Doctor's Perspective

Bio
Curriculum Vitae

In 2012 I drifted away from the practice of anesthesiology and opened a new medical practice in what is being called Age Management, Anti-Aging or Integrative medicine. This type of medicine 'integrates' many areas of medicine...along with nutrition, exercise science, sleep science, psychology, stress management, Eastern medicine and more. Much of what you may hear about this area of medicine from your personal doctors is that it is "unconventional"...at best.

I have been a physician for 25 years. Physicians and surgeons are trained to treat disease. We are NOT trained to treat people who are essentially healthy. Most of my friends and family are essentially healthy. However, we are getting older. We don't have the same energy. We don't have the same stamina. We have lingering injuries. We have to deal with job stress, kid stress, family stress, financial stress, time management stress. It goes on. All these stresses take a toll on us, yet we are not sick. If most of you were to go into your family doctor's office and get a check up and physical, he would state very happily that you are perfectly healthy! All your lab values checkout normal. Your EKG is normal. Your chest x-ray is normal. Your exercise stress test is normal. You are NORMAL. You are HEALTHY.

Then why do I feel so lousy?? Why am I sleepy during the day? Why do my spouse and I pass out on the couch every night after dinner? Why don't I want to exercise after a day at the office? Why don't I sleep well? Why don't I wake up in the morning feeling refreshed? Why don't I feel like having sex much? Why am 120Ibs over my college weight? Why have I lost my muscle tone? Why do I get exhausted after climbing up a couple flights of stairs? Why am I anxious alot of the time? Why is my memory so bad? Why, Doctor? Why?

Your doctor says, "It's normal. Your just getting older. Do you want me to put you on an anti-depressant?"

What he is actually saying is "You don't have any DISEASE". Us doctors are not trained to deal with "sub-optimal" health. We are trained to deal with overt disease. To conventional medicine "no disease" means you are normal and healthy. This clearly is NOT true. I don't feel perfectly healthy. I don't feel like I did when I was 28yrs old. Now THAT was healthy!!!

I decided to look into a new area of medicine because I, and most of my friends, feel this way. Our standard response to all of our foibles is, "I'm just too old for this!"......but I want to feel better. I want to look better. I'm not satisfied with just getting older and crankier!

Over the past 15 years, I have become frustrated and disenchanted practicing disease-oriented medicine. Sure, I was financially stable but I felt that there had to be more to life for me. There must be a way for us to live a better, healthier, happier life. There IS a way, but they don't teach us about it in Med School. This way is what Integrative/Anti-Aging medicine focuses on.

There is a growing group of doctors who are unsatisfied with conventional medicine. Many of them are pursuing this significantly different path. I have recently completed a Fellowship in Anti-Aging and Regenerative medicine. This medicine is based on scientific research and clinical experience. It is not hokey. It is not junk science. The research comes out of Harvard, Stanford, University of Michigan etc. The scientific articles have been published in JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine, Cardiology etc. We learn about the science behind proper diet, exercise and bio-identical hormones. We learn about how stress affects our physiology, and how to manage that stress. We learn about nutritional supplements and how they can be used in conjunction with, or instead of, conventional medicines to keep people "optimally" healthy. We learn about the things that make our bodies age...inflammation, oxidative stress, glycation, and how to treat them. We learn about environmental toxins and how to rid the body of these toxins. We learn about ways to help your body heal better and faster without the use of medicines or surgery (i.e. using autologous stem cell injections to regrow articular cartilage, instead of having joint replacement surgery).

We spend alot more time than most doctors do (l-2hrs for an initial visit) listening carefully to our patients' everyday complaints. We draw very specialized and specific blood, saliva and urine tests(...ones which most doctors have no idea even exist) in an attempt to assess your natural hormone levels (testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, thyroid, growth hormone, cortisol etc). We then strive to restore these hormone levels back to where they were when you were feeling TRULY healthy (28 years old!). We recommend lifestyle changes, exercise programs, weight loss programs, and nutritional supplementation. The aim of Anti-Aging medicine is not to make you just healthy, but to make you OPTIMALLY healthy.

I have also been trained in what is being called Regenerative Medicine. This involves the use of your own STEM CELLS, GROWTH FACTORS and blood PLATELETS, to treat a wide variety of health issues including musculo-skeletal injuries and chronic pain. This is the wave of the future in terms of healing tissue and treating injury. Stem cell and platelet injection therapy is extremely effective. It works quickly and carries almost no risk with it. We utilize your OWN blood or bone marrow. There are no scalpels or stitches. Compared to steroid injections, this therapy is safer, longer lasting and actually HEALS your tissue. Compared to surgery, this therapy does not involve General Anesthesia. It has almost NO risk of infection. It has a MINIMAL recovery time. It causes much less post-procedure pain...and it heals.

If you have any questions or would like to schedule an appointment for your patients, friends or yourself, please call me. Thanks for all your support over the years.