THE HEALTHIEST YOU

Progress not Perfection, straight forward changes to create your healthiest you.

One half of ALL adults have a chronic illness, which means multiple medications...side effects....drug interactions and yet nothing to solve the ROOT of the problem. Instead we treat the symptoms of the disease. Sure some medications help to prevent complications of the diseases, but what about PREVENTION or better yet HEALING!?! As medicine advances we are learning that increasing certain foods, herbs, vitamins, minerals and decreasing others can help us heal from the inside out. Limiting our chemical exposure...increasing our movement...focusing on natural or homeopathic medicine we can heal ourselves from the inside out.

it can be very confusing and extremely overwhelming!!! Most people make drastic changes and then cannot stick with it. Let's learn about making lifestyle changes that stick. If we take time to learn the WHY behind things it helps motivate us to make the changes more permanent. I'm not your average physician, I trained and practice as an MD, but I love the intersection of traditional medicine and holistic medicine. Every day I learn more about both.

Join me on this journey of decreasing stress and inflammation through the food we eat and the life we live. Let's become the healthiest version of ourselves one step at a time while learning the science behind it all!

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BIO

Marguerite Weston, MD
I am a Family Medicine and Sports Medicine Physician practicing in Ohio. I have been practicing for over ten years and in three different states, but am finally back home, Go Buckeyes! I am currently studying Functional Medicine and planning for certification to be complete this fall. I love the intersection of traditional training and holistic medicine.
I am a wife, mom, encourager of others and lover of education. I love trying new recipes although I am not an adventurous foodie! I love to make healthy choices although I also love pizza and homemade chocolate chip cookies. At the end of the day we are all a lot more alike than we are different let's show each other some grace.

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MY TEST RESULTS THAT LED ME TO FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE

MY JOURNEY INTO FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE

I have always wanted to be a doctor and I loved every rotation in medical school so family medicine was the logical choice. I also love sports, I played soccer at a small university in Ohio (GO POLAR BEARS!)! And so I completed a sports medicine fellowship after my family medicine residency.

THE TURN

My first job was with the University of Oklahoma and in Oklahoma everything changed. I started having numb patches over a couple different areas. I cannot remember if it was before or after my first child. You think you are going to remember things…like the date of your last mammogram…you can’t!! I’ve had patients unable to tell me which knee was operated on! We’ve had to look for scars! So anyway…weird neurological symptoms in a 30 something year old female equals MRI’s and labs to rule out MS. Have you had an MRI? I felt like the criminal in Con Air with that mask on my face. My ANA (an autoimmune marker) was in the “gray zone”, not negative, but not quite high enough to be considered positive. However it was definitely high enough to freak me out. Plus my brain MRI had some abnormalities, abnormal but not quite consistent with MS. Great just what everyone wants to hear...that your brain is not quite normal. Couldn't be my left elbow or a toe...had to be the brain! Followed that up with spinal MRI’s, which were completely negative (great news because typically lesions in the spinal cord means active MS). And so I will continue with MRI’s yearly to every other year-ish to make sure nothing is changing in my brain. What caused the MRI changes? No one knows. But it is pretty freaky knowing they are there.

THE FREAK OUTS

Many of you have gone through similar scenarios I’m sure. So you start playing the “WHAT IF” game…a dangerous little game! I can what if myself into having an incurable cancer, into something happening to one of my kids, to the plane crashing. Specifically with the MS scare I “what if-ed” myself into a wheelchair. I remember one day my kids were in the car and one of them forgot something so I ran back up into the house, bounding up the stairs to grab it. While I was going up the stairs I thought to myself, “what if in ten years you can’t run up the stairs?” ….cue water works. I cried often and hard. In my warped mind I already had mom guilt about imagining the girls having their mom in a wheelchair at graduation and worried that they would be embarrassed of me, sad they would have to care for me. Seriously…and I have a lot of anxious patients so I know I am not the only one with the “what if’s”. Why don’t we “what if” my kid is so smart she gets a full ride or “what if” I meet an amazing group of friends that I just click with? Why does it have to be worst case scenario on crack??

THE UNKNOWN & UNCONTROLLABLE

I tend to be a tad of a control freak. So logically I looked at what I could control with these symptoms. How could I normalize my labs? I wanted to know the WHY. And so I started studying inflammatory foods, which led me to functional medicine. I changed my diet. Luckily I’m married to the most amazing man ever so when I said we are now eating a plant based diet he was totally supportive. We were not perfect but we were pretty good. And lo and behold…my labs normalized! My ANA dropped from 1:640 to 1:40…whoop whoop!!! Now the MRI is still abnormal, I'm not saying it is going to be normal next time. Honestly, medically speaking ANA is not part of the MS diagnosis, BUT no one likes having abnormalities. You want to be boring and normal when it comes to medical testing.

NEW WAY OF THINKING

For over ten years I have been treating patients with medicines...medicines and more medicines. I wanted to learn about natural ways. Well guess what…FOOD IS MEDICINE! What we eat matters.

Now I'm not perfect, we still love ourselves some pizza and I still bake cookies with my girls. We are no longer all plant based but we definitely eat more plant based. It is so cool (inner nerd alert) to see what a body was made to do and how a body uses the foods we give it. I grew up learning a calorie is a calorie is a calorie....oh so not true!! It is about the cascade of hormonal reactions that occur when we eat certain foods...it is amazing!!

One of the areas of my job that I love the most is education. I love educating patients. Now believe me there are times when I start on my "rants" about things I think are so great and a patient will stare blankly. Yes I then wrap it up quickly. However when I see a patient move towards the edge of their seat or their eyes widen in awe...it is on!! I will draw, demonstrate, re-inact, raise my voice in excitement! I love that part of my work. After all, who is going to do what I ask of them if they do not know the why behind it?! I have to "sell" my patients on the reason they need to eat a certain way or exercise a certain way. My goal is to give you the why behind things. Then and only then will you truly believe and then act. And once you prove it to yourself then you will be hooked!!

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What is the Elimination Diet and Who Needs it??

margueriteweston
Jan 5, 2019
2 min read

Updated: Jan 27, 2019

Do you feel as though something is just not right? You know you could feel better but you can’t pinpoint what is wrong. Do you struggle with brain fog or bloating or weight gain? Do you suffer from acne or sensitive skin with random rashes? Will you have days of constipation or diarrhea? Do you feel as though you are always being seen for sinusitis? Most people who suffer from any of the above have tried to change their diets. Most have tried gluten or dairy free diets. These are great things to try, however it is often not enough. WHY?? I’m so glad you asked!!

There are food allergies, sensitivities and intolerances.

A food allergy is the Will Smith reaction in “Hitch” (which by the way I cannot believe was released in 2005!! Time flies!) with a rash, swollen face and difficulty breathing. These reactions can be identified with allergy skin testing. Then there are intolerances where you may lack digestive enzymes such as lactase, which results in an intolerance for milk. And finally we land on food sensitivities.

Food sensitivities can be delayed reactions that occur hours to days later. They occur due to an imbalance in our GI system, which affects our immune system. Some people call this “leaky gut”. The foods trigger an immune response (did you know that 70% of our immune system is found in our gut?!?), and thus many of our symptoms. The good news is “leaky gut” can be healed without medications! Food is our medicine. Eliminating that which is damaging and adding foods that are healing….HOW you ask?? Introduce THE ELIMINATION DIET!!

The elimination diet restricts the most common food sensitivities. These are dairy, gluten (including barley, rye, wheat), peanuts, eggs, alcohol, beef, pork, processed meats, shellfish, soy, coffee, chocolate (ugh!!), corn, sugar.

Fight the urge to close this page!! I know…I know…I love my chocolate, wine, coffee and bread as much as the next girl. BEFORE you quit prior to starting there are two pieces of good news. First of all , you only follow the diet for 3-4 weeks (this is not life long!!) and then you start reintroducing foods one every two days, and it is important not to rush this part. And secondly, focus on all the foods you CAN eat instead of the list of what you cannot!!

Now to really buy into any diet or lifestyle change you need to know THE WHY behind it. My next few posts will focus on why we stay away from certain foods and also reasons we encourage others. If you are interested in learning more subscribe to this page. Love to hear your thoughts! And OF COURSE you do have to ask your doctor about starting any diet!

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CONTACT

Columbus, Ohio

drweston@reviveyourhealthcolumbus.com

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REVIVE YOUR HEALTH

Progress not Perfection

Marguerite Weston, MD