The Process
People come to my office for all sorts of different reason and conditions, so there is no one exact process. Here I am going to write about how I would handle a person with a chronic problem that involves multiple symptoms.
For instance maybe you are overweight, have some back pain, you neck hurts off and on and your arm goes to numb now and then. You hands and feet get cold, maybe you have a chronic area that bothers you like a hip, a shoulder or you get headaches.
It could be worse. Maybe you have fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue. You could have gas and bloating and they get aggravated by certain foods. It is possible that you have trouble sleeping or maybe you have trouble concentrating and you wake up tired.
On the other hand maybe everything is great but you simply hurt yourself in a car accident.
Where do I start?
It would be foolish to treat you per each symptom. People with these symptoms often tell me “Just fix the headaches then once we get those fixed we can work on the sleep problems then I want to work on the digestion problems”
Your body does not work that way. That is how western medicine work, or rather “doesn’t work.”
All of your symptoms are connected. Your spine could be out of alignment causing your stomach problems or bacteria could be affecting your stomach making your spine hurt. It is possible that nothing heals because you can’t sleep.
Your thyroid could be sluggish because it does not have enough of the right kind of iodine or maybe because it is toxic, or maybe because it is compensating for over worked adrenal glands.
Here is how we figure things out.
The Tests (These are the available tests, I may not do all of them on the first visit)
These test show how your body is doing in long term a real level of health:
Heart Rate Variability:
This test shows the overall level of your physical function and your level of adaptability. This means your level of reserves. This tells us if your problems are likely to get better fast or slowly.
Body mass analysis:
This test tells you how much of your body is muscle and how much is fat. It also tells us how well your body can hold an electrical charge. That is a big deal. If you cannot hold an electrical charge it will take a lot of work for you to get better.
Dry blood analysis. In this test we take a look at a drop of blood under a microscope. This reveals where and what the problems are. It shows oxidative stress, lymphatic stress, hormone stress, and presence of yeast or metal toxicity, nutrient mal-absorption, adrenal stress and much more.
History:
I have you fill out a form with many interrelated question about your symptoms, we then have a discussion about them. This helps me look for patterns. All symptoms are in patterns. When someone comes in the office and tells me that he just has one problem and nothing else he is usually not telling the truth. What he means is that he has other symptoms but this is the only one that bothers him. You have to treat the entire body not just one symptom. That is why western medicine has failed.
Palpation exam
Here I palpate many acupressure points on your body. I look for tenderness or pain. I am looking for patterns. There is not just one “liver point,” there are many. I palpate points of your front, your back, arms and legs. I am looking for patterns. If your spine hurts is may not just be "out of alignment" every spinal level has correlations to organs, meridians, nutrition, toxins and emotions.There are points on your leg that tell me about your stomach. I am looking for patterns.
Posture Exam
The the posture exam gives me more data concerning your bones and muscles. The posture exam tells me if you will need to do posture balancing exercises as part of your treatment or not.
Tongue Diagnosis
The tongue has specific areas that show you how your body is functioning.
Zyto Testing
This is a piece of equipment that not only tests the resistance of energy flow over acupuncture meridians, but also helps find the best remedies, herbs, and treatment to unblock those flows and increase your energy, immune system, and metabolism. This helps me determine what to do today.
Pulse Diagnosis
In western medicine your pulse is simply a number like 72 pulses per minute. However 3000 years ago the Chinese knew that you could read a pulse determine the function of any organ of the body.
Muscle Response Testing
Muscle testing is where you touch an acupressure point on your body while the doctor tests the strength of one of your muscles. If there is a weakness then the area of that acupressure point will become part of the investigation.
The above tests give me real data. I know where to start.
I know if you are chronic or acute, if you can get well fast or not, I know where the biggest areas of stress on your body are and what types of treatments you are likely to need.
Treatments could include any modality we have in the office based on what you need, and what you want
We do adjustments, lymph drainage, cranial adjustments, acupressure, auricular therapy, energy patches, homeopathy, allergy or toxin elimination, emotional releases, ionic foot baths, electro acupressure, meridian stress analysis, nutritional investigations, ionic foot baths, diet consultations, homeopathy, herbs, liver cleanses, Zyto meridian stress testing or postural exercises.
Treatment Plans
If you are chronic then you will need a treatment plan, don’t kid yourself. Eating a little extra broccoli won’t make you better, and a massage now and then won’t fix you either. Yes, in most cases I can get your neck or back to feel better in a visit but without some sort of a plan nothing will last.
When you come back for future visits on your treatment plan there are many different things that we could do from the list above.
Treatment plans last from 3 months to a year. If you have a chronic problem and are not willing to give at least 3 months to getting to a new level of health then this is not the place for you. This is different if it is an acute injury. That could be 1 or 2 visits.
I have many tools at my disposal and I do not know which ones I am going to use each day. It depends on what I see in you and how you are progressing. I have different fees depending on what I am doing however if you are on a plan then anything I do I the visit is included.
You get big discounts if you are on a plan and there are reasons for that.
I want to work with people who are committed to getting better
People who decide day to day if and when they are coming back are still managing their problems by their symptoms. They generally don’t get well and stay well.
They are thinking “Do I feel bad enough today to come in?” Then when they come in they try to fix everything in one visit and we spend half the visit going over finances again. So every visit there could be I could literally spend another 15 minutes talking about when to come in for the next visit. It takes too much time and is exhausting. The treatment plan needs to be established up front. I want to spend the time of your visit talking about your health.
If you are on a treatment plan and make your schedule ahead of time it frees up time at my front desk and that saves me money as well so I can offer you a discount.
A treatment plan that is at least 3 months long gives me time to really get to know you and how you respond to diet, herbs acupressure adjustments etc. It is a process. I try to live a balanced lifestyle and these are the types of people I choose to work with.
If you are on a treatment plan then you get my cell phone number, you can call me with questions.
I have found that people on treatment plans get better more so than people who are not, also they tend to refer others the visits are faster because we are not always dealing with or talking about money, so for this reason treatment plans are heavily discounted.
After you are done with a treatment plan you can come in visit to visit because the ground work is done, we have established a relationship and you understand the process.
Think of it this way. You have been in control of your health for a long time and it is not working. For a while let me be in control, after you improve and have a more knowledge you can be in control again.
