Dr. David Pollack
I wish I could completely convey how many patients, both children and adults, enter my office with complaints of some digestive problem with dismay over the fact that their primary care or gastroenterologist said they have normal blood work and little-to-no findings on endoscopy, colonoscopy or other advanced tests. Unfortunately, most problems will not have pathological findings. Either way, most patients get treatment with the same medications despite having or not having laboratory or imaging findings—some acid-reducing medication, steroid or immune suppressant.
These medications rarely fix the cause of the digestive problem. Also, they often have severe long-term side effects, such as osteoporosis, chronic inflammation, poor healing and hormone imbalances. So, why is the blood work normal? Our blood chemistry is a tightly regulated system. Our body will do everything it can to keep the blood chemistry looking good. How can it do that? By stealing every last bit of nutrition from other areas of the body, often depleting bones of minerals and our livers of vast nutrient supplies. It can take many years before the depletion of our body’s stores appears in our blood work, and, by that point, it will have created a whole host of problems.
Luckily, we do not need to wait for these changes to occur. There are simple and effective methods to ascertain the source of the digestive problem and appropriate methods to repair them. Each issue is unique and needs to be addressed as such. Trust your gut; if you feel discomfort of any kind in your abdomen, there are ways to find out why. I highly recommend working with an experienced holistic digestive specialist to help find the cause and solutions to your digestive issues.
Source: Dr. David Pollack. Location: Pollack Wellness Institute (formerly Creating Wellness Center) is located at 66 Commack Rd., Commack. For more information, call 631-462-0801 or visit CreatingWellnessLI.com. See ads on pages 15 and 51.
