Mental Health

There’s been a significant uptick in anxiety, depression, PTSD, and suicidal ideation during the past couple of years due to isolation, lockdowns, Covid longhaulers, and fear. Acupuncturists are seeing this as well as those practitioners in the mental health world. It is appearing in all of my health groups on FB, and, I am seeing this in my clinic, particularly among adolescents. I have always treated some of these mental health issues in my practice from the perspective of gut health, because I support the gut-brain connection via the vagus nerve. So in addition to acupuncture and Chinese medicine, I have the additional tools to assess these patterns and address the root cause also with Functional Medicine, where I may prescribe supplements, food changes, other botanical medicine, recommend modalities including mindfulness meditation, yoga, EFT (tapping), Qi Gong, certain therapies, and many other tools. Today there are so many new techniques for treating the brain, and I will either make recommendations or also refer out to the appropriate practitioner. In addition, I may use further gut lab testing to identify problems.