Environmental medicine is founded on the idea that what we eat and what we are exposed to in the environment has a potent effect upon health.
Environmental medicine examines the effect of air pollutants, heavy metals, toxins, pesticides, and other environmental factors. This approach to medicine explores the pertinent interactions between the environment and health, and the function of the environment in causing or contributing to mental health, disease and even addiction issues.
This approach opens the door to a wider range of treatment options than is typically found in rehab programs.
At Alternative to Meds Center, we have found that many of our residents are drastically impacted by things in their environment, such as heavy metals. Many individuals come to us symptomatic, and upset that traditional medicine has been unable to find the underlying causes of their problems. Our program includes comprehensive lab tests to identify the level of toxic burden in a person’s body. According to lab test results as well as medical assessments, we implement heavy metal cleansing, neurotoxin removal, elimination of possible pollutants, and work to stabilize the neurochemistry and therefore improve mental health.
Environmental medicine is particularly applicable to both mental health, and addiction. The brain is a biochemical organ, and is therefore very sensitive to chemical change. Certain poisons can debilitate the way in which the brain’s neurochemicals are expressed. Alterations in these neurochemicals can result in anxiety by throwing the excitatory aspects of the nervous system into overdrive.
This is a mechanism by which a pesticide kills a pest, by overstimulating it, and we humans get the same effect with long term consumption. Conversely, accumulated lead or arsenic for instance can debilitate the way that energy is metabolized, resulting in chronic fatigue. These over excited states, or conversely low energy states can precipitate medication and drug use and other symptoms. There are thousands of such chemicals that we are exposed to, and the majority of them are fat soluble, meaning that they will accumulate in the body and cause cummulative effects.
Our program is designed to strategically eliminate these toxins and to restore proper physiological function.
