About Me
I’ve been studying and practicing health since childhood and have always been curious about the human body. Nature, psychology, and physiology topics in particular have always interested me, and I wrestled with profound questions and insights about life from a young age. Knowing facts has never been enough for me, as I’ve always needed to understand the why and how behind any subject. Naturally, this curiosity took me deeper into the academia.
As one effect of my father’s own journey toward health, I was introduced to the core tenets of health such as exercise and nutritious eating. In my early teens, I experimented with cooking, fitness, and was working through my own health struggles, particularly IBS, skin issues, and frequent viral infections.
Like most, I bounced around the offices of conventional doctors searching for answers and relief but was pushed away by the lack of both. Fed up with getting sick, I read a book titled Finally . . . The Common Cold Cure and learned about Vitamin C, zinc, and green tea to treat and prevent recurring colds. The protocol worked tremendously well and it was then that my interest in natural medicines truly began.
Several years later, I’d also taken an interest in bodybuilding. I was strongly influenced by Bruce Lee’s The Art of Expressing the Human Body, which served as my introduction to both structured fitness training and a brief education in his martial art, Jeet Kune Do. Eventually I’d gained over 25 pounds of muscle, became a nutritionist and certified personal trainer, and spent about 4 years in this role.
When it came time to choose what I wanted to do after college, I decided to pursue a career that I stumbled across on Google—doctor of naturopathic medicine. As a child, I recall always having an interest in the work of doctors and imagined I might someday assume that role. However, prescribing drugs sounded rather boring to me, and the work of conventional doctors that I’d seen in the past had never truly helped me heal. Having no former knowledge of naturopathic medicine, I decided to pursue it.
Within a few months of medical school, I became relentlessly ill with what was essentially a “bad cold.” The main issue was that I had trouble sleeping at night due to a sore throat and extremely dry cough. I couldn’t lie down without coughing myself awake. I was also rather emotionally labile about it. However the illness was peculiar because I’d improve and then relapse again. Vitamin C and zinc weren’t working, and I had no other options. I again reached for a book, this time titled Nature Cure, which led me to discover homeopathic medicine.
Having no other knowledge of homeopathic medicine except for what I found searching the internet, I decided to take a medicine called Pulsatilla. Initially, nothing happened. Then, I decided to take another dose in frustration, and when I woke up the following morning, all of my symptoms were completely gone. 6 weeks of a relapse-remitting illness had vanished. I physically felt lighter and emotionally I felt tremendously relieved. The symptoms did not return. I’d never experienced anything like that before and was not only curious but also felt indebted to the medicine.
Within my first few months of school I knew that I had to devote a significant portion of my time to homeopathy and helping others use this medicine. Interestingly, I heard my neighbor coughing at night and decided to ask her more about her symptoms, which turned out to be very similar to mine. I gave her a dose of the same medicine, which also produced the same result!
My interest in homeopathy aligns with my interest in integrative and holistic medicine. I don’t treat symptoms, but rather seek to understand what’s creating the symptoms—the cause. This often involves studying “the whole person” which means understanding and assimilating all of the factors that may be enabling a person’s illness. This usually involves the application of psychology, physiology, and even metaphysics. Homeopathic medicines allow me to prescribe a single medicine that addresses all or most of the factors discovered during the evaluation. My approach is strictly systems-based, as I look for the connections between your psychological state, your symptoms, and the current function of your organs.
Integrating medicine with metaphysical topics is helpful to bridge knowledge gaps between what’s physically observable in patients and what’s apparent or influential but not observable. This approach is inspired and guided by anthroposophic medicine, which I began studying toward the end of my tenure in medical school. Anthroposophic medicine incorporates different modes of medical thinking and various medical philosophies. It seeks to understand the relationship, for example, between the human soul and how it influences health and disease.
Aside from homeopathic medicines, my approach also includes glandular supplements, UNDA, and botanical medicines. These types of naturopathic medicines work more on a physical level and can be used to facilitate detoxication, balance body systems, and support organ function. I also use anthroposophic medicines to exert specific, more precise effects on particular organs or energetic patterns.
When I’m not practicing medicine, I also write professionally for Healthline and occasionally publish case reports in medical journals. I’ve also published a book called In Pursuit of Health.