3 Life-changing cases that made

I'm Dr. Anthony Kaveh, a Stanford and Harvard-trained physician, and like my other colleagues from these big-name institutions, I would roll my eyes the moment a patient so much as mentioned an alternative medical treatment. But it only took me a few quick years of practicing medicine in the real world to recognize that our side-effects, prone and expensive Western medications don't always give patients the healing they deserve. Here are three real patient stories that challenged my medical practice and pushed me to become an integrative medicine specialist, training at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine. I highly recommend the program for any other doctors who have felt this way before. And remember that integrative medicine or these holistic concepts are not meant to replace Western medicine. They're meant to gather all of the age-old wisdom and cultural practices from across the world to give patients the best care they deserve. My first patient was an elderly gentleman who was supposed to have surgery for a life-threatening condition, but they could not tolerate the general anesthesia here in the operating room. That's because general anesthetics are very effective for rendering amnesia and putting you to sleep in that medical coma so you can tolerate surgery, but they also turn off the nerves in the rest of your body, like in your heart. And this gentleman could not tolerate the cardiovascular toxic effects of general anesthesia. But he needed to have this surgery, so I discussed with this patient what human beings have done for thousands of years before we had general anesthesia. I actually did a peripheral nerve block to numb the nerves around the area that the surgery was going to happen, but that would not be enough to do a full surgery because that nerve block does not fully anesthetize the surgical area. Believe it or not, I was able to use very low doses of anesthesia with the nerve block and get the rest of the mileage out of guided imagery with this patient while he was on the operating room table being operated on in real time. It's not about these breathing techniques or guided imagery strategies replacing anesthesia, but to make a certain dose of anesthesia go that much farther. And he tolerated the surgery just well and not only survived and got discharged from the hospital, but last I checked, he was doing just fine. Have you ever felt like some medications were a sledgehammer, like that general anesthesia and giving you side effects and were looking for a more gentle, maybe alternative medication? Let me know below because I'm sure you're not alone. Patient number two was a young woman with a significant burden of complex PTSD. Not only had she failed multiple medications, but she also had paradoxical side effects with some of them that actually gave her suicidal ideation. This is one of the most serious side effects you can have from these medications and it limits our ability to use them, but this young woman was still suffering significantly. And this was where I was able to use what human beings have harnessed and known for hundreds of years. And that's the power of altered states of consciousness. I used a combination of IV ketamine therapy with my guided imagery in my center to give her relief from her PTSD that she had never experienced before without those potentially lethal side effects from those SSRIs and even a benzodiazepine that she had been prescribed before. We eventually went on to do a stellate ganglion block to also quiet down her sympathetic nervous system, giving her longer lasting relief also without any side effects. Pairing these meditative mind states with the best of Western medicine and targeted approaches like IV ketamine in particular can allow for profound improvements in patients that are suffering the most. If you're learning something new, please hit that like button and subscribe to keep up with all of my videos and consider joining our membership where you can gain more exclusive access to me in our live streams to ask me your more personalized questions so you can better advocate for yourself and learn more about holistic healing. Patient number three was a young man with terrible acid reflux. His acid reflux was so bad that he was on the verge of developing esophageal cancer and he had to be on proton pump inhibitors at high doses just to keep the reflux down. His doses of his proton pump inhibitors or PPIs were so high that he was developing deficiencies in B12, iron, calcium and possibly some other nutrients. It's not causally proven but highly suspect in folks who are taking these medications for long periods of time. On top of that, because his doses were so high and he was taking the medication for so long, he would develop a rebound hyperacidity giving him worse symptoms forcing him to keep taking the medication sometimes at even higher doses. And this was the most satisfying treatment. It turns out that in all of his workups, all of the endoscopies, no one discussed his diet. No one helped him go through an elimination diet where he found that he had several allergies and intolerances specifically to dairy. We have a saying in medicine that some folks are lactose intolerant and others haven't discovered they're lactose intolerant yet. This individual had such a lactose intolerance that it was contributing to his acid reflux to the point that he was being medicated so heavily that he was beginning to have nutrient deficiencies and possibly longer term side effects from those deficiencies. To this day, he is not taking any proton pump inhibitors and his signs of pre-esophageal cancer have diminished. If you have ever experienced side effects like this before or have experienced these types of interactions with your doctor, you deserve to work with a healer who knows how to integrate age-old wisdom with the best of Western medicine to give you the care that you deserve with minimal side effects, hopefully lower cost. Remember that you have more power over your health than you've probably ever been told and you can access it by advocating for yourself to find the right healer for you.