Holistic Pediatric

Integrative/Functional medicine looks for the cause of illness in order to treat the problem. Specific testing from the blood or the urine can aid in looking at metabolism, nutrition, infections, and toxins in order to find out this cause. Instead of treating the symptoms, I treat the cause of the problem.

The number of children being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders has greatly increased over the past few decades. Children with autism spectrum disorders have multiple medical issues that need to be addressed for these children to improve including digestive issues, infections, allergies, autoimmune and metabolic issues. Finding the causes of these issues can help in improving the health of children with these issues.

ADHD rates continue to rise in this country. Multiple environmental and medical issues are contributing to this increase. By looking at nutrition, mitochondrial issues, genetic SNP’s, metabolism, infections, and toxins among others, the factors involved can be targeted. Specific herbs and nutrients can also help calm the nervous system and help with attention in addition to treating the underlying causes.

Children and adolescents are having increasing rates of mood issues such as depression and anxiety resulting in many behavioral issues. Our world is increasingly stressful for our children and adolescents, and we need tools to help. There are multiple causes of these issues in addition to the environmental stressors including nutritional deficiencies and poor stress responses resulting in “burnout”. Addressing these issues takes a comprehensive approach, but natural treatments can help support and lessen mood and behavioral issues.

PANS (Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome) and PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections) are autoimmune disorders from infections. With these disorders, the immune system reacts to the brain instead of the infections causing many mood and behavioral issues. These mood and behavioral issues can happen quickly and be very disruptive to the child. Diagnosing and treating the immune system and the infection is important to help the child and the family.

With our standard American diet often called the “SAD” diet, many children suffer from nutritional deficiencies and chronic digestive disorders. These range from irritable bowel symptoms to diarrhea or constipation. Instead of treating the symptoms only, it is important to evaluate the microbiome which is the good bacteria in the digestive tract that regulates digestion and the immune system.

With the increase in digestive issues leading to immune imbalance, poor diet, and environmental exposures, there is an increase in many allergies ranging from food to the environment. Allergies can show up in different ways in people from eczema to asthma. Autoimmune disorders often develop after a long-term imbalance in the immune system.

Chronic infections can play a role in medical issues in children. Autoimmune issues such as PANS of the brain or Hashimoto’s of the thyroid can be related to infections. Children with autism spectrum disorder often have chronic infections that can contribute to their symptoms. Tick borne illness such as Lyme disease is increasingly being recognized as causing many long-term symptoms from fatigue, mood issues, and pain. Diagnosing chronic infections often takes specialized testing.

We are living in an environment with an increasing amount of chemicals including toxins from mold in water damaged buildings. It can be difficult to recognize the symptoms of environmental illness and testing needs to be targeted for the specific toxins.

All prospective parents want to have a healthy child. Preparation beginning before and during pregnancy can have a big impact on the health of the mom and the baby. Many of these interventions are easily doable for all women. My book “Preventing Autism and ADHD: Controlling Risk Factors Before, During, and After Pregnancy” gives a complete guide for women. Personal consults are also available.