Desert Health News - January-February 2025

www.circehealthcare.com January/February 2025 www.DesertHealthNews.com Integrative Medicine The Valley ' s Leading Resource for Health and Wellness 15 That is why we created Circe Coaching Our team of medical and holistic practitioners provides educational courses and one-on-one coaching to help you manage the risk factors of pre-diabetes, obesity, heart disease, dementia, anxiety, chronic pain and more. Education and Inspiration for Total Transformation Old habits are hard to break Call to Get Started Today Dr. Edith Jones-Poland, MD Founder/Family and Integrative Care Physician Dr. Patricia VanSanten, DAOM Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine One-on-One Coaching Mindfulness Education 760-773-4948 wellness@circecares.com • circecares.com Palm Desert 73345 Hwy. 111, Suite 101 Yucca Valley 57463 Twentynine Palms Hwy, Suite 202 @circ healthcare Bachir Younes, MD, MPH Younes Medical 760.636.1336 Desert Hyperbaric Medicine 760.773.3899 Roula Younes, DNP Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is recommended for treating a variety of medical conditions including expediting wound healing. Desert Hyperbaric Medicine is a part of Younes Medical offering comprehensive care for patients. The company encompasses an infectious disease clinic , a state-of-the-art wound care center and the largest independent IV fusion therapy facility in the valley—Desert Infusion Center. Immerse yourself in healing When was the last time you prepared food for a loved one? Whether it was the favorite dish of a child returning home from college, fresh groceries and soup for a sick friend, or a celebratory feast to mark the new year, food is at the heart of relationships. It is a focal point when people gather because it does more than nourish our bodies — food nourishes our souls. But what happens when our food choices no longer serve us? As a physician and health coach, I’ve witnessed firsthand how challenging it can be to change our eating habits. Food is far more than calories and macronutrients; it is deeply tied to our emotions, traditions and how we interact with those we love. From our first breath, food is linked to love and care. As infants, being fed is one of the first ways we feel comfort; it’s how we begin to form connections to our loved ones. As we grow, food becomes a way to celebrate milestones and show affection. I have a distinct memory of eating simple, nutritious meals around my grandmother’s table while listening to Paul Harvey on the radio. I credit my healthy eating habits to her style of meal preparation. Our lifetime of experiences shapes our food choices and how we connect to others. Because food is closely woven together with the culture that shapes our lives, it can be difficult to change eating habits. There is a mountain of evidence that shows food affects how we feel, and how we feel affects what we eat.€ Unfortunately, the meaning we give to food may clash with our goals of adopting a healthier lifestyle. Here are a few tips to help you move toward healthier choices: Pause and ask yourself questions. It can be a valuable exercise to bring awareness to our food choices by asking ourselves: • How does this food or meal make me feel? • Are there emotions driving this food choice? • Can I make a small adjustment to enhance the nutrients without losing the meaning of this food? Write it down. I highly recommend keeping a journal to track food choices in order to record the emotions we experience as we consider and enjoy our meals. Create new memories with food. Learning about new foods and new preparation techniques allows us to forge new memories and traditions. Here are a few ways to have meaningful, lasting change: • Honor the emotional connection - Keep your time-honored recipes but fine tune them by swapping healthy ingredients. • Involve loved ones - Invite family and friends along on the journey, which will add meaning for everyone together. • Start small - The tiniest amount of change can have a massive impact. As we all continue the journey toward lifelong health, please be kind to yourself. Everywhere we go, even to the grocery store and the kitchen, we carry with us a lifetime of experiences and traditions that shape our identity. Lasting change is possible once we bring awareness to our emotional ties to food and acknowledge the importance of food in how we experience and share our love with the world. Edith Jones-Poland, MD, is a family physician and functional lifestyle coach with Circe Coaching and can be reached at (760) 773.4948. For more information, visit www.circecares.com . Reference: 1) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7322666/ Food Is Love By Edie Jones-Poland, MD Through my studies and clinical practice, I have learned that positive results rely on applying the principles of "same treatment for different diseases" and "different treatments for the same disease." As such, consideration of the individual patient's characteristics and clinical symptoms is essential to determine treatment protocols. When the affected skin is bright red with a burning quality of pin-prick pain and accompanied by irritability, dry mouth, thirst and constipation, the condition is what TCM calls “the pathogenic fire” accumulating in the blood system. It should be treated by clearing heat and cooling the blood to purge the fire. Acupuncture treatments would focus on clearing heat and TCM would recommend heat-clearing herbs. When the pimples fill with milky fluid, TMC calls this “toxic damp heat” in the spleen channel. A patient will often have poor appetite, loose stools and bloating. Acupuncture treatments would then focus on venting heat and resolving toxicity and dampness; herbs to drain toxic damp heat are recommended. A central factor in TCM is Qi, the vital energy and life force within us. When Qi and blood are weakened by illness or old age and cannot rid the virus, then the lesions will be partially erupted. Severe electric pain that radiates and shoots along the nerve pathways can develop as a result, and movement can worsen the condition. This is called Qi and blood stagnation, referred to in western medicine as postherpetic neuralgia. It can last one to six months or more, sometimes longer depending on the individual. Shingles can be a serious and life-altering condition. Vaccinations recommended for those aged 50 and older do not completely protect from shingles. However, they can reduce the severity and duration of the disease. We must remember that shingles can be prolonged by a constitutionally weak immune system and medications such as immunosuppressants. To maintain a strong immune system, I always recommend avoiding alcohol and sugar, eating plenty of bitter greens, leafy vegetables, radishes and ginger and drinking lemon water every day. These remedies help fight against shingles and are recommended by both western and eastern styles of medicine alike. Diane Sheppard is a licensed acupuncturist and doctor of traditional Chinese medicine with AcQPoint Wellness Center. She can be reached at (760) 345.2200. For more information, visit www.acqpoint.com. Our emotional connection to food can stem from family cultures that shape our lives. East Meets West in Treating Shingles Continued from page 8