Chronic Disease and Integrative Medicine
The Integrative Approach to Chronic Disease
Most of us like to imagine that being healthy feel like having abundant energy most days and confident we can do accomplish whatever we need to. We feel alive and have clarity about thought that our body will intuitively know how to support us.
When sudden and acute health problems arise, we may experience a temporary disruption of this beautiful balance, yet it doesn’t steal our sense of well-being and vitality for long periods of time. Soon we bounce back to our normal state of being, ready to continue our busy, activity-filled lives without permanent setback.
What Is a Chronic Disease?
The appearance of a chronic disease, however, paints a vastly different picture. We struggle being able to easily accomplish activities we had taken granted and feel depleted. We can’t bounce back to our body’s natural balance as easily as before. When a health condition persists longer than three months, it becomes chronic. It requiring the care of an integrative medical professional equipped with understanding the root causes of your illness and providing a personalized treatment plan customized to your unique needs. Often, regardless of receiving therapy, complete healing is always easily possible. This leads to an ongoing, life-altering ailment that demands you to radically adjust your daily routines, hobbies, and even career.
Chronic diseases are incredibly common, affecting 1 in 3 Americans. Children are increasingly impacted by various chronic health conditions never before seen a century ago. As we age, chronic diseases become more common, leading to over 90% of the elderly population being permanently ill. In many ways, chronic diseases is premature cellular aging where the body’s ability to heal is outweighed by cells dying at an exponential rate.
Some of the more common chronic diseases are:
cardiovascular diseases, such as high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, heart failure, stroke
diabetes
obesity and metabolic syndrome
asthma
arthritis
fibromyalgia
cancer
The Role of Integrative Medicine in Chronic Disease Management
The number of people affected by chronic diseases is sobering and tragic. Conventional Western medicine has clearly demonstrated that it is often helpless in the face of this growing, frightening, and costly epidemic. Medication-only treatment — commonly used in mainstream medical practices — may offer short-term symptom relief, but rarely associated with curing disease.
Integrative medicine offers a different approach. It focuses on the whole person whose organs are interconnected and heavily influenced by the environment and social constructs we live in. Disease is linked to a systemic imbalance within the body and mind, and requires a variety of complementary therapies in order to support the body’s innate ability to heal.
In other words, integrative medicine offers the very best of what conventional and complimentary healthcare methods can provide to individuals suffering from various chronic health conditions. How well a person responses to treatment has everything to do with their commitment to embrace a healthier lifestyle. This may include changing one’s diet to be nutritiously dense, increasing physical activity, improving sleep habits, and better management of stress. Quality vitamins, minerals and other supplements may be incorporated into the treatment plan.
How Can an Integrative Physician Help You?
Your body has an amazing ability to heal itself and return to a balanced state over time, especially if given proper support and gentle care. An integrative medicine physician can help support your journey, by offering their knowledge and experience to understand the root causes of our disease along with other underlying -yet undiscovered- conditions, and by carefully choosing the best treatment approach for you.
This type of medical care requires a partnership between physician and patient, one that is firmly rooted in trust, cooperation, mutual respect, and compassion. Such an in-depth relationship is usually neither offered, nor possible in a traditional setting, yet it is vitally an important part of a patient's journey, from diagnostic testing to disease management.
Integrative care always attempts to empower you, make you feel more relaxed, and urges you to view yourself as a central component of your story. It is only possible where true connection exists between the physician and the patient, and where highly personalized health care is indeed the norm.
By finding a highly trained integrative physician, you can make sure that you are on the right path towards holistic chronic disease management, finding relief, and possibly healing. You have real and scientifically proven treatments available, rather than simply managing your symptoms.
AUTHOR
Dr. Payal Bhandari M.D. is one of U.S.'s top leading integrative functional medical physicians and the founder of SF Advanced Health. She combines the best in Eastern and Western Medicine to understand the root causes of diseases and provide patients with personalized treatment plans that quickly deliver effective results. Dr. Bhandari specializes in cell function to understand how the whole body works. Dr. Bhandari received her Bachelor of Arts degree in biology in 1997 and Doctor of Medicine degree in 2001 from West Virginia University. She the completed her Family Medicine residency in 2004 from the University of Massachusetts and joined a family medicine practice in 2005 which was eventually nationally recognized as San Francisco’s 1st patient-centered medical home. To learn more, go to www.sfadvancedhealth.com.