If you’ve experienced severe allergy-like symptoms — such as hives, difficulty breathing, low blood pressure, and severe diarrhea — and your doctor diagnoses you with allergies — you may actually have mast cell activation syndrome. Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) flares up when mast cells, which are located throughout the body, inappropriately release excessive amounts of chemical mediators, such as histamine, in response to a trigger, including one or more of the following: Alcohol An allergen Certain chemicals Certain food items (which vary among individuals) Certain fragrances (such as perfume or cologne) Certain medications Exposure to sunlight Heat or cold Heavy metals Infection (bacterial, viral, or fungal) Mold/fungus When mast cells function as they should, they help defend the body against threats, such as harmful viruses, bacteria, and fungi. However, when these cells become overly sensitive, they release chemical mediators in response to non-threatening triggers. Sometimes, they release too much. […]
Candida — Shedding Light on an Oft-Ignored Yeast Infection Are you one of the women with candida yeast overgrowth symptoms in Tampa, FL? In 1986, a book entitled The Yeast Syndrome by John Parks Trowbridge, MD, and Morton Walker, DPM, detailed the negative impacts of an opportunistic, pathogenic yeast named Candida albicans on human health. Candida yeast is nothing new. The medical community has been aware of it for more than 50 years, and doctors routinely diagnose and treat candida yeast infections — oral and esophageal (thrush); vaginal; and invasive, which is a serious infections that can affect the blood, heart, brain, eyes, bones, and other parts of the body. These are the obvious cases. They’re easy to diagnose and are usually treated with pharmaceutical-grade antifungal medications. The medical community has been much slower to recognize Candida infections that fly just below the radar. These infections typically trigger a chain reaction
Effective Treatment for Gastrointestinal and Bowel Disorders When you see a primary care physician for chronic indigestion, constipation, diarrhea, or some other gastrointestinal issue, he or she is likely to prescribe medication to treat the symptoms. If those symptoms persist, you’ll probably get a referral to a gastroenterologist, who may prescribe other medications and possibly order an endoscopy, colonoscopy, ultrasound, or CT scan. Unfortunately, diagnostic digital imaging rarely turns up any evidence of the real problem because it’s looking at the wrong thing. Gastrointestinal disorders usually are less about your body and more about what’s living inside your body — the trillions of microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, and fungi/yeast) living in your gastrointestinal tract (your gut, for short). When balanced, this diverse population of microorganisms (commonly referred to as your microbiome) is essential for breaking down the foods you eat and facilitating the absorption of nutrients. Some microorganisms even produce nutrients
Hormone Replacement Therapy for Fatigue, Depression, and Anxiety If you’re one of the women looking for hormone therapy for women in Tampa, FL, this article is right for you. Women often come to our Tampa Functional Medicine clinic experiencing a trifecta of symptoms — fatigue, depression, and anxiety. As women age, their hormone levels begin to fluctuate and then decline. Between the ages of 40 and 50, women can transition from perimenopause to full-blown menopause — the stage at which symptoms often begin or worsen. The simple solution would be to restore hormone levels to a more youthful status using hormone replacement therapy (HRT). For some women, the solution is that simple. A small dose of progesterone, estrogen, or testosterone can make a huge difference in a woman’s moods, libido, body composition, and energy. And as hormones rise safely to more youthful levels, cognitive function and memory improve. Unfortunately, the
Is Hormone Replacement Therapy Safe? For people entering midlife who are not feeling their best, with anything appearing to help, it may be time to consider hormone replacement therapy (HRT). This is a treatment regimen that typically supplements estrogen and/or progesterone for women — or testosterone for men — to restore healthy hormone levels and balance. While hormone replacement therapy has been available since the 1960s, the use of synthetic hormones and their potential for causing serious side effects has fueled considerable controversy. But the increasing availability of bioidentical hormones, which possess the same molecular structure as the hormones produced by the body, and better methods for delivering hormones to the bloodstream, has led to the development of much safer and more effective HRT. When to Consider Hormone Replacement Therapy: The Symptoms to Look for Lab tests are required to confirm or rule out low hormone levels or imbalances, but
What are the Side Effects & Risks of BHRT? In 1965, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) became available to women in the UK who were struggling with menopause and post-menopausal symptoms, including hot flashes, night sweats, sexual dysfunction, sleep disturbances, mood changes, urinary incontinence, cognitive disturbances (memory loss and impaired concentration), and weight gain. Are you one of the women with this symptom and considering having bioidentical hormone therapy? However, starting in the 1970s, several studies drew concern over the potential health risks of HRT, including increased risk of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, blood clots, heart disease, and stroke. One study, in particular, sounded the alarm over HRT — the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) Hormone Therapy Trials. Between 1993 and 1998, 27,347 U.S. women ages 50–79 enrolled in the study. Participants who had had their uterus removed received synthetic estrogen (Premarin), while those who still had their uterus received synthetic estrogen