Treating Environmentally Acquired Illness at Restoration Healthcare
Toxins are everywhere — in the food we eat, the beverages we drink, the air we breathe, the homes we live in, the places we work, and many of the products we use and consume. There’s no escaping them. They come from all sectors of the economy — manufacturing, technology, agriculture, construction, transportation, energy — even Mother Nature contributes.
Modern development has certainly improved our quality of life in some ways, but this progress has come at a price. Our daily environments, where we live, work, and play, can become so toxic that they overwhelm our bodies’ natural ability to detox. And when that happens, we become ill, often in subtle ways that are difficult to diagnose and trace back to any specific cause.
When exposure to environmental toxins causes chronic health problems, we categorize these problems as Environmentally Acquired Illness (EAI). Unhealthy indoor air and persistent bacterial, viral, and fungal infections are believed to be the two primary causes of EAIs. They’re like a one-two punch — increasing our exposure to toxins and degrading our bodies’ ability to get rid of them.
Symptoms of Environmentally Acquired Illness
Long-term exposure to environmental toxins and irritants can interfere with normal bodily functions, negatively impacting everything from digestion and breathing to cognitive function. Some of the symptoms of EAIs include:
- Allergy- and asthma-like symptoms (sneezing, wheezing, post-nasal drip)
- Anxiety
- Brain fog (impaired memory, thinking, and alertness)
- Diarrhea or constipation
- Fainting, dizziness or lightheadedness, vertigo
- Fatigue
- Flushing or swelling of the face and lips
- Frequent respiratory infections
- Headaches
- Heart palpitations or fast heart rate
- Irregular or heavy periods, premenstrual syndrome (PMS), difficult menopause, miscarriages
- Poor sleep (quantity or quality)
- Joint aches and stiffness
- Low or elevated blood pressure
- Mood irregularities
- Muscle aches or weakness
- Nausea/vomiting, abdominal pain
- Neuropathy (numbness tingling in the feet or hands, loss of coordination, muscle weakness, paralysis)
- Rashes, hives, itching
- Sensitivity to light, sounds, and touch
- Weight gain or weight loss or difficulty losing or gaining weight when trying to do so
Symptoms vary widely due to the fact that environmentally acquired illnesses can disrupt nearly any body function. However, just because you have one of the symptoms listed above does not necessarily mean that your illness is due to exposure to environmental toxins. Testing is required to confirm or rule out abnormally high levels of toxins and check for other possible causes.
Diagnosing and Treating Environmentally Acquired Illnesses
Here at Restoration Healthcare, we don’t guess — we test! Our doctors are trained to understand the interaction between the human body and the environment, and testing plays a central role in developing our plans of care.
In fact, one of our doctors — our Co-founder and Medical Director, Dr. Sunny Raleigh — is a member of the International Society for Environmentally Acquired Illness (ISEAI) with Diplomate status.
As functional medicine practitioners, we are committed to working with you to optimize your health instead of merely eliminating illness or, even worse, suppressing symptoms that may be related to an environmentally acquired illness.
Our approach to diagnosing and treating EIAs includes:
- Carefully reviewing your health history.
- Working with you to explore the underlying causes of your ailments.
- Ordering tests and reviewing test results to unravel the deeper mystery and find out what is preventing you from feeling your best.
- Tailoring a plan of care that helps you avoid toxins and reduce your body’s toxic load while restoring healthy function to all systems in your body, including skeletal, muscular, digestive, respiratory, endocrine, circulatory, nervous, reproductive, urinary, integumentary (skin, hair, nails), and cellular.
You deserve to feel your best. If you believe you’re suffering from an environmentally acquired illness or have a family member or friend who is similarly suffering, fill out and submit our New Patient Packet today. Hope, help, and support is here in the form of Restoration Healthcare.
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Disclaimer: The information in this blog post about environmentally acquired illness, is provided for general informational purposes only and may not reflect current medical thinking or practices. No information contained in this post should be construed as medical advice from the medical staff at Restoration Healthcare, Inc., nor is this post intended to be a substitute for medical counsel on any subject matter. No reader of this post should act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information included in, or accessible through, this post without seeking the appropriate medical advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue from a licensed medical professional in the recipient’s state, country or other appropriate licensing jurisdiction.
