Welcome
We are an alternative medicine clinic located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. We offer functional medicine services which are primarily non-pharmacological (not based on prescription drugs) in nature. However, we do selectively use pharmaceuticals when necessary.
Introduction
Conditions We Treat
Functional Medicine
Integrative Health Coaching
Weight Loss
Approaches We Use
Laboratory Testing
Supplements
Myer’s Cocktail
We believe our most powerful tool is to listen intently and help our patients discover both the source of their illness or dis-ease and the path out of it to wellness.
We offer highly individualized assessment through our intake process and often recommend biological testing to help elucidate underlying causes of physiological imbalance. We have found nutritional and herbal supplements to be helpful and can provide expert guidance to those individuals seeking help with selection and quality assurance. Most of our clients discover during their treatment that coaching on food choices, exercise, and stress modification is necessary to find optimum sense of wellbeing and engagement with life.
We bring many years of experience helping people find their joy – often out of places of disabling pain and illness. Often our patients have seen many physicians and had troubling health patterns for many years before coming to us. We cannot help all patients who find their way to us and we attempt to identify those patients we feel most likely to benefit from our holistic approach during the intake process so to avoid unnecessary cost and time spent for both our clients and for us.
We are always ready to discuss the potential benefit of working together via phone conversation even before starting the intake process. Please call us at (919) 945-0300 to determine if we are a good match with you, your needs and your goals.
Conditions We Treat
Dr. Sharp specializes in treating adults and children with chronic conditions that don’t respond well to conventional drug-based therapies. Examples include:
- Chronic pain conditions such as arthritis, headaches, migraines, muscle, joint and abdominal pains
- Hormonal imbalances (using techniques that include bioidentical hormone replacement therapies)
- Mood, attention, sleep, and autonomic nervous system regulation issues
- Digestive conditions such as chronic diarrhea, constipation, IBS, IBD, GERD
- Chronic mood or cognition problems such as sadness, insomnia, difficulty concentrating, obsessive thinking
- Fibromyalgia and Chronic fatigue syndromes
- Insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, obesity and problems of body composition
- Elevated cholesterol, hypertension, and risk factors associates with heart disease and stroke
- Other conditions where the patient is not able or willing to tolerate medication
Functional Medicine
In 2001 I was introduced to Functional Medicine, which provides a biochemical framework for viewing health as the intricate and interconnected function of our physiological systems. This helped bring a scientific basis to the Traditional Chinese Medicine I had studied in the late 90s for an acupuncture course, where the causation of symptoms is understood in the context of connection and interrelatedness of systems. Under both of these paradigms, the assumption is that properly nurtured, the innate wisdom of the body can both defend itself against ‘invasion’ by pathogens, and right itself when imbalance occurs.
Since then my practice has been primarily this:
- To understand illness and unwellness as a disruption of the innately balanced function of our interconnected metabolic processes;
- To address imbalance and dysfunction by nurturing those processes back to health.
The process is often a fascinating task of detective work – working with the client to understand the complex chronology of events that led to the illness and developing a working hypothesis regarding its source and treatment. The more complex the illness the more useful this approach can be. Most people with complex illness innately understand that the gastrointestinal, mood, and pain symptoms, for example, are all related but when discussing their illness with a conventional medical specialist the specialist is only interested in the system of their specialty.
Sometimes we undertake biological testing to gather more data; other times we start with targeted nutritional supplements and therapeutic lifestyle changes. Pharmaceutical medication is sometimes a necessary tool in this approach to recovering balanced function, though rarely as a first course.
In our practice, functional medicine is a process of discovery and as such is often slower than a primarily pharmaceutical approach. I believe it ultimately offers much more promise for achieving and sustaining wellness, and prolonging life, than the symptom-suppression of pharmaceutical medicine alone.
Integrative Health Coaching
Around the world, there is growing interest in changing the way we take care of ourselves – not just our bodies, but also our minds and spirit. We are starting to realize that we can’t separate these–we can’t recover from illness without engaging our minds and spirit. There is a growing impetus for a paradigm shift, a switch from reactivity – trying to treat or fix our problems – to a proactive and holistic approach of addressing and preventing the root causes of our ills. And it is dawning on us that individual responsibility—and empowerment—is at the core of making these changes. What we can envision for our health we can, with positive support, attain. This is what the wellness movement is all about. Integrative health coaching has emerged in this wellness milieu in support of clients making critical choices for their health.
In our lifestyle medicine work, we’ve been teaching our patients about low glycemic-load eating, the importance of regular exercise, and mindful response to stressors. We’ve come to respect that ‘understanding’, while a good first step, usually doesn’t change the way we behave. When it comes down to it we all know we’re supposed to eat our vegetables, exercise, and rest. Why don’t we?
That’s a complicated question and we each have our answers. One way to visualize a shared answer—something we all have in common—is habit. As we’ve made our way through childhood and into adulthood we’ve developed a matrix of habits that move us through our days. And that’s good, because we don’t have the time or energy to think about every single thing we do—how exhausting!
Sadly, many of the habits which have become our ‘default settings’ for eating, moving and resting do not support our health and well-being. In fact, as lifestyle medicine research tells us, many of our habits are contributing to near-epidemic health problems including early death. The improvement of that picture lies in changing lifestyle habits.
Integrative health coaching creates dynamic partnerships that move clients toward satisfying and healthy lifestyles. Core competencies of active listening and open-ended inquiry help the client connect deeply with their comprehensive vision for optimal health, often sparking the motivation needed to change ingrained ways of doing things which do not support their well-being. From there we prioritize areas to work in, focus on developing meaningful goals and action steps that are accountable. We identify the client’s strengths for meeting this challenge—where have they succeeded in this before—and vulnerabilities, anticipating obstacles and preparing strategies for meeting them. We investigate those default settings and set about to change them.
What to expect:
Integrative health coaching is a process which unfolds most powerfully over a series of sessions as the client clarifies his or her vision and goals. I typically engage with clients for 8 sessions over a 12-16 week period. At the end of that time we reevaluate the client’s need or desire for continuing support.
The coaching process begins with a 60-75 minute intake, with 50-minute follow-up visits thereafter. The client normally has homework: in the beginning it will include self-assessment and future-self visioning, later action steps are set into motion between sessions which become the topic for the next session. I am happy to see clients in our office in Chapel Hill, or work by phone or Skype.
My health coaching practice is grounded in the deep belief that each of us has vast resources within – the wisdom of our biological capacity to heal, and the wisdom of our spirits to guide us to empowered solutions. My job as an integrative health coach is to help you access and tap into that power within to free you from your default settings to make and sustain the changes you choose.
Weight Loss
For over ten years, we have been working on weight loss strategies with our clients, evolving an approach that incorporates functional medicine principles and lifestyle medicine science with integrative health coaching. We find that most people with weight problems have already tried a variety of approaches and found them wanting. This is frustrating for everyone but should not discourage you. As with quitting smoking, most people don’t succeed at the first try. Relapse should not be seen as failure. We can and do learn from our trials.
We take great care to learn about our patients’ previous experiences with weight loss. Often there are important components that have been tried in the past that will be essential components of a successful weight loss program in the future if paired with additional appropriate techniques. Sometimes patients are not sure which parts of their weight loss plan were helpful and which were not, and we use our experience to help sort this out. A successful weight loss program must be individualized to the specific patient.
The core of a successful weight loss program includes the following components:
- Knowing the unique metabolic aspects of each individual’s metabolism including insulin sensitivity, inflammatory processes, gut health, lipid metabolism, neurotransmitter balance and energy production (mitochondrial health). Many individuals have issues regarding processing and disposal of metabolic wastes and environmental toxin burden to be addressed to allow for weight loss and maintenance.
- Assessment and monitoring of body composition (weight change can be due to lean body mass or water loss in addition to fat and these need to be interpreted and responded to differently).
- A modified Mediterranean diet based on low glycemic-load foods.
- Appropriate nutritional supplementation.
- Frequent small meals with attention to portions.
- Techniques to appropriately respond to stress; anxiety and fear are often the silent reasons for failure of a weight loss program.
- Integrative health coaching to provide a skilled partner in the process over time of establishing and achieving goals that are supportive of optimal weight and health.
You notice we do not include exercise. While we know exercise and physical movement are crucially important for a number of reasons, including the health of muscle tissue and mood regulation, we find caloric intake reduction to be the critical element of a successful weight loss program. As an important predictor of long term wellness, exercise needs to be regarded as a factor separate from weight loss. We do work with people around their need to preserve cardiovascular fitness and lean body mass.
The supplemental components of a weight loss program that may be used depending on the needs of the individual are:
- 10-day cleanse.
- Neurotransmitter support–because satiety and appetite are controlled by neurotransmitters, this approach can be very helpful to many people.
- Specific supplements to support targeted metabolic change such as niacin, conjugated linoleic acid, chromium, alpha ketoglutarate, arginine, and others.
- The use of “medical foods” –these powdered complete meals are designed to be easily available and are chosen to address the specific metabolic needs of the patient.
- Calorie counting and regular weighing.
Costs: We are only able to make good estimates once we have done the initial intake and we have discussed goals with our patient. . Because the program is tailored to the needs of each individual, costs will vary based on time spent in medical visits and health coaching sessions, lab testing, and nutritional supplements. Don’t worry, we’ll discuss everything upfront.
Approaches We Use
We use a variety of techniques in working with our patients to better balance core physiological domains including:
Laboratory Testing
We use a variety of laboratory tests to help us better determine the core disturbances that underlie our patients’ symptoms. Not all of the tests we use are covered by insurance. Please see the Lab Tests page for further details.
Supplements
Why we endorse the use of nutritional supplements
Although pharmaceutical medications have an important role in the treatment of human illness they can be dangerous. Adverse drug effects – both at recommended dosages and from inappropriate use – account for over 175,000 deaths per year in the United States.
This makes medications the third or fourth most frequent cause of death.
Nutritional supplements, on the other hand, cause harm extremely rarely. However, there are unethical and irresponsible manufacturers of supplements and there are interactions with medications that you need to be aware of. But if you use caution and do your research or use our consultation service you are much less likely to be harmed by a supplement than a medication.
It is my strong medical opinion that except in an emergency, everyone should try a botanical or nutritional supplement or a symptom or disturbance of function prior to using a medication. The Linus Pauling Institute (http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/) is an excellent and reliable source of information on nutraceuticals and a place to find recommendations for examples of scientifically validated recommendations for specific diseases.
General considerations for the use of supplements
I believe that all people should be on a good multivitamin and a high quality fish oil supplement because for a multitude of reasons it is extremely difficult to obtain adequate nutrients to support health and longevity from diet alone. High quality fish oil is especially important because low quality oils are frequently contaminated by heavy metals or other environmental pollutants and are often rancid. They can cause as much harm as a good quality fish oil supplement can improve your well-being longevity. Please visit our store or our resources section for help with identifying these products.
Set Up An Appointment Today
Call us today at (919) 945-0300, or use the contact form here.
If you’ve already decided to come visit our practice, the first step is to create an account and submit an online Health History form and other patient agreements. You can create your account and find the forms here. All your data is secure and encrypted.