Southwest Florida's Health and Wellness Magazine Health and Wellness Articles
By Svetlana Kogan, M.D.
The subject of Energy in its various expressions has always piqued my interest. As human beings we are capable of sensing energy being present or absent in our mind-body and environment. I have written numerous articles and posts about Masaru Emoto’s experiments with frozen water crystals to document how invisible energy changes the structure of water, and since we are mostly water – how energy affects every aspect of our livelihood. Today I wanted to expand this discussion to include the most common complaint we hear as doctors when patients come into the office: fatigue or lack of energy.
A simple definition of fatigue is a subjective sensation of physical, cognitive, and emotional tiredness, which interferes with daily life’s activities. As a result of feeling this way, the patient will feel burnt out, miss days of work, experience brain fog, anxiety, and sometimes even depression and pain.
To a Functional physician, Fatigue represents a loss of Energy balance. The most challenging to treat are those patients who have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). By the time they come to see me, most of them have been evaluated already, and no medical or psychiatric reason was found for their chronic tiredness. Classically, for the diagnosis of CFS to be made, the fatigue has to be present for at least 6 months continuously and at least 4 out of these 8 symptoms should be present:
• Tender neck lymph nodes
• Sore throat
• Joint pain
• Muscle pain
• Headaches
• Unrefreshing sleep
• Impaired memory or concentration
• Unusual malaise after exertion
A long list of medical diseases should be ruled out before someone receives a diagnosis of CFS. This means that a thorough laboratory and diagnostic radiology workup has been done first. Most patients with CFS who came to see me, desperate for holistic solutions, have already tried either antidepressants, analgesics, or antivirals, and for most of them these conventional treatments did not hold much promise. I feel that what was missing for these folks was a Functional Medicine approach, because it considers all the subtle often missed possibilities underlying chronic non-specific fatigue. Special attention is paid here to Antecedent contributors, which could have been at play beyond patient’s own control, like their mother’s pre-natal stress levels, their genetic predispositions via testing, detailed family history of fatigue or other functional symptoms.
Another close consideration is given to the triggering events in patient’s life like infections, allergic reactions, physical or emotional trauma, exposure to new medications or supplements, exposure to environmental toxins or mold, or abrupt dietary and/or lifestyle changes.
Functional doctors will take time “digging for” other perpetrators of fatigue, like family and job environment, alcohol or drug use, nutrient deficiencies and much more. We need to understand and build a solid doctor-patient relationship to understand our patient’s experience, and this cannot be a rushed process. We should then identify and remove the obstacles to the body’s normal functioning.
Fatigue is often a result of imbalanced relationships between various body systems, and the treatments often involve a detailed modification of lifestyle routine. I also work with my patients on optimizing their sleep, breathing, heart rate variability, tweaking the exercise routine, putting together a customized dietary plan chock full of nutrients and vitamins. I see one of my healing roles as that of a holistic coach who works with my patients regularly on helping them to balance their interpersonal relationships, and sometimes deal with stress, isolation, or grief. These very important attributes of our consciousness are essential to how we perceive fatigue or pain…
For some patients with energy imbalances – I use Ondamed – a low frequency pulsed electromagnetic fields technology – a painless way to deliver the right cellular electromagnetic frequencies wherever they are needed the most.
In treatment of CFS, the supplements which I recommend are customized to each patient, to provide the metabolic support, maintain cellular membrane integrity, mitigate effects of oxidative stress on the body, and to provide the detoxification or inflammation reduction if necessary. These supplement recommendations are uniquely tailed in their composition, dosage and duration for each patient, because I believe that a cookie-cutter approach to supplements, where people just take those vitamins and supplements they see being sold on TV or radio, can be detrimental rather than helpful.
By empowering my patients with the tools to manage these pieces of the healthy energy puzzle, I believe I am healing the person as a whole energetic being, rather than just treating their disease.
Svetlana Kogan, M.D.
The author of ‘Diet Slave No More!’, Svetlana Kogan, MD is a Board-Certified Internal Medicine, Holistic & Functional Medical Doctor with 25 years of experience. She has appeared as a health expert on prime-time TV and radio stations and has authored hundreds of holistic health articles for internet and print. She moved her Concierge Practice from Manhattan NYC to Naples in 2019. Her Functional Medicine Primary Care Practice is focused on prevention and holistic approach to illness, and longevity.
720 Fifth Ave S, Unit 209, Naples , FL 34102
Phone: (239) 676-6883
www.customlongevity.com
