Rachel's Blogs
What If We Had It All Wrong?!
I shared this recently on socials but for those of us that don't hang around that 'hood I am sharing again here because it is just too important. While we're busy updating our knowledge regarding reproductive health for women (soooo many huge headlines of...
Health is in the Eye of the Beholder
Just last week the sickest patient I've encountered this year (& for perhaps some time) asked me, if I ever see really sick people. This 60 something-year-old farmer has a great sense of humour, so I immediately thought he was joking but as soon as I looked up...
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You Record Something Then This Happens…
I had to say to a mentee just yesterday, "You're going to see the topic for the Update in Under 30 this month and think it's inspired by your patient but it was actually about the 3 other cases I'd seen this month, before yours!" Yep...I'm talking about thyroid...
More Punch in Progestins?
This week's wonder-full paper and light-bulb discovery was prompted by a 34 year old woman with a history of Depo Provera injections over several years to control unruly menstrual bleeding and pain. She was subsequently diagnosed at 28 with osteoporosis. That's not a...
Are We Missing A Different Kind of ‘Hyper’ Child?
Stop press. No, seriously. This new research warrants the attention of every practitioner working with children & teenagers. In the largest paediatric study of its kind to date, which included 2,480 children aged 10-18yrs diagnosed with hyperthyroidism...
Group Mentoring…What’s it all about?
https://youtu.be/sN-sel64IGc For all those Mentoring Virgins 😇 out there wanting a clearer understanding of what it's really like to be part of my group mentoring, this video is a little snippet from a session with one of my groups. This year has flown...
Will Hair Testing Nail Your Patient’s Nickel Problem?
How might your patients' Nickel exposure wreak havoc with their health? What might that look like? It may be lurking behind labels like IBS, non-coeliac gluten sensitivity, contact dermatitis of unknown origin,(with or without alopecia) or even CFS. "Then how does...
NEW Accurate Pathology Results Interpretation…Starts Here
Behind their deceptively-dated inkjet printing and boring black and white font (punctuated occasionally by a comparatively thrilling red H or L) mainstream pathology results actually offer a goldmine of information and insight about your patients....if you know...
“It’s’ Not A Prebiotic, Not A Probiotic…It’s Bathwater To The Rescue”
Sometimes timing is everything. I recently FINALLY had my (almost) lifelong dream come true, installing a self-care-haven-outdoor-bath and guess what, a few days later I stumbled across an exciting study talking about the benefits of baths! But it's not in the...
NEW Dear Doctor – Upskilling in Referral Writing & Inter-Professional Communications
Our knowledge is subject to constant change, and it is oh so necessary to stay up to date in our field for a bazillion reasons, give or take a few 😉 So sometimes we can feel like we need eight arms (for the visual amongst us) to manage and keep up with it all....
Tomatoes, Legumes, Nuts…A Nickel For Your Thoughts?
Remember when I said you say tomatoes... equal histamine but I say, well maybe oxalates, maybe Nickel? So in the UU30 released just last week How Noxious is Nickel we get down and dirtily detailed with just why Nickel, which is almost ubiquitous in soils and...
Get Plugged Into The Brain’s Trust…
Forehead USB not required. Phew. All that is required, is a real thirst for new knowledge, rapid development of your diagnostic skills and a willingness to commit an hour every month to tap into your new Brain's Trust: Rachel and a collection of colleagues with a...
Are You Dancing With The ‘Devil’s…Copper’?
Kupfernickel. It's the original German name for Nickel and it literally translates to 'Copper Nickel' which inferred it to be the 'Copper Nickel' aka 'Devil's Copper'...because each metal can masquerade and be mistaken for the other! There's an interesting story...
Zinc’s Dark Side
There I said it. It was always going to happen. I'm ok, thanks for asking. This week we had a case of a woman diagnosed with MS in her late 20s. That was 5 years ago and she's been medicated ever since with an immunosuppressant and she is understandably very nervous...
Is A Diagnosis Always Helpful?
If you know me, you may wonder if I've recently undergone a personality bypass. I am passionate about diagnostics, pride myself on 'making the invisible visible' through better understanding of pathology markers and confirming the true nature of the...
SAMe Strikes Again!
If my dispensary was on an island and could only stock 3 items, S-adenosyl-methionine would make the cut. That's how important this nutraceutical is to my practice and has proved itself to be to so many of my patients. Regularly, I cross paths with practitioners who...
A Case of Stoned Sperm?
Tonic. Homeostatic modulator. These terms and concepts, which have a long tradition in herbal medicine (and let's be clear, were considered yet another example of the wishy-washiness of the modality) are being appropriated by some areas of mainstream medicine right...
Are You Being Foxed By An Ox…alate Result?
Ok here's some tough Tuesday talk..not all tests are valid. Tougher still...not all of the mainstream nor the functional pathology ones. I am talking across the board here. Each and every pathology parameter requires good knowledge about its strengths. limitations...
How Many Hats Have You Worn Already This Week?
My current count is about 13. Lucky for some? Patient advocate, referral point, primary prescribing practitioner, behavioural change motivator, wise business counsel, good empathetic listener, fearless myth buster, researcher, head chef to a group of...
When the Body Attacks the Mind
Following an important weekend of discussing mental health from a more balanced perspective (that's my new less provocative term for 'integrative' or dare I even mumble...holistic) in Perth for ACNEM, I remain alert but not alarmed of how much is still to be...
Oxalate Overload? The next steps…
When patients present feeling worse every time they DIY a Green Detox, as the practitioner, you're likely to be sniffing around reduced oxalate tolerance as a differential. Rightly so. But what about the patient with joint pains and disproportionate fatigue who has...
This Brain’s On Fire
I was at the Medicinal Cannabis (MC) in Mental Health Conference run by GHI on the weekend and I have to confess, I inhaled. Seriously, deeply, inhaled. Just as I had hoped, this was a very high level of information on this important topic, delivered by outstanding...
There’s Someone Else
Breaking up is hard to do (sounds like the name of a song!) but it shouldn't be! I got an email this week from one of my gorgeous long-term mentees in the vein of a ‘Dear John’ letter. She carefully, beautifully gently let me know... “I've found someone...