Dairy!  I how I adore a cup of whole milk hot chocolate.  I adore butter.  I adore cheese.  Unfortunately, the bodies of myself and kids do not love dairy.  Each of us has had a different reaction to it so it has taught  me a lot how to recognize and fix problems I see in my patients. Giselle, my oldest had big tonsils.  Kissing tonsils they say.  She would snore like a man and have pauses, like she wasn't breathing for seconds at a time.  She didn't drink milk but ate her much loved mozzarella cheese sticks daily.  My naturopath said to stop dairy.  I was like " but it is only one a day and she LOVES them".  He repeats.."Stop dairy".  So we did and within a week, no more snoring.  She still has occasional cheese but if she eats it more than three times in a week, she starts getting tonsillar stones and it drives her nuts.  She is able to do ice cream and yogurt but not milk or cheese on a regular basis. In retrospect, she had significant cra

Back in residency, when I was 28, I was feeling much older than my age.  I felt tired and run down.  I could blame it on the 100 hour work weeks but it felt like it wasn't just sleep deprivation.  I had rosacea which where my cheeks were red, with deep pores, and little telangiectasias (little blood vessels) around my nose creases.  Make up couldn't cover it up.  I also had an inflammatory eye condition called episcleritis where I had bright red nodules in my eyes and everyone would ask me if I knew I had red eyes.  Ugh.  I was so frustrated and maybe vain but nonetheless, I didn't feel healthy.  I felt bloated after every meal and just wanted to desperately take a nap, which was a combination of the 100 hour work week but also my diet. I started taking doxycycline orally which is an antibiotic and another topically for the rosacea.  I was using steroid eye drops for the eye condition which will some day maybe still cause cataracts.  With all this, it barely helped.  I

So when my kids get fever and congestion, and I make sure they don't have anything dangerous of course, I like to treat with as little medicine as possible. I admit that I don't typically worry too much but easy for me to say right? First of all, I do not use acetaminophen or ibuprofen for fever and never aspirin in a kid.  I must digress a little here...  Fever is a natural process that shows the body is doing its job.  Acetaminophen and ibuprofen stops or slows down that process. I could do a whole complicated blog on this one but trying to keep it simple.  I swear my kids got better faster when I learned this!  If your child is under 3 months of age, be sure to see your doctor right away. Babies can be tricky recognizing signs of serious illness.  Depending on the doctor, you may not want to treat the fever in your infant prior to seeing the doctor so they can verify it prior to doing potentially more extensive evaluations. My favorite treatment is the wet sock trick.  I

I met a young lady who has battled cancer since she was seven years old.  It was a brain tumor and she has endured surgeries, radiation, and worst, recurrences.  Her mama has that look in her eyes of wanting to naturally do anything to save her baby girl.  I met her mom first and after hearing the history of her daughter, I expected something totally different. Her daughter has such confidence and peace about her.  Just a matter of fact nature about her but not in a negative way.  She has faith.  She had a near death experience when she was younger and coming out of surgery.  She felt like she was in the arms of God and she saw her dad that had died when she was too young to remember him.  He told her "not yet".  Then she woke up. Now she is facing growing tumors in her brain and spine and she has maxed out radiation.  They are offering her another because that is her last choice.  Now she has the opportunity to visit her family's country of origin in a month.  The

This is the handout I give to my patients.  I would love to hear your stories and your tips.  We haven't found the cure to the common cold but there are many things we can do to support us while we have one. What Is A Cold? A cold is a viral sinus infection- “too much snot”, coughing, facial pain, sore throat, headache, ear popping or pain, pain in the sides of neck- glands feel “swollen”, coughing all night (like in the Nyquil commercials). A chest cold is when the drainage gets into the chest.  It can feel like you have a fist in front of your chest or you can’t take in a deep breath (but it should not feel as though you are short of breath).   Studies show we treat colds too quickly as sinus infections and we are not allowing your body to heal itself.  Even mild bacterial sinusitis does NOT typically need antibiotics.  The more antibiotics that you use now, the less effective your immune system will be and the less effective the antibiotics will be as well.

There are so many ways to stay well during flu season that it will be impossible to cover all the possibilities, so I will cover the ones I have experience with.  The flu vaccine is rarely effective (a few years ago it was 19% effective) and I will post about that in another blog, so we need to focus on more natural ways of staying well. First and foremost is your diet.  Sugar lowers your immune system and simple carbs like bread, cookies, crackers, etc turns into sugar so cleaning up your diet will go a long way.  Eat a majority plant based diet and include good protein sources like beans, lentils, fish, chicken, lean meats and eggs (organic and free range when possible).  Add in a cup or two of daily bone broth as it helps with gut function and immune system.  That gelatinous stuff on top when it cools is really good stuff for you so don't scoop that off. Eat plenty of garlic and oregano as they have natural infection fighting properties.  Get plenty of sleep, manage your s

Shingles is the terrifying disease of the older folks due to pain.  It is the talk of any group of elderly folks at the local Hardees.  They do have a shingles shot but since I have had two patients hospitalized due to complications of the vaccine and several more with shingles after the vaccine, I have shied away from that and just stuck with acute treatment with Valtrex and/or steroids.  Anything to prevent that painful syndrome called Postherpetic neuralgia right?  I have had patients suffer for years from pain in spite of that treatment though.  Wasn't there anything better? Just FYI, not everyone gets pain with the shingles.  Sometimes it just itches. While under a lot of stress a year ago, I was at work and felt a weird pressure at the crown of my head like I had my pony tail too tight but I didn't have a pony tail.  Next thing I know I have a burning, icy cold, searing pain moving down the right side of the top of my head.  I had shingles!!  The painful kind!  I was