The Integrated Pharmacist

***Disclaimer: This blog is not meant to be used as legal or medical advice.  It is written as my person perspective on how medical professionals could blend western medicine with other modalities*** Greetings and welcome to another episode of the Integrated Pharmacist Podcast.  Today I'd like to talk to you about cell therapy.  This modality involves the injection of healthy cells in order to promote healing in a sick patient.  Western medicine has accepted this method at least to a small degree.  Most people have heard of a bone marrow transplant.  This is an example of cell therapy practiced in western medicine. In its early days, cell therapy included injecting healthy, mature cells specific to the injured site.  For example, a heart patient might get healthy heart cells - this could be from a deceased human donor.  The claim is that these cells would be injected and make their way to the heart and help the body rebuild heart cells.  They found that the patien

***Disclaimer: This blog is not meant to be used as legal or medical advice.  It is written as my person perspective on how medical professionals could blend western medicine with other modalities*** Greetings, listeners, and welcome to another episode of The Integrated Pharmacist Podcast.  This week, I'm discussing bodywork.  This is the complementary/alternative modality that has garnered the most acceptance and usage.  It includes physical manipulation such as massage therapy and reflexology, movement therapy such as qigong, yoga and ti chi, and energy work such as reiki and therapeutic touch.  Although it is a diverse set of modalities, I'd like to touch upon one in each of these three categories. Physical manipulation comes naturally to many people as a mode of self care and home care.  After a long day on your feet, it feels good to get a nice foot rub.  When our muscles develop knots, human touch makes the pain more bearable.  Positive physical touch can be calming,

***Disclaimer: This blog is not meant to be used as legal or medical advice.  It is written as my person perspective on how medical professionals could blend western medicine with other modalities*** Today's topic is biological dentistry.  This may sound like a misnomer at first.  All dentists work on biological patients, right?  This term refers specifically to dentists who recognize dental work and the mouth as an important part of the whole body.  These dentists also call themselves holistic or integrated dentists.  From what I have found, there is a strong emphasis on how issues in the mouth can affect the entire body. This outlook makes sense to me, because the mouth is like a gate to the rest of the body.  If you think about it, we really only have two holes that are built to allow something into the cavity of the human - the nose and the mouth.  If we allow foreign objects to sit in the mouth, it doesn't take too much effort for it to get down the throat and into the s

***Disclaimer: This blog is not meant to be used as legal or medical advice.  It is written as my person perspective on how medical professionals could blend western medicine with other modalities*** Today, I'd like to talk about biofeedback.  This is an approach to healing that connects the patient with a monitoring system.  As unconscious processes are relayed to the patient in real time, the patient makes conscious adjustments to make the unconscious process come into a healthier range.  What does this look like?  A simple example would be heart rate.  A biofeedback practitioner connects a heart monitor to a patient who suffers from anxiety.  The machine reflects back to the patient any changes in heart rate that occur as it is happening.  The biofeedback practitioner might guide the patient to do things that will cause relaxation such as meditation or deep breathing exercises.  The patient knows what actions work based on real time feedback. This is fascinating to me, beca