Infancy to Maturity: You benefit from growth of Integrative Medicine

I have been pleased to practice at National Integrated Health Associates in Washington DC. Our community of health care practitioners offers a varied menu of options for creating an individual health support program for each patient. Each of us practitioners has had different roles in the field of health care over recent decades as medical science and healthcare practices in our nation and internationally continue to develop and mature. In a similar way to a person growing up, the body of health care knowledge has advanced to become more capable of dealing with complex issues than it could previously. And that directly benefits you the healthcare consumer.

The field of medicine has moved through an “adolescence” of awkward recognition that it was undergoing changes that it could not fully control. Now it has finally emerged into its new existence as an intricate body of knowledge and procedures that exists as part of a larger community of health care systems that each contributes to the health and wellness of human society.

Integrative Medicine and Functional Medicine have become very important now that medical science is more openly admitting that it is part of a larger context and that other practitioners offer services and assessments that can also help people be healthier. You can read on the NIHA website about the offerings in Integrative Medicine and Functional Medicine.

The bottom line in the maturing process of healthcare science is that a growing percentage of medical doctors and the general public now realize that simply treating “Disease” with the “big guns” is only part of the process of becoming healthier. We think of you as being much more than a diagnosis label and encourage you to actively include both the “big things” and the “small things” as part of your integrative medicine health care program.

As a licensed naturopathic physician I often observe the effects of people breaking the seemingly insignificant natural laws that require adequate sleep, drinking enough water, getting sunshine, appropriate exercise, effective breathing, dressing and eating in harmony with the cycles of nature, and dealing with "toxic relationships" and "toxic memories."

Regarding a specific "small thing," in recent years we in the Integrative Medicine field have recognized the threat posed by microscopic organisms growing in the body (including bacteria, viruses, parasites, yeast/fungus). Treating these small things has dramatically changed the lives of people, including their mental health as well as physical improvement. As an example, treating Lyme and Co-Infections has become a major focus of NIHA practitioners. Supporting your healthy "internal community" of friendly organisms is the subject of this earlier blog entry that I wrote.

Another deep subject is the Welcome to the human family that is your birthright, and is the focus of Family Constellations therapy sessions. This helps deal with various "toxic memories" that can confuse our efforts to develop healthy relationships with self and others.

You are invited to visit the NIHA internet site and think about the many ways that our community of integrative medicine practitioners can help you move forward into a healthier future for yourself and your loved ones.