Mental Health
Changing Seasons, Changing You
As the air begins to crisp, and the leaves start changing colors, we are brought back to what’s familiar. Maybe this time feels sad, or it feels exciting. The beauty of seasons is the change we must endure; reminding us of our internal strength and resilience. September 10th was National Suicide Prevention Day, and while a day can never be enough to grieve the lives lost and families and friends affected, it’s an important time for us to listen, unlearn, relearn, and heal. With over 700,000 lives lost a year globally due to suicide it important for us to reflect on our own struggles, how common and yet unique they are, and the systems within us and around us, that make it challenging to find hope. Most of us, if not everyone, has thought about dying, has questioned why we are here, and wondered what it would be like to not exist. For us to make changes in that harrowing yearly number, we need to take the shame out of suicide and suicidal thoughts. Shame hides us from the world, it protects us but with limits. It is also not solely on us, but on the systems and powers put in place that keeps us apart: limiting our time available to support one another. Most of us are too tired to have challenging conversations and too exhausted to support one another as most of us are barely able to support ourselves.
Read MoreTick Borne Infection and Mental Health
I recently had a patient contact our office with a complaint of a multi-year history of anxiety that started several months after a camping trip. Despite trying many different medications and counseling therapies, their anxiety has been resistant to all attempts at treatment. In addition to the anxiety, the patient had also developed a distinctive “stretch mark like” rash, but the patient did not have risk factors for stretch marks. This case has the hallmarks for a vector borne infection that we lump into the category of Lyme and associated diseases, called Bartonella (also known as Cat Scratch Fever). Neuropsychiatric symptoms (mental illness) have been well documented in the scientific literature in patients with Bartonella positive testing.
Read MoreLyme Disease: Treatment is a Multidisciplinary Approach
As we head into Lyme Awareness month, let us highlight the multi-modal approach that it takes to treat the complex condition that is Lyme disease. Treatment for Lyme disease is not a “one size fits all” approach and looks different for every single patient. Several factors, including but not limited to, duration of illness, parts of the body involved, co-infections present, and underlying health status, play a significant role in clinical decision making to decide what treatment(s) are appropriate for any specific patient. Lyme disease can infect any tissue in the body, and therefore has the ability to affect several body systems at once. This often leads to a multitude of symptoms across body systems that seem to be unrelated, but are in fact, all connected. Since this can look different for every patient, having a practitioner in Integrative Medicine to take the time to listen to you and put all of the pieces together is essential to achieve proper evaluation and treatment.
Read MoreLyme Disease and Mental health
For those who are not diagnosed and treated in the early phases of Lyme disease, symptoms can progress to affect almost every part of the body. Some people present with chronic pain, some with autoimmune diseases, and some with predominantly neurological symptoms. Neurological Lyme often includes sudden changes in mood which can impact a person’s day to day life functions.
Read MoreHealing Your Mind
In this new year, let us make our mental health a priority. In a world full of distractions, I invite you to focus in on yourself and your needs, starting with therapy. For those living with a chronic illness, when you are treating your physical body, your mental health is impacted. Mental health is physical health. You owe it to yourself to enter a safe space to fully process the pain you are going through; the pain that is not always visible to the eye.
Read MoreShifting Your Resolutions
As the leaves begin to fall, the air begins to grasp tighter around our skin; we reminisce, reflect on our year, and for most of us, begin to feel regret and shame for not accomplishing those new year resolutions we thought of many months before. The end of the year can be met with stress, anxiety, and depression, and especially now, we may have more fear and uncertainty. We tend to put pressure on ourselves around this time of year, mainly because of what is portrayed in the media, what we consume daily, and the shock that is this year ending and another one upon us. Time seems to pass by faster when the years come to a close, we tend to think back on what we could and should have done, what we may have lost or gained, thus looping us back into the shame of not meeting unrealistic expectations.
Read MoreHealth and Gratitude
Being the first born child, I was an easy baby with minimal to no health issues. Little did my parents know that their next child would be quite the opposite picture of health. Following a challenging birth, it was a never ending cycle of visits to children's clinics, new specialists, new medications, surgeries, series of hospitalizations, with a couple of near death health emergencies sprinkled on top. It was easy to feel hopeless, sorrowful, and downright angry for everything that this innocent child had to experience. However, we soon realized that what was out of our control was simply out of our control. It would be essential to embrace what we could control - our mindset towards the situation.
Read MoreGratitude and Chronic Illness
Living with a chronic illness can offer a special set of skills, emotional awareness, and shift in the ways in which we associate with gratitude. When we think about gratitude, what comes to mind is often our external world, rather than what is experienced inward. With the grief that ensues in living with a chronic condition, our mind, body and soul begin to reconnect itself differently; what might have been no longer serves us now; we begin to adopt new practices of love, appreciation, and care. When it comes to treatment, chronic illness patients often experience a disconnect in what these mean versus what it may have meant prior to their diagnosis. Unfortunately, mainstream medicine offers only a narrow lens in healing, while most of us suffering with anything chronic (mental and physical) require an adaption of treatment and lifestyle embedded in our daily living....
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