs. Did you know the adrenal glands, which are just above the kidneys, were a huge source of our vitamin C in the winter (which helps prevent scurvy)? When we ate this Paleolithic diet, we had less dental cavities (see the book "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" by William Price). People also suffered from less visual problems, including near-sightedness and cataracts, less acne and psoriasis, less digestive issues including gall stones and inflammatory bowel, less cardiovascular disease, the list goes on... And since the human genome has hardly changed since the Paleolithic age, it follows that we remain genetically and metabolically adapted to hunter-gather diets. Some items that were absent from the hunter-gather diets include things like grain-fed animals, processed meats, dairy products, refined sugars, vegetable oils, alcohol and grains. In fact, the average US citizen gets 72% of his/her total energy from these foods that were never eaten by hunter-gathers. So, we would expect to find that deviations from the paleolithic diet and lifestyle would promote disease. An interesting video you could watch, if you find all this interesting, is called The Journey of Man: As for replenishing electrolytes, if I thought it was necessary, I would recommend a beverage called “Recharge” which I don’t think they carry here in Canada, however it would be easy to make. In fact, I can share a recipe with you:

• 1 cup grape juice (not from concentrate)
• 2/3 cup water
• celtic sea salt (this type of salt has more minerals than plain table salt, I use it for all of the things I salt)

I am happy to have been the first naturopathic student some of you have met! I would like to introduce you to our principles so you can have a better idea of the perspective we come from. If I could choose a favorite principle it would of course be “treat the cause”. I really think that once we find the cause, and then remove any obstacles to cure we can have so much success. But you must know, that it all begins with another one of our principles, which is “physicians as a teacher”. This is why I came to speak to your class. I can only hope that I inspired some of you to make positive changes in your life allowing you to lead the healthiest future possible. I am so happy to hear your responses to our talk and best wishes to you all and for all you endeavors! Remember: Be Safe, Be Wise, Be Educated!

CTV reports that many Canadian provinces are considering suspending their flu vaccination because of the concerns. Also, they report that the U.S. is starting an unprecedented system to track possible side effects as mass swine flu vaccinations begin next month. Doesn't this sound like massive science experiment on the public? I also heard that on CTV news they reported that Telus was looking at taking preventative measures and has decided to pay for all of their employees to see a naturopath. Pretty crazy eh!? Apparently their decision was related to a study that found that people who were vaccinated for the flu were actually more susceptible to it. Hopefully now that some major corporations are coming around, so will the public!

... is really the body saying no no no... No caffeine Of course it may be other things, but apparently this is one of the first things to check! Dr. Morstein's class is my favorite! Every week I learn soooooo much in her class. If only all my classes were like hers...

Just studying for nutrition and thought that this may be helpful to others! This flu season remember: Starve a cold and Starve a fever. Let your energy be directed at getting rid of the microorganism, not at digesting food! Kids and animals do this innately, adults override this tendency. Drink fluids (water, herbal teas, broths) hourly to help thin out mucus and urinate out toxins and to keep from becoming dehydrated. When your appetite returns, eat lightly. Brown rice, vegetable soup, steamed veggies, pieces of white chicken. If you have to, take a day or two off work because you will heal faster and you will be more productive in the long run. Spend those days lying in bed. Science has shown that our immune systems are more active at rest. Get some hydrotherapy done. It will help stimulate the body and reduce sinus and chest congestion as well as a sore throat. Do not eat dairy because it creates mucous and with diarrhea the lactase enzyme disappears, but returns when the gut heals. Do not eat sugar because it decreases the bodies immune response. Do not eat junk food or fast food. It's toxic. Thanks Dr. Morstein

The following juice mix helps clear skin problems. When taken several times a week, it also acts as a blood purifier. Beet Juice Tomato Juice Celery Juice Mix 2 oz. of each juice together and drink 2-3 times a day, for a total of 12-18 ounces per day. - From Natural Detoxification by Krohn and Taylor