Integrative Functional Medicine at Dao Integrated Health in the San Francisco East Bay & Tri-Valley (Alameda & Livermore, CA)
Functional Medicine is a systems biology–based approach that focuses on identifying and addressing the root causes of disease while providing whole person personalized medicine. Each patient has a unique, complex, and interwoven set of environmental and lifestyle factors that affect the functioning of their systems differently and can either help or hinder their health. A diagnosis can be the result of more than one cause. For example, Anxiety can be caused by many different factors, including inflammation, gastrointestinal infections, food sensitivities, poor sleep hygiene and a combination of. Likewise, a cause such as inflammation may lead to a number of different diagnoses or disease patterns, including and not limited to Anxiety. The precise manifestation of each cause depends on the individual’s lifestyle, stress management, environment, and epi-genetics. Only treatments that address the root cause will have lasting benefit beyond symptom suppression.
Integrative Medicine is the application of both Western and Traditional Healthcare approaches as a unified treatment plan for the patient. It also encompasses a wholistic view and is personalized similarly to Functional Medicine. Integrative Medicine however believes in bringing in allied healthcare partners to create a unified support team for the patient. It also specifically believes in the importance of community and family relationships in the healing process. Integrative Medicine includes utilizing healing modalities ranging from the deeply scientific the more esoteric to bring about healing that reaches both the person and their communities of belief. An example of this: Native Americans have shown to transform generational trauma with dance therapy and through Integrative Psychology is a service provided to our native people by the Canadian healthcare system.
At Dao Integrated Health, we offer Integrative Functional Medicine - A new approach to care that is based in science and combines the best of all healthcare philosophies. Your treatments are completely personalized, (w)holistic, all natural, takes into account every aspect of the human experience (internal and external environments,) while being specifically tailored to your needs and your goals.
Dr. Christine has been investing herself in the healthcare field for over 30 years. It started in her late teens with her first health diagnosis through High School medical prep courses to help transfer into College Pre-Med programs. Despite taking a detour into finance and tech, she continued her education with studies in Zen Meditation, Reiki Healing, and Neuro-Linguistic therapy. She is a constant seeker and avid leaarner of healing therapies, loves reading scientific studies, and applying new technques to help foster healing for both herself and her patients. Additionally, Dr. Christine loves to share her experience and knowledge on ways to heal, believing that a true healer doesn’t keep their medicine a secret, they share it. She is committed to mentoring you in taking the steps to learn how your own body heals and to keep a record of that process for future use. At Dao, we want you to walk away with your specific set of tools that you can deploy in the future if something unexpected arises to challenge your health again.
Our Process:
We work together to map out which labs are needed immediately and which can be set up over the next year (Labs: Dutch Plus Adrenal and Hormone Panel, Food Sensitivities with IgG4 & Candida testing, Stool Microbiome testing, Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO), Liver, Plasma Nutrient, Organic Acids, Heavy Metals & Toxins, Mold & Lyme testing)
We create a plan for trying various dietary changes to design a personalized eating plan that works best for your genetics, helps you heal, and to sustain your health as you age.
We will review your sleep beliefs, habits, and utilize tools to train you in self monitoring so you can achieve restorative sleep - a key pillar to healing and staying at peak health.
We will discuss and teach you mind-body techniques for establishing strong Vagus Nerve connections, mental/emotional strategies for relieving stress, provide tools and techniques for reducing Anxiety and improving Depression, and NeuroLiguistic therapies for rewiring limiting beliefs and creating healthy self communication that fosters life long healing.
We will review and strengthen your spiritual connections. Whether this is the “Universe” or a specific name for your spriritual connection, the research is clear that people having a connection to “Spirit,” the “Quantum field,” and/or “God(s)” heal faster and more completely than those who do not. It is our understanding that these beliefs allow the energetic transfer that has been studied between humans and the outside world to respond in a way that promotes our own healing.
We will review your community connections. The documentary “Living to 100” clearly shows how important our community is for our healing. The management of Covid in the U.S. destroyed our relationships within many communities. To heal physically, mentally, and emotionally, you will need a community or communities.
Areas we have Experience: Chronic Pain, Ehler’s Danlos Syndrome - Hypermobility Type (III), Hypermobility Syndrome, Mold Poisoning, Lyme, Long Hauler’s Syndromes (EBV or Mono, HHV-6, Covid), Chronic Gastrointestinal infections, Anxiety/Depression, PTSD, Trauma, POTS, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), Women’s Health - Hormone Dysregulation (Perimonopause & Menopause),
What to Expect at your first appointement:
- Your Entire Health History and Diagnosis
- Medications & Supplements
- Your Health Goals and Budget
- Discuss your past diet and eating habits to create a plan for making changes. Your first step to deveoping your presonalized eating plan that will devleop over time.
- Discuss your movement/exercise, sleep quality and schedule, mental/emotional status and any possible blocks to healing
- Discuss lab work needed, costs, and timeline for completing them
- Create your personalized 6-9 month treatment plan
- We Provide you education materials to assist you in learning about your Microbiome and the process of Digesting your foods, Toxins and the impact on your Liver, the Importance of Sleep and the types of Sleep, Mental/Emotional Support tools, Vagus Nerve Exercises, and so much more!
