Depression, Thyroid, & Menopause
As a psychoneuroendocrinologist, I have 30 years of experience diagnosing and treating depression, anxiety, thyroid and adrenal disorders, menopausal and perimenopausal depression, osteoporosis, and nutritional imbalances. Psychoneuroendocrinology is the clinical study of hormone fluctuations and their relationship to human behavior and psychiatric illness. This blend of psychiatry and endocrinology gives me a unique insight in the treatment of a variety of disorders. If you are in California and would like a consultation or further information you may contact me. (Due to license laws, I can't consult with out-of-state patients unless they come into California.) My practice is currently located in Northern California, Sonoma County, in Santa Rosa.
What Patients Can Expect
The initial hour of a patient's first session is commonly spent listening to their concerns, whether they be medical, endocrine, or psychological. My specialized training in endocrinology and psychiatry facilitates this meeting. Psychiatrists learn to listen attentively to a patient and their concerns. This approach paired with my extensive background in endocrinology can be used to deal effectively with the medical and psychological issues that are uncovered. The outcome of a session usually leads to assessing the need for neuroendocrine laboratory studies to further evaluate the patient. The second session includes evaluation of any laboratory tests performed, as well as initiating suggestions for treatment using all available modalities.
Clinical Relevance
Many patients, whether medical patients or psychiatric patients, feel they are receiving suboptimal care and feel their hormones are somehow playing a role in their illness, and yet this is commonly ignored in their treatment.
Patients often sense that they have a chemical imbalance. Appropriate endocrine testing can rule out subtle endocrine influences that may play a role in their illness. For example, subclinical hypothyroidism may be diagnosed, indicating a thyroid disorder that has more than subtle influences on the patient's sense of wellbeing. The mind/body dichotomy is never more apparent than in dealing with illness effecting the brain. Obviously, so called physical illness coexists with psychological illness so frequently that it is the rule rather than the exception. When one has a heart attack it may be initiated by neuroendocrine changes triggered by psychological events originating in our brains and propagated to end organs, including the heart. It is virtually never mind OR body; it almost always is a mind/body event. So ignoring the psychological elements of illness sometimes leads to inadequate medical care. My goal is to integrate the mind/body in a comprehensive approach to the patient's care. Therefore, during an interview we may switch from psychological to physical in a split second with no thought to that shift. After all, our mind/body knows of no such split...read more
