My Blog
I dive into subjects related to chronic ailments and how to finally feel relief from them.
The Secret to Recovery from Illness: Be Grateful for Your Illness
Every person I've encountered who has had a dramatic recovery from a major, life-altering illness has a similar quality: they are grateful for their illness. Example Awesome Post example 2 more posts best posts ultimate guide
Symptoms Are Information, Not the Enemy
Symptoms contain information which tell us what our bodies need for recovery. If we think of symptoms and illness as the enemy, we ignore the information our bodies give us through symptoms. Example Awesome Post example 2 more posts best posts ultimate...
The Way We Talk About Illness is Wrong
The way we talk about illness is wrong and may be keeping your body stuck in illness. Example Awesome Post example 2 more posts best posts ultimate guide
We’ve Got Patient Empowerment All Wrong
Patient empowerment is a hot topic in medicine recently. The conversation around patient empowerment has been focused on helping patients seek the best care and get the treatment which which meets their individual goals and suits their unique values. There’s no doubt...
Why Medicine Doesn’t Make You Well
Becoming truly healthy requires a different approach, something you can't get from any pill or any diet or any procedure. Example Awesome Post example 2 more posts best posts ultimate guide
Unlearning Learned Helplessness
“Fight or flight” We’ve all heard that phrase used — perhaps overused — to describe the body’s automatic response to danger. When we sense a threat to our health or safety, we release stress hormones — cortisol, epinephrine, and hundreds of others — which prepare us...
Why Your Doctor Can’t Help You With Your Stress
One of the most frequent questions I’m asked in my medical practice is “Do you think stress is causing this rash?” For years I answered this question by giving a biologic explanation for the rash, sticking strictly to the textbook wisdom about the...
When a Medical Rarity Becomes the Norm
In 1912, Dr. Harvey Cushing, father of neurosurgery, described a cluster of symptoms -- obesity, abnormal hair growth, and lack of menstruation -- in a 23 year old woman, and posited that these symptoms were caused by a pituitary tumor. This condition --...
How to Beat the Medical Odds
Illness is frequently random. Catching the flu or breaking an arm can happen to anyone. Though many people believe your genetic code determines your health, the fact is genes don't completely explain illness and can't perfectly predict your health. On the other hand,...
Putting Medical Science Under the Microscope, Part 5
In my last four posts, I've discussed some of the shortcomings of medical science: the irreproducibility of medical research; the fact that medical "truths" can be overturned; and the way bias influences research, both in terms of what is researched and what results...
Putting Medical Science Under the Microscope, Part 4
We want to believe that researchers and pharmaceutical companies are primarily concerned about improving our health. After all, it's our very lives which are at stake. But, just as we need to be aware that medical research has a positive bias, as I discussed in my...
Putting Medical Science Under the Microscope, Part 3
We put a lot of faith in medications. We expect them to be safe. We expect them to cure illness. We expect them to make us healthier. But the truth is many medications aren't as safe or as effective as we like to think they are. The problem is that there is positive...
