Here are five steps you can use to pick a doctor in record time.

1. Look at their location.

You’ll want to be at least within a thirty to forty minute driving range of your physician. Anything longer than that, and you’ll start expecting your physician to do things over the phone, and that can be a recipe for disaster. While some common ailments could potentially be diagnosed over the phone, frequently you’ll need to be examined in person by your doctor. That’s true even in cases where you may not think it’s that important.

2. Find someone that is in your insurance network.

For most people, it’s an economic reality that you need to find a physician that’s within the realm of your insurance company. So you will need to look online and see who’s contracted with your insurance company.

If you find a physician that you really like, and he or she is not within your insurance company’s network, but they are located close to you, you’ll need to decide if you’re willing to pay for their services out of pocket without insurance. If you have a large deductible anyway, the insurance network may not be a big factor for you.

3. Meet with the physician.

The next thing you’ll want to do is actually meet with the doctor. Sit down with them and determine if they’re someone that you can work with, that will work with you to find solutions to problems you have.

This is a big factor, especially with primary care physicians. With specialists, you might be willing to put up with them not being a good fit on a temporary basis, until they’ve taken care of your problem that was in their area of speciality. But for doctors you’ll have a long term relationship with, this one is very important.

4. Evaluate the staff.

You may have a great relationship with the physician, but if the staff is not good, it can ruin the entire experience. And by staff, I mean everyone from the receptionist who schedules the appointments and helps you with general questions to the medical assistant or nurse who is handling the more difficult questions, phoning in prescriptions, and getting authorization for procedures.

The staff is almost as big a key as the physician, because they have to work so closely together. If there is a problem with one or the other, it can ruin the entire situation.

5. Check the credentials of the physician.

Most M.D.’s and D.O.’s are adequately trained. Most physicians do four years of college, then four years of medical school. After that, they do a residency, which is specialized training after medical school.

Family practice residencies are typically three years of training after graduating from medical school. That residency is actually hands on. The doctor is a practicing physician during that residency, with a restricted license the first year, and an unrestricted license the second and third years.

To double-check the credentials of your physician, you can call your state medical board. You can also go to their website to see if there have been any disciplinary actions against the physician. One or two is typically no cause for alarm. But if there are several, that shows a pattern.

In Oklahoma, visit the website of the Oklahoma Board of Medical Licensure and Supervision.

If you’re in north Oklahoma City or Edmond and looking for a primary care physician, then by considering my practice for your primary care physician needs, you’ve already taken care of step one.

As for step two, we do accept most insurance plans.

For step three, just call 405-330-0038 to make an appointment to meet with me.

The goal of the study was to estimate the reduction of the mortality rate in six regions of the world, by increasing vitamin D levels from low levels to levels that are considered the higher range of normal.

What are the diseases affecting the mortality rates?

The vitamin D sensitive diseases that account for more than half of global mortality rates include:

• Cardiovascular disease
• Cancer
• Respiratory Infection
• Respiratory Diseases
• Tuberculosis
• Diabetes

Other vitamin D sensitive diseases that account for a smaller percentage, around 2% – 3% of global mortality rates:

• Alzheimer’s Disease
• Falls
• Meningitis
• Parkinson’s Disease
• Maternal Sepsis
• Maternal Hypertension
• Multiple Sclerosis

What effect does increasing vitamin D have?

By increasing vitamin D levels from 54 to 110, the occurrence of death by these vitamin D-sensitive diseases would decrease by an estimated 20%. And the rate of reduction was much greater for females than it was for males.

In fact, the estimated average increase in life by taking vitamin D is an entire two years! So vitamin D is one of the most cost-effective ways to extend your own life and improve your overall health.

How much does vitamin D cost?

Not taking vitamin D is really where the cost comes in, as you’re taking years off your life. But as far as the price goes, we do carry vitamin D at $10 for a bottle of 100.

So how much should I be taking?

Most likely, you should start out with 5,000 units a day. Then after 6-8 weeks of taking the supplement, I will re-test your levels to see where they are. Over half of the time, people end up needing 10,000 units a day to get their systems back to where they need to be.

When your vitamin D levels are in the 80-90 range, I’ll take you down to 5,000 units a day. If you were on 5,000 already and your levels look good, I will leave you there and check back in another 6 months.

If you would like us to check your vitamin D levels checked to see what your risk is, contact us to set an appointment.

Your Right to Choose

It’s very simple for people to say they are for vaccinations or against them, but when it’s you or your child, it becomes much more important. You are now responsible for making  a decision whether it’s the right thing to do for you or your child, or not. Either way, every one should be allowed to make that decision, even if it was a mistake. Each person has to weigh the “risk” and “benefit” for themselves or their family. All of life’s choices are determined by factoring the risk with the benefit.

• What is the risk of this decision not working out the way you want it to?
• What is the benefit if it does?

Risk vs. Benefit

Immunizing your child will significantly reduce the likelihood of your child contracting the diseases corresponding to each vaccination. From a medical stand point, there is no doubt that immunizations work. We have been applying and improving the same principle and theory over and over. We have eliminated smallpox specifically because of vaccinations. Immunization techniques have gotten a lot better since the smallpox vaccine.

Immunizations have saved hundreds of millions of lives. The number saved far outweighs the number of complications and fatalities from the vaccinations. If you are or know people who have experienced complications or even death because of a vaccine, it is understandable that you have strong feelings about immunizations.

Haemophilus Influenza

When I was on my pediatric rotations in medical school, we had two children come to the hospital in 6 weeks with Haemophilus Influenza – a form of meningitis. Unfortunately, both children died from the disease. Since the vaccination for Haemophilus Influenza was created in the early 90’s, there has been as little as 5 deaths in the state of Oklahoma from that disease. I saw the results of this vaccine with my very own eyes and watched as the number of meningitis cases, including the fatal cases, plummeted directly from the immunization.

Before the Haemophilus Influenza vaccination, if your child got meningitis, there was a 30-40% chance of death. Now as the number of cases prevented nationwide tremendously increases, we see the benefits of this vaccine from the number of lives that have been saved. There weren’t many adverse side effects or complications with that particular vaccine.

I do (not) want to be vaccinated!

Everything rolls back to the individual and whether they have the right to say “I don’t want to be vaccinated.” Individuals should have the right to decide if they want to be immunized or not. The other side of this is the more people that choose not to be vaccinated, the less effective the immunization program works. As long as most people are vaccinated, it is not an issue if some choose not to.

On the other hand, If the majority starts leaning toward not being vaccinated, it will become a health issue, a social issue, then the balance may tip back toward the benefits of society outweighs the benefits of the individual. It’s a slippery slope when you extend the promulgation that the government knows that vaccinations are best for you and for our society, therefore you are required to be immunized unless you prove a compelling reason otherwise.

Hospital Threatens Termination

A local hospital had been telling their employees that if they do not get vaccinated for influenza, they would be required to wear a mask at work. After seeing the number of people willing to wear a mask every day rather than get the vaccine, the hospital had to up the ante to termination for refusing the vaccination. Some of those hospital employees have asked me to write a medical exclusion for the immunization. Unfortunately, the only true exclusion is having an allergy to one of the components of the vaccination:

• Egg allergy since vaccines are derived from eggs
• Previous allergic reactions to the specific vaccine injection

That’s the only medical “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Since none of the hospital employees had either of these allergies, I told them “You need to argue this on your individual right to not have to be vaccinated.”

The hospital has a legitimate concern for vaccinating their employees, though. If the employees are going to be in an environment where they will be exposed to influenza from year to year, the last thing they want is for their employees to spread the virus and give it to other patients that didn’t have it. The hospital also has to worry about employees taking more sick days due to not getting immunized. Although they hold a legitimate case for having an immunization policy, it isn’t right for them to say they will lose their job if they don’t get it.

It would make much more sense rather, for the hospital to give a $100 incentive for all employees who get immunized. In the long run, the $100 and the cost of the vaccination  would leave more money in the hospital’s pocket since less employees would miss work due to this virus and they wouldn’t have to pay for someone else to fill in for them. If one employee misses a day, that $100 is gone to their cost of filling in for them while they are gone. So, if they prevented an average of 1 day off per employee, they would be ahead of the game.

You Have the Right to Make Bad Choices

Understanding both sides of this controversy, the problem is that we have become an individual in a system and very frequently the individuals feel that their rights don’t matter. The foundation on which our country was built is that the individual does have certain rights, one of them being the right to make a bad decision. I think people who are being forced to be immunized that don’t want to feel like they aren’t being given the ability to make that decision. When people actually see loss of control over their lives, especially on very important decisions, we see their frustration, their anger, and everything else.

Sunlight is the most natural way we get our source of vitamin D. It is also fortified into food products, such as:

• milk
• grain
• cereal
• bread

Vitamin D deficiency

Although vitamin D is absolutely vital to everyone, over 90% of the people I test are low. The normal range of vitamin D levels are 30-100, and most of the people I check are only between 5 and 40. Most patients I see with levels over 50 are only because they take vitamin D supplementation.

Why do I need it?

Since I was a student, vitamin D research has drastically changed. Either they grossly missed what our true vitamin D requirement is or something in our environment prevents absorption or leeches the vitamin D from our systems. This epidemic is a huge problem. Vitamin D is vitally important for:

• aches and pains
• immune function
• wound healing
• strong anti-cancer effects for lung and colon cancer

How do I know if I’m low?

Fortunately, vitamin D is very inexpensive, easy to supplement, and only requires a simple blood test to check the levels in your body. When screening patients, I now make it part of my routine to test their vitamin D levels. It doesn’t seem to matter if you are young, old, tan, pale, or a specific race – everybody is low!

Benefits of vitamin D supplementation

My patients on vitamin D supplementation have noticed decreased pain, decreased incidents of illness. It’s hard to find anything negative about taking vitamin D. Overall, these patients feel better, function better, and I believe that in the long run it will make a huge difference.

The worst vitamin D deficiency

The lowest level of vitamin D I’ve seen was in a patient of mine. I saw him at the end of August when he came to me with serious joint pains. He had a sailboat and was outside on the lake all summer, which turned his normal skin color five or six shades darker than usual. At the end of summer, his vitamin D level was 4. It was extremely shocking. As we improved his vitamin D levels, his joint pain disappeared.

In my personal experience, people having acute pain of a non-traumatic fashion are low in vitamin D…100% of the time. In almost every single case, when we correct the vitamin D, they start feeling better.

Osteoporosis

For the longest time, I was giving my patients Fosamax and other prescriptions for Osteoporosis in women. I’m now convinced it was vitamin D deficiency for a lot of them, but we never thought to check. Since I’ve been checking vitamin D levels, I have not started nearly as many women on an osteoporosis medicine because after putting them on vitamin D, they started doing much better. You have to have good levels of vitamin D before you can correct osteoporosis, even if you have Fosamax.

How much is it?

Vitamin D is a supplement we carry. It’s $10 for a bottle of 100. We start people on 5,000 units a day. After 6-8 weeks of taking the supplement, I re-test their levels to see where we are. Over half of the time, people end up needing 10,000 units a day to get their systems back to where they need to be. Once I start seeing vitamin D levels in the 80-90 range, I take patients on 10,000 back to 5,000 units a day. If they were on 5,000 and their levels look good, I leave them there and check back in another 6 months to check again.

It’s vitally important!

After supplementing vitamin D to patients for 3 years now, about 10% of my patients vitamin D levels are above 90. Levels from 90-100 are optimal and 75-80 are acceptable. Everyone should at least get their vitamin D levels checked. If your levels are low, it’s easy to fix. It’s inexpensive and you can get 5,000 units a day of vitamin D3 over the counter. You can take 1,000-2,000 units, but you probably won’t get your levels above 50 without taking a higher dose. Best of all, it is very seldom that patients have any side effects from taking vitamin D. Get your vitamin D levels checked today!

Let’s take a look at a few common symptoms, and see if you need to go to the doctor when you have those. Remember, these are just generalizations, and your specific case may differ slightly. So if there’s any doubt, go see your doctor.

A fever that lasts more than 2-3 days

When we’re talking about a fever, that actually means a temperature of over 101.5 degrees Fahrenheit. You can have an elevated temperature for up to a week or so with colds and other minor illnesses.

And that’s the same for adults, children and even babies. Of course, there are differences in the ways you take temperatures across those age ranges. If you take the temperature of a baby in the armpit, you have to add a degree. Rectal temperatures are the most accurate, but it’s definitely not the most comfortable way to take someone’s temperature.

If your baby is under one month old and has a fever at all, they need to go to the hospital to be evaluated. Any fever in a newborn is assumed to be a bacterial blood infection until proven otherwise, just to be on the safe side.

Unrelenting pain

If you have continuous pain, where you can’t get comfortable despite taking over the counter pain reliever, you need to be evaluated. Regardless of where the pain actually is, you need to be seen by a doctor.

It could be a kidney stone, it could be appendicitis, it could be any number of things. And once you get to the doctor, they’ll naturally start asking where the pain is so they can narrow down what’s happening. But you should get to a doctor regardless of where that pain is.

A cough that persists longer than ten days

Regardless of your temperature, a cough that lasts ten days or longer needs to be evaluated.

Throwing up and having diarrhea for more than 24 hours

If you’re vomiting and having diarrhea for more than a day, there’s a good chance you’ll be dehydrated.

Runny nose and sore throats

If your typical cold-like symptoms like a runny nose and sore throat occur, but they’re not accompanied by a long-lasting fever, and you’re not having vomiting or diarrhea, you can really go up to seven or ten days without seeing a doctor and probably be fine.

Rashes

Generally, rashes are not bad. If they’re accompanies by some of these other symptoms I’ve mentioned, it may indicate something more serious.

But let’s say you have a kid with a blotchy rash, runny nose and a 99.2 temperature and they otherwise look fine and are acting fine. It’s probably not anything to worry about at that point.

If the rash persists for more that four or five days, then it probably needs to be seen and evaluated by a physician.

Sudden onset of a terrible headache

If an adult has a very sudden headache, and it could be described as the worst headache of their life, they need to be evaluated as soon as possible, even if they don’t have a fever. Even more so if they have no history of headaches.

A headache like that could be bleeding inside the head, or even an aneurism. It may not even last for very long. It may be gone after a few hours or a day, and then go away. Sometimes that’s a blood vessel in the brain that’s leaking a bit before it ruptures.

So days, weeks or even months later, you could just drop dead. So if you’ve experienced a very rapid onset, severe headache, get evaluated. You may or may not have other symptoms such as vomiting and dizziness.

And really, if you have the worst headache of your life, you should get it evaluated regardless of whether it came on suddenly or not, because there are a lot of underlying risks.

General rules

In general, if your symptoms are not severe and they respond well to over the counter medicine, you probably don’t need to see a physician. But if they’re non-responsive, you should see your doctor.

Who can benefit from fish oil?

Women at risk for breast cancer

Every woman is at some level of risk for breast cancer. And if it runs in your family, then your risk is even higher. A large-scale study has shown that fish oil reduced the risk of breast cancer by almost 30%. That’s a huge difference!

Because of the overwhelming difference it makes, and the risk all women are at for breast cancer, I recommend that all adult women take fish oil on a daily basis, if not more often.

Individuals with high blood pressure

If you suffer from high blood pressure, fish oil has the potential to significantly reduce your risk of a stroke. Individuals with high blood pressure will benefit from taking at least one high quality fish oil tablet a day.

People with high cholesterol

High quality fish oil helps lower LDL cholesterol, the bad type of cholesterol. I recommend that people with high LDL cholesterol take at least one fish oil tablet a day.

Arthritis sufferers

Individuals who suffer from either Rheumatoid Arthritis, Osteoarthritis, or joint pains in general can benefit from taking high quality fish oil on a regular basis. I recommend they take at least two tablets a day, more if their suffering is greater.

Inflammation within the eye

Ophthalmologists are now starting to recommend fish oil for lots of different eye conditions, especially those with inflammation within the eye.

Any chronic inflammation sufferer

Fish oil has an overall anti-inflammatory effect. So anyone that suffers from any type of inflammation on a regular basis will benefit from fish oil. Whether you have Crohn’s disease, lupus, or something else, you can see a significant improvement.

Attention deficit disorder

Teenagers who suffer from attention deficit disorder are also helped by high quality fish oil. Although we’re not sure exactly how it’s helping, it has been shown to help there.

What makes high quality fish oil different?

So I’ve used the phrase “high quality” fish oil several times. The Omega 3 Fish Oil that I recommend is of much higher quality than the majority of the fish oils out there.

While you can take something purchased at a store where low prices are the most important factor, low prices per tablet typically means low quality, at least where fish oil is concerned. The good thing is that you may actually be able to take less fish oil tablets when you’re using higher quality tablets.

There are two primary factors that make the fish oil I recommend different.

Type and location of fish used

Our fish oil is made from deep sea, cold water fish caught off the coast of Norway. And where you catch the fish and what type of fish it comes from does make a difference as far as the content of EPA and DHA, the two Omega 3’s that you’re concerned with.

So the actual source, for us, is the highest quality we can use, with a high quantity of DHA and EPA. That’s not the case with the lower grade fish oil.

Refining process and facility

Perhaps most importantly, the fish oil I recommend is the only over-the-counter fish oil produced in a facility that also produces prescription-grade fish oil. No other OTC fish oil is produced in a facility that also produces prescription fish oil. Because of that, all other fish oil is not subject to FDA guidelines for batch testing for quality and purity.

Our Omega 3 Fish Oil, on the other hand, is batch tested just like the prescription-grade fish oil, since they’re both made in the same facility. It is also refined by the much higher quality process that is required for prescription-grade fish oil.

The higher quality refining process has a lot of great side-effects.

• No fish burps.
• Tablets are around six to eight times more effective than other fish oil tablets.
• Mercury and other heavy metals are filtered out, unlike other fish oil tablets.

Why can’t I just buy less expensive fish oil?

If you’re currently taking fish oil with that fishy aftertaste, they’re probably far less effective than ours. In addition, they probably were not refined enough to get those heavy metals out, so they may be doing more harm than good!

Not only that, but you have to take six to eight tablets of the cheaper fish oil to equal just one of the tablets I recommend. So cheaper doesn’t always mean less expensive.

And if you have dietary restrictions that mean you can’t eat pigs, then you definitely want to stay away from the cheaper fish oil. Most of the less expensive tablets are “watered down” with gelatin made from pigs. Ours are kosher fish oil tablets.

Our high quality fish oil is available in our Edmond clinic if you live in the Oklahoma City metro area. You can also order the Omega 3 Fish Oil online.

First, I believe everyone has a right to determine for themselves what’s best for them and best for their child. I have no problem with a patient telling me that they don’t want to be immunized, or don’t want their children to be immunized. That’s their right.

I do believe that immunizations have saved lots of lives, a lot of illness, and a lot of heartache. But I don’t believe everyone should be required to be immunized.

Health Advantage to Vaccination

Purely from a health standpoint, you can make the argument that everyone should be immunized. The biggest argument that I hear against vaccinations is the adverse reactions that some people have. But the percentage of people that have a negative reaction is extremely small. Simply put, more lives are saved by immunization than are endangered.

If you still choose not to participate in immunization, that’s fine. But you still benefit from the fact that most people are immunized. This is something we refer to as herd immunity.

Benefiting from Herd Immunity

Herd immunity essentially means that anyone who is not immunized is still less likely to get sick because everyone else is immunized. Kids that are not immunized are hanging out with kids that are immunized. So they don’t exposed to the disease.

And when the majority of the population gets immunized against a certain disease, that drastically reduces the spread of that disease. In the case of smallpox, we believe we’ve completely gotten rid of it. Certainly not everyone in the world was immunized against smallpox during that time, but they benefited from the herd immunization.

Of course, if enough people stop being immunized, then they lose that herd immunity. Those that are immunized would still be fine, but those that aren’t would be exposed to more of those diseases.

The Downside to Not Immunizing

Even now, a child that hasn’t been immunized could potentially run into someone with the disease. In that case, our current herd immunity does them no good. That child will get sick. And depending on the disease, it could be life-threatening.

Even in lesser diseases, it’s potentially a disaster for the entire family. When the child gets sick, one of the parents has to take off work to watch the child. Even with something like the chicken pox, that can be a period of ten to fourteen days. For a family that lives paycheck-to-paycheck and doesn’t get sick time or vacation time, that can lead to financial disaster. And, of course, the child is miserable that entire time.

Spacing out the Schedule

Some people believe that spacing out the vaccinations helps. But there are actually no studies showing that works. The studies were done at the recommended intervals, and with those, it definitely helps build immunity. If you change the schedule, you may not end up getting the full benefit. So because there’s no scientific proof that an adjusted schedule works, I can’t recommend it.

So while I don’t think society has a right to tell you that you have to vaccinate your children, I think it’s important that you know the advantages to having them vaccinated. And I personally think they’re a good thing.

Testing for Allergies

The first thing we do is test you with a positive control and negative control. The negative control is Glycerin. When we actually do immunotherapy, the allergy treatment, everything is mixed in a solution of glycerin, so we obviously need to make sure you’re not allergic to it.

The positive control is histamine. We need to make sure that your reaction system is working, and that you don’t have any antihistamines in your system that will interfere with our tests.

Assuming the results for that are fine, the second thing we do is test to see exactly what you’re allergic to. We test forty-eight items, ten at a time, and gently scratch the surface of your skin. It’s not an injection, but we just break the skin enough to introduce the substances into the bloodstream.

The air-born allergens we test for include:

• Pollens
• Grasses
• Dust
• Trees
• Dust mites
• Dog
• Cat
• Molds

The forty-eight things we test for are recommended by the Allergy Society for this region of the country. With just fifteen minutes or so, we can see your reaction. The reaction is not extreme, it just itches a little, but it allows us to see what you are and aren’t allergic to. If we find something you’re allergic to, it causes a little wheal (a round, raised, red area on your skin). The bigger and redder the wheal, the more severe your allergy.

The third thing we do is to rank your allergies to all the items. We look at the results of both the first and second tests and come up with a number. Anything over a certain number is considered a positive test.

At that point, we’ll discuss the options with the patient. If they’ve been trying over-the-counter medication and it’s not working, they may benefit from immunotherapy. If they have asthma they are excellent candidates, because asthma is almost always triggered by allergies. Quality of life for all these people can be greatly improved by immunotherapy.

How immunotherapy works

The immunotherapy consists of injections every other day at home, with the goal of building up your immunity to the allergens. We start with a very low dose of the allergen mixed into the glycerin. Over time, the concentration of the allergen is increased, until the immune system has increased its resistance to an acceptable level.

Basically, we trick the immune system. It sees the amount in the first injection and says, “Oh, that’s nothing.” And because we only increase incrementally, each time it says, “Oh, that’s nothing.” And by the end, we’re injecting far more into the system than we originally were, but the immune system still thinks it’s not a big deal. Just like working out at the gym, we’ve strengthened our system over a time period of about six months.

After about six months, we level out, and after a year, we check you again to see how you’re doing. Most patients need to have the injections for two or three years, and at that point the system has built up long enough that we can stop taking them for a period of time. That time may be anywhere from two to six years or so, and during that time your immune system will stop reacting to the allergens.

Eventually, since your body’s natural state was to be allergic, you will have to come back in and be tested again. Often your allergies will shift around over time, and we’ll find that different allergens affect you. So we’ll run through the same tests we did originally to determine what immunotherapy you need.

Allergy treatments other than immunotherapy modify the symptoms, not the cause. At this point in time, immunotherapy is the only treatment that actually treats the cause, which is an improperly functioning immune system. It’s as close as a cure as we can get at this point.

And with home-based injections, it’s much more convenient than visiting an allergist frequently for a few months, with each visit taking up an hour or so. Our system uses a tiny needle, and has very little discomfort. It’s something that parents can do for children, and that adults can give to themselves, or have a spouse give it to them.

Is immunotherapy right for me?

Immunotherapy is one of the procedures that I enjoy the most, because it often results in a great increase in quality of life frequently within just a few months. If controlling the symptoms is all that you need, then this allergy treatment is not for you. If you only have a week or two a year, and your symptoms are easily treated by over-the-counter medication, then this isn’t the therapy for you.

If you’ve been taking over-the-counter medicine almost every day, and over the course of a year you have multiple sinus infections or other problems like being unable to breathe through your nose,or asthma then immunotherapy is probably the best option for controlling the problem effectively. Those symptoms are things you need to address, and immunotherapy can be life changing for people.

If those things apply to you and you are located in Edmond, Oklahoma City, or within the OKC metro, contact us today to set up a time to be tested. We would love to help change your quality of life for the better!