complex chronic illness

This group of conditions includes a wide variety of symptoms, severity, and causes. Some are opportunistic and go from sub-clinical to full blown only when times are hard. Some can progress to levels that may cause long term damage, significant disability, or even death. These conditions can include but aren’t limited to:

  • Infectious processes like Lyme Disease with various co-infections and the Epstein Barr Virus

  • Environmental toxins like mold or heavy metals from your workplace, home, or your foods

  • Central sensitization conditions like fibromyalgia, which increases the pain signals to your brain

  • Auto-immune conditions like Lupus or Multiple Sclerosis, where your own immune system causes damage

Dr. Halbert also includes connective tissue disorders like Ehler’s Danlos Syndrome, even though these may not typically be considered complex chronic illnesses. The symptoms are typically more physical and do not cause as much cognitive or constitutional impairment, like difficulty concentrating or the ability to work an entire day. Nor would they typically cause environmental sensitivities to smells and sounds, as the other conditions often do.

symptoms

These conditions are indeed complex. The symptom specifics can vary widely from case to case, manifesting differently in different people and affecting their lives to varying degrees. This variation is often only in part determined by genetic and epigenetic factors. A person’s diet, exercise, stress load, and sleep habits often play a very large role. Unfortunately, this doesn’t make management easy, since the symptoms themselves often make it difficult or impossible to make the lifestyle changes that would otherwise help to reduce the symptoms. This variability makes diagnosing these conditions from others that share many of the same symptoms difficult for many doctors. For example, do you have clinical depression and joint pain from separate causes, or are you depressed and have joint pain because of your underlying complex chronic illness? They can appear similar on the surface, but may call for an entirely different treatment pathway to address the real cause.

While they can vary significantly, these conditions often include many of the following symptoms:

  1. Chronic generalized body, joint, muscle, and/or gut pain

  2. Chronic fatigue and the inability to maintain normal levels of mental or physical work

  3. Generalized reduction in mood and ability to prioritize or complete tasks

  4. Difficulty maintaining employment or performing normal home maintenance duties and chores

  5. Reduced social interaction due to increased sensitivity to various environmental factors that don’t seem to affect other people around you. These can include:

    • Chemical smells in products like air fresheners, sprays, or perfume

    • Chemicals in food like pesticides or those used in processing

    • Bright lights and loud noises like many groups talking or the music that is common in social gatherings

  6. A desire to return to “normal life” if only you could figure out and address the condition

consultation & treatment

Conventional medicine often fails to diagnose and properly treat these conditions. Even after years of seeing doctors and specialists, people are often just prescribed anti-depressants and NSAIDs (like Advil or Aleve) to address the surface symptoms, and only occasionally informed that the underlying cause is unknown. If it comes at all, the path to diagnosis for these conditions usually includes many years of frustration, confusion, emotional and financial hardship, over-medication, and untold losses due to missed opportunities and lack of vitality. Even once proper diagnosis is made, the path toward healing is often long and difficult and many of these conditions cannot be cured. However, most can be significantly improved with proper care and management, allowing people to function better and enjoy life more.

Dr. Halbert still has a lot to learn in this field, but he is focused on learning how to assist people with these conditions. In addition to topical continuing education classes from notable experts in the field like Dr. Brooke Bodeen, ND, he also has the invaluable resource of a family member who not only is becoming a true expert and Naturopathic Doctor focused on the subject, but also comes at it with first hand knowledge from a personal history of complex chronic illness and the long path to diagnosis and proper management. Dr. Halbert can provide two very important services to people who may have this type of condition:

  1. Consultation Services: If you have something going on that has eluded proper diagnosis and/or treatments only mask the issue and do not address the causes, meet with Dr. Halbert for a consultation. He will discuss all your symptoms and likely perform some examination procedures, then piece together the threads to develop a working diagnosis and often a secondary diagnosis or two. Dr. Halbert will tell you what he thinks is going on and why, what he might be able to help with it himself, what you might be able to do about it, and finally give you the appropriate referrals to the medical providers who specialize in your likely diagnosis and treatment needs.

  2. Cox Technic: Once you have a working diagnosis and are seeing the proper specialist to address the underlying cause, Dr. Halbert may be able to help significantly reduce your physical symptoms. The body, joint, and muscle pain from these illnesses often do not respond well to normal treatments, which is why Dr. Halbert is excited by some of the clinical successes that he has seen in his office with this gentle and safe treatment. Cox Technic has been providing many of his complex chronic illness patients significant symptom relief, especially in pain levels, inflammation, and vitality. Some of these people have tried chiropractic in the past and had a neutral or even negative experience, since many with these conditions can not handle the traditional more forceful chiropractic adjustments. Cox Technic allows people to more gently gain the benefits of adjusting, including pain reduction, scar tissue remodeling, and improved function. Watch a testimonial from someone with complex chronic illness here.