Prescription Medications

Antipsychotics, antidepressants, anxiolytics, antibiotics, antihypertensives . . . the list of prescriptions medications are often a list of symptoms with an “anti” attached to the front. But what are symptoms? Are the symptoms the illnesses, the warning signals of an underlying health problem, or the result of an underlying root cause? And how far back do we need to go to find the root cause?

These are difficult questions, but well worth pondering, as a clinician provides treatment interventions.

These questions hardly occurred to me, during medical training. During those years, my world revolved around the use of prescription medications. I was taught how they worked and what doses to give. It was assumed that medications were the best approach to healing mental illness. Not so long ago, I believed that they were ALL that stood between my patients and mental illness. I used them to help my patients heal from depression, bipolar disorder, and psychosis–and they worked. I appreciated the way in which medications restored my patients to a healthier state of mind, and I continue to use them today when needed.

If prescription medications are so wonderful, why do I use nutritional supplements and energy medicine in treatment? The answer is simple. For me, integrating these tools has provided better clinical outcomes.  As a holistic psychiatrist, I am open to tools that help me to restore patients to an optimum state of wellness and self-sufficiency.

Nowadays, I can heal faster and with less fear of side effects when I integrate orthomolecular/functional and energy medicine along with the knowledge acquired during psychiatric training.  I feel that I need all the tools that I can find, to help my patients be well and move forward with their lives, doing whatever they had planned on doing before they became ill.  My goal for them is to free them from needing to be a patient–to regain a true state of health, without a chronic dependency on a physician or medication in order to remain stable.

As I continue to learn and grow in my knowledge and expertise with nutritional supplements, patients are able to be less dependent on prescription medications. Nutritional supplementation and energy medicine can assist in the process of healing from psychosis, depression, OCD, Tourette’s Disorder, severe fatigue, Panic Disorder, bulimia, and phobias.

Now that I have more tools in my tool box for helping patients heal from their mental illnesses, I integrate their use based on my clinical expertise and knowledge. Prescription medications are part of my arsenal of tools. They will be as long as I need to use them. My goal is not to take sides against prescription medications, but to find answers that will support my patients’ ability to magnify their potential and be self-sufficient. Always, the decision of what is best for the patient is based on an open minded, unbiased assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of each intervention.