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Difficulty Explaining Holistic Health Care

Holistic health Care: Those actions which improve a person’s overall health so as to facilitate rapid healing of health problems, and to create stable good health throughout their life.

Your friend gives you a condescending look and says, “Are you still going to that witch doctor?”

I don’t know why this particular line is so popular, but at least a thousand patients have told me someone asked them this at least once.

Whether it’s the witch doctor line or some other criticism, it seems that patients and practitioners of holistic health care must deal with skepticism and ridicule, even from well-meaning friends, family members, and doctors. It’s not uncommon to have a spouse watch the complete turnaround of their partner’s health and then express disbelief that their treatment had anything to do with the improvement that “would have happened anyway.”

I often talk to people who are confused about the whole concept of alternative health care… they understand that it must work, but for the life of them, they can’t see how this could be. It just won’t square with their concepts of how healthcare functions. No drugs? How in the world can that do anything?

So, I want to clarify why there is so much confusion about what I do, “holistic health care” compared to “traditional medicine.”

Where the Confusion Comes From

Medical treatment is based on the emergency model: the cause of a problem is the problem itself. A cut that is gushing blood is the cause of the bleeding problem… yes it is! This model works very well for emergencies and can save your life.

In a non-emergency chronic health problem, the medical model fails. High blood pressure is caused by… high blood pressure? Really? There is no treatable cause creating the high blood pressure? Apparently not, as the treatment is a drug to lower blood pressure, taken for the rest of the person’s life. The holistic model would improve a person’s overall health until the body no longer had to have high blood pressure. This treatment would result in 1) No more blood pressure problems. 2) Overall better health: energy, attention, enjoyment of life. 3) Heightened resistance to developing additional health problems.

Your friend or family member making the “witch doctor” comment likely thinks that you believe that the supplements you are taking will replace your blood pressure meds. This is nonsense, but your friend can’t think with the idea of improved health and ending health problems. They believe that ONLY direct treatment of the problem could be valid; therefore, your holistic treatment must be a form of direct symptom treatment. You can see how this would confuse them: to them, you are taking a whole-food supplement instead of a drug and expecting the same result.

Seven Points: How Alternative or Holistic Health Care Works

1: Recovering from any health condition requires the body to heal itself. Drugs and surgeries, when successful, make it possible for the body to heal. But no doctor has ever caused cells to regenerate or healing to occur. Doctors are facilitators of healing. Only the body itself can cause healing and health.

2: Your body is a closed system and must make do with only the resources that it has available. The healthier a body is, the more resources it has and the greater its resistance to illness and injury. The healthier a body is, the less likely it will be to become ill or injured and the faster it will recover if it does have a problem.

3: THEREFORE: If a person is ill or injured, logic would dictate that this person should improve their overall health to facilitate healing. Experience has shown that targeted stress reduction based on accurate testing can improve the body’s ability to heal… often dramatically.

4: Holistic Health Care definition: Those actions that improve a person’s overall health so as to facilitate rapid healing of health problems and create stable good health throughout their life.

5: A person using holistic health care may boost their body’s ability to heal, so their body may recover from “medically un-treatable” and severe or long-term chronic health conditions.

6: If a person truly heals, then the underlying cause of their problem is reduced or eliminated, and that person may no longer have to take drugs, even the “rest of your life” drugs. Correctly done holistic health care has the potential to help an unhealthy person become healthy.

7: MOST IMPORTANTLY: Holistic health care has the potential to prevent a healthy person from becoming unhealthy, or to prevent a recovered person from getting ill again. It is the secret to avoiding health problems in the first place and avoiding relapses if one has gotten well.

Hope this helps!

Dr. Billiot

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Fixing Your Hormones

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Natural Hormone Solutions Workshop Series

Does Your Body Seem Out of Control—Your World Flipped Upside-Down? You may be suffering from hormone imbalances

Did you know that there are about 50 hormones in your body and that these hormones control almost everything? Hormones affect the way you look, the way you act, your emotions, and your overall health. Many factors can damage your body’s hormonal control, such as aging, toxic buildup, microbial imbalance, and emotional or physical stress.

If your hormones are out of balance, you don’t feel well, and your world becomes out of whack. There are many symptoms related to hormone imbalances. Some of these you are probably familiar with like hot flashes, night sweats, extreme irritability, moodiness, digestive issues, joint pain, sleep problems, libido problems, and PMS. There are others that you might find surprising, such as:

Incontinence, migraines, depression, fatigue, wrinkly skin, weight, cold hands or feet, acne, thyroid dysfunction, endometriosis, PCOS, infertility, concentration, short term memory issues, no energy, poor muscle tone, poor balance and coordination, excess facial hair or hair loss, inability to handle stress (and quite a few more).

My Doctor Says My Blood Tests are Normal

Unfortunately, standard blood labs don’t adequately test for or reflect many hormonal imbalances and problems. If your doctor says that you are entirely healthy (despite your complaints) or that your problem “is in your head” or is “due to your nerves,” then it could be your hormones causing your problems.

Hormones are dynamic and continually changing, especially in women. To understand hormone problems, you would have to know how and when these changes are occurring and how they are changing relative to other hormones. A snapshot of blood hormone levels may appear to be “normal,” despite severe hormone imbalances.

Two Steps to a Happy Woman

STEP ONE: Testing

I have had to overcome the common problem of inaccurate hormone testing. To do this, I have researched and gained experience with a large number of different lab testing techniques. In addition to traditional blood labs, I use saliva, urine, and dried urine (“DUTCH”) labs. These labs are usually done at specific points in the menstrual cycle or are done as “cycle mapping” every few days throughout the cycle.

I also use extensive case history and reflex testing of the autonomic nervous system to determine high-level stresses and priorities. For example, is the body more stressed by the adrenal glands, thyroid gland, or ovaries? Starting with a hormone case knowing these basic facts allows me to “cut to the chase” and lab test only those areas that are causing the problems.

STEP TWO: Health Improvement

I don’t “treat” hormone problems. Treatment would involve using hormones, drugs, or surgeries to change the function or structure of the body in an attempt to improve a woman’s health.

My approach is to recognize that the body is already doing everything it can to heal itself. Also, only the body knows the entire scope of the problem and what needs to be done about it. No doctor could ever discover all of this information.

Therefore, I test and discover from the body what assistance it needs to overcome the “blocks and stops” that it’s running into, and help it to continue with the healing process. This technique can include exact supplementation, bio-identical hormones, diet and lifestyle changes, and some gentle yet powerful acupressure hormone techniques to relieve specific stresses.

I help your body address the causes of why it isn’t healing instead of treating the symptoms that result from its problems. You may achieve a stable state of health that you can maintain instead of continually chasing an elusive “balance” for your hormones.

It is my greatest honor to have worked with thousands of patients and assisted their bodies with hormone imbalances. I have helped many women who have not responded well to medical or other alternative treatments with great success. I have numerous tools and protocols to handle difficult cases that have resisted all previous efforts. My approach is unique in many ways among medical and alternative health practices in helping women recover their health and quality of life.

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Stress Busting Tips to Stay Healthy

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STRESS can be a big factor in whether a person gets sick or not. Recognize this, and do something about it before you’re confronted with a combo one-two punch of having major stress in your life PLUS being sick! Here are some very tried-and-true stress lowering strategies:

Avoid stressful people. Minimize contact and communication with these people. If the stressful person is a required part of your life (family member, boss, etc.) keep good, but minimal communication in place. Cutting off all communication with these people will often cause greater stress. When you do talk to them, avoid any confrontation and talk about pleasant or mundane subjects. Remember: if you fight with these people, YOU lose automatically because you’ll be stressed out!
Avoid reading the newspaper, watching the news on TV or listening to it on the radio. Does this sound extreme? If so, do an experiment. Stop the news for one week. Then resume normal news consumption the following week. Compare how you felt on week 1 with how you felt on week 2. Decide whether or not you want to stop your exposure to the news.
Take walks around your neighborhood or near where you work as often as possible. Walk until you feel alive and refreshed and are interested in the world again.
Minimize non-prescription drugs as much as possible. Drugs work by “insulating” you to a degree from the real world. This can result in what appears to be stress-reduction, but as you come off the drug the stress will be much greater than if you hadn’t taken the drug in the first place. Net effect: MORE stress. The less drugs you can take (alcohol, pain killers, sleep medications, etc.) the less overall stress you’ll experience even though it may appear otherwise. There are exceptions, of course, such as severe acute problems. But this is true for most situations where a person would use typical over-the-counter or recreational medications.
Sleep is critical to help the body handle stress. If you can sleep, DO IT! Make the time to go to bed at a decent hour so you get enough sleep. The more stress you’re under the more sleep you need.
“Exercise” is probably the wrong description for using the physical motion of your body to handle stress. A better word would be MOTION. Your body really likes motion, and is stressed by a lack of motion. You don’t have to raise your heart rate to a certain point, sweat or have sore muscles. In fact, unless you’re already doing a strenuous exercise program it’s not necessarily a good thing to start one if you’re under a lot of stress. Instead, park farther away and walk. Take the stairs. Clean out your closets. DO something physical that makes you happy, but also gets your body moving. Do this frequently, daily if at all possible.
TALK! Communication is very therapeutic. Make a list of people you enjoy talking to but haven’t heard from in a long time. Call them up. Increase the frequency that you chat with friends. Meet people and talk some more.

More Information

There are a couple great homeopathic products you can use to help your body deal with stress. They are from a company called Energetix. The products are Field of Flowers and Rescue Calm. If you are a patient with us, ask your practitioner to test your body and see if it would like either one of these products to help you cope with stress.

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Detoxification: A Very Different View

Detoxification is one of the most cherished tools used by many holistic or alternative healthcare practitioners. It’s easy to understand the concept: we live in a toxic environment, eat toxins in our food, slather toxic personal products on our skin, and often take (very) toxic drugs, both for recreation and prescription.

All this nasty stuff must build up and cause stress, malfunction, and disease. Therefore, taking special supplements while eating and drinking specific foods over some time to purge toxins from the body seems like a no-brainer.

Maybe It’s Not That Simple

There are two opposing schools of thought about detoxification:

Traditional, Scientific Medical View: “Detoxing – the idea that you can flush your system of impurities and leave your organs squeaky clean and raring to go – is a scam. It’s a pseudo-medical concept designed to sell you things.” (theguardian.com)

Holistic, Alternative View: “Health isn’t possible with a toxic body. Specific detoxes such as liver and colon cleanses are necessary.”

It’s been my experience that, as usual, both viewpoints have truths and falsehoods.

If detoxing was as simple as “eat this way and take these supplements to flush out these toxins,” labs could be done to measure toxic loads before and after the detoxes to show how efficient the process was. Sadly, I have seen no credible information that “before and after” toxicity has ever been conclusively measured by a lab. I say “sadly,” because healthcare would be so much simpler if I could detox all my patients into high states of health.

On the other hand, the idea that our bodies can stay perfectly healthy just by eating a standard American diet and exposure to all manner of drugs and chemicals (and worse) in the environment is even more ludicrous (this is the “accepted medical viewpoint”).

Your Body Never Stops Detoxing

Your body’s health and function can be compared to a scale: On one side is your body’s ability to function correctly and handle stress (such as toxins). On the other side are a total load of toxicity and lifestyle-induced stress. If your body can keep up and the scale stays tipped in the healthy direction, you will be fine. Other than some particular situations (heavy metals, radiation, etc.), toxins don’t load up in a body that is maintaining its health.

Things go wrong when your body’s function can’t keep up with the toxic and stress load you are giving it.

Honestly, your body never stops detoxing because the toxins never stop getting into it in our current environment! The trick is to get your body into a health condition where it can “keep up” with the toxic load.

One disagreement I have with the “culture of detoxification” is that often people think they can detox once a year for a week or two as a substitute for a truly healthy lifestyle and effective therapy for their health problems. It’s not true!

Real Benefits of Detoxification Programs

A correctly done detox program has the effect of kicking off a long-term improvement in lifestyle and diet while addressing acute stress in the liver and digestive systems. While I may not be sold on the “Detox to be less toxic” bandwagon, I am very sold on proven and effective ways to improve function and reduce stress.

My favorite detox? It’s the Standard Process “Detox Balance” program. This is a 28-day program of diet improvements and whole-food supplements in smoothies.

Does this “get out all the nasty toxins?” Probably not.

What it does with efficiency for every patient I’ve ever put on the program is:

Better energy
Better sleep
Better digestion
Improved mental clarity

Often there are many other benefits, such as improved libido, improved skin, weight loss, etc.

The detox works because doing the program can radically shift your personal “scale” toward the good side. Suddenly your body has a lot less stress and a lot more function. What does it do with this? It compensates better for stress and starts the healing process.

You get the benefits that are touted for a “detox,” just for different reasons!

You Can’t Stop with the Detox

Let’s say you do a detox and feel lots better. Yea! But how long will this last?

Sadly, not long.

With no follow-up, it’s just like you washed your car. In a week, you can’t tell it ever happened.

However, with the proper follow-up, it’s just the beginning of an entirely new level of life and health!

BUT: How do you know what to do for the follow-up?

Should you “eat healthily?” Well, sure, but what does that mean? And are there specific dietary recommendations that YOUR body needs?

Should you take supplements? Which ones? How do you know they’re correct? How do you know you don’t need more or fewer supplements? How do you know when your body is done with a supplement?

Are there functional problems with your body that will override all efforts to maintain your health? This could be hormone problems, allergy problems, nervous system problems, etc. Do you need therapy for this type of issue? If so, what therapies and for how long?

A Simple Solution: Attend our Virtual Detox Seminar

Every year I host a Detoxification Seminar in January.

This year it’ll be virtual!

I will show you how to do an effective detox, answer your questions, and get you started correctly on your detox program.

Oh, and the seminar is free!

GUESS WHAT! YOU DIDN’T MISS IT!

Here’s a link to a recording of the Webinar and lots more information on how you can detoxify yourself successfully.

GO TO MY DETOX PAGE TO WATCH THE WEBINAR

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Watch this video for a seven-minute explanation of how your body can be assisted to heal itself.

Life is Crazy Out Here! What’s a Woman to Do?

Hey everyone! I wanted to take a few minutes and acknowledge that life is super hard sometimes. In fact it can downright stink. Many times, in the age of digital togetherness we exist in a vacuum of loneliness. I see patients every day, so I see your pain in so many ways. The loss of a loved one, the pain of a bad marriage and the stress of a horrible work situation that you can’t seem to change or step away from. Sometimes the hardest things are the things you feel you cannot change.

The stress that this creates is incredible. Anxiety, sleepless nights, anger, irritability, apathy and lack of ambition for life or anything is a common result. Do you ever feel like you are burning up on the inside and can’t even control your emotions when you need to? Do you blame others or lash out and later feel like a total mean girl? It is super stressful in life and you have to have ways to cope… but not just cope, you have to thrive!

One of my patients recently lost a job. A really good job. One of my ladies left a good job to create a business of her own. Both situations are extremely stressful, for different reasons. Sick babies, stressed and difficult husbands and wives, not enough money, house closings, finals, difficult relatives, terminal illnesses, caring for a sick loved one and impossible life situations are some of the things that keep us up at night and burn out our lights and our health. Add all this to extreme fatigue, insomnia changing hormones and you can have quite a fire burning out of control!

I help people with their health, but frequently my job entails being a good listener and even more a helper in soothing and helping direct someone to take a look at possible solutions to the stress that is there. Most of the time they are the only ones who could possibly know what to do next, but being a good listener helps. And that is my point: Our problems are our own, but we need people to listen to us, people to talk to, to help us find our own solutions. Then we aren’t so alone. We really are all together in this life. Your problem may someday be mine and in listening, we can find our solutions and possibly help someone else.

Here are some things I have found successful when I am in an impossible situation that seems to be a damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don’t scenario. (We all have them at some point in our lives):

The first thing to do is to stop and put your situation on pause. For a minute or an hour or a day or for a month, however long you need to see more clearly. Imagine you, freeze framed, while the world bangs on uninterrupted and hurried as it always is, and you are just still. It can really help. You see the world still moves without you, but you can be still, and you can take a minute and you can push the other things away for as much time as you need to decide what you need to do or what direction you need to head in.
A daily walk, a workout, tea time, a massage, a coffee with a friend or just going to bed early with a good book can give you a little space.
Taking your recommended supplements, eating well, staying hydrated and sleeping 7-8 hours per night are things you can do to be kind to yourself and buffer yourself against the stress we all have. When we are so stressed, we burn up our B vitamins and use much more calcium and magnesium to shield the nervous system. Our body is amazing at adapting, but after a while we use all our resources and have to stop at the well again to replenish. If you give and give, make sure you fill back up.

There aren’t always “right” and “wrong” answers to life’s questions. There are just the answers that will bring your life a little more sanity and a little more peace. When you are physically better, you can see these answers more clearly. I was asked this week by a younger woman what advice I would have given to myself when I was 22. I told her this:

“Life is long. Choose your partners and your friends well. It is not as important as it seems, and mistakes help you grow and learn. Go easier on yourself and love yourself. You will make it the way you want it and you will make it OK because you can.”

I spoke to someone recently who shared with me about her childhood in a family where the father abandoned them first and then the mom left when this woman was fifteen, leaving her to feed and protect two younger children. She was abused and did things she was not proud of to make sure those kids ate and that they all survived. She is grown now and wonders why she has anxiety. She thinks it started last January. But you know what? She has a beautiful family and a wonderful husband, and she is afraid she will become her mother. I can tell you definitively that this woman will not. She escaped, but she still has scars.

We carry the scars of what made us. They aren’t things we should be embarrassed of though we often are. We carry the shame of things we could not control and the pain of betrayal from those who hurt us when they should have loved and protected us. But we go on and we live and for many of us we create homes where those we love will never be touched by these evil things. We ended the cycle. The scars we carry are badges. And as a wise woman told me recently, they are part of us, but they do not have to define us.

So, take a minute and pause. Realize who you are. A strong woman who can create your own life even out of the pain and the ashes of lost dreams and lost hope. You are the creator of dreams and the creator of hope. You don’t have to have to let anyone slow you down or stop you from blooming. Those things or people that seek to dim your energy and your life are not things you have to let exist in your life. No, really. It is true. You can change even the most impossible situation.

Sometimes, being healthy and having energy again can help you make better decisions. Sometimes those things and those people that stress you most, most need to change because that is why you are sick and tired and stressed in the first place. I start with helping people recover their health. I help the body recover and heal. Once you have your health, you can see more clearly where to go. There is a plethora of ills in the world but only one you. Let’s get you as bright and happy and as beautiful and energetic as possible. Then watch out world! There is nothing too impossible for you to do or achieve!

Let me help you. I love you and wish you all the joy!

Dr. Melodie Billiot

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