Conscious Choice: Natural Health Centers

October 1999

Natural Health Centers

Treating Mind, Body, and Spirit

by Darlene Paris

When I was a little girl, my parents would travel thirty miles from our home in northwest Indiana to take my younger sister and me to a healthcare clinic for routine check ups and emergency care. On our way, we would pass several doctors’ offices, hospitals, and medical centers that were much closer, but Mom and Dad insisted upon going to the Hammond Clinic because of the variety of healthcare services offered there.

My mother liked this clinic because it was a one-stop shop for health care. While she, my sister, and I had appointments with the pediatrician, my father would see his ophthalmologist or visit his regular doctor for a physical. My mother’s doctor, who was board-certified in family practice, worked in this building, too, and recommended she see a female gynecologist (an anomaly for that time) whose office was located just above the pediatrics department.

Having grown up using a healthcare facility with a variety of healthcare professionals working in conjunction with one another, I looked for the same type of center when I became an adult. I traveled up and down thoroughfares and combed several different cities’ yellow pages in search of such a center, but couldn’t find any like the kind I went to in Hammond — that is, until I moved to Chicago and became interested in holistic health.

Here I discovered natural health centers, or holistic health centers, as they’re sometimes called, that have a variety of health professionals on staff such as medical doctors, chiropractors, acupuncturists, and naprapaths. And, not unlike my experience at the Hammond Clinic, I found that these professionals often worked with one another to address patients’ health challenges.

There was one major difference, however. Unlike the staff at the Hammond Clinic, the healthcare professionals at these centers used therapies that most conventional doctors wouldn’t recommend, such as acupuncture, herbology, and homeopathy. I also discovered that although many of these places had medical doctors, doctors of osteopathy, or chiropractors on staff — and these often served as medical directors — some clinics were run by lay professionals of some complementary modality such as massage, colon therapy, and reiki.

After learning that there were centers like these in the Chicago area, I decided to call some of these places. My research revealed some fascinating information about the history of natural healthcare centers and why they are so appealing to patients.

Chicago’s First Natural Health Center

Natural health care has always been used by small groups of individuals in this area, but it gained popularity in the mid 1990s. In fact, that 1990 Harvard study — the one that said that one-third of its respondents used some form of alternative health care — also revealed that Americans made 425 million visits to a holistic practitioner in a year.

My quest for a natural healthcare center eight years ago led me first to the Center for Holistic Medicine which used to be located at the Himalayan Institute in Glenview. Established in the late 1970s, this natural healthcare clinic was born out of the demands of yoga students who had gone deep into their practice and wanted health care that reflected their new, meditative lifestyle.

"They allegedly had five doctors practicing full-time," says Jerry Gore, M.D., who joined the holistic clinic in the early 1980s. Gore became the director, and then, in 1994, the new owner. "There were doctors in the area practicing homeopathy and nutrition and doing yoga practice at the time, but there wasn’t anybody who pulled it together the way we did at the center," he says.

The group of doctors and holistic practitioners who work at the Center for Holistic Medicine, which is now located in Riverwoods near Deerfield, practice integrative medicine — a system of healing that combines conventional and alternative therapies with an understanding of how these treatments impinge upon the patient’s mind, body, and spirit.

"Integrative medicine doesn’t just mean using [healing therapies] from the East and West," Gore explains. "Integrative medicine means understanding the different physical, energetic, and emotional approaches to a human being. It’s a cohesive approach to holistic medicine." Physicians at natural health centers might use nutritional therapy to address a patient’s physical needs, acupuncture to release blocked energy channels, and psychotherapy to soothe emotions.

How do these doctors know which approach to use? Gore explains: "We take you through a pretty comprehensive diagnosis that not only handles your acute problem, but it looks at where you’ve been, the kinds of problems you’ve had, your age, your sex, and what you’re doing with your life in general. We get a handle on you physically, energetically, emotionally, and spiritually, and we weave all of these components together to determine what you need for long-term wellness."

A Variety of Treatment Options

Most natural health centers use the concept of "integrative medicine" or "holistic health care" to describe the type of services they offer, but the kind of therapies that are available at these centers vary. The Balancing Center in Chicago, for example, offers chiropractic treatments in addition to massage therapy, spiritual psychotherapy, shiatsu, and cranial sacral therapy. But some centers mix health with aesthetics. At SoderWorld in Hinsdale, patrons can choose from massage sessions, reiki treatments, Ayurvedic therapies, and even spa services such as body wraps and facials. But most natural health centers focus on health, as does Chandler’s Health Emporium, which provides naprapathy, colon therapy, massage, and nutritional counseling.

Having a variety of natural health therapies to choose from is what attracted Caren Danielson to the Waveland Wellness Center located in the city. Danielson’s mother took the drug DES while pregnant, so she has faced several health challenges. "I turned 40 this year and realized that the first half of my life was spent with a lot of doctors and medication," she says. "I have a circulation disease and the doctors don’t know what to do about it, and I’ve had a brain hemorrhage... but to continue seeing a neurologist and have them practice on me with new medication is unacceptable. I feel like a guinea pig. I’ve decided that from now on I’ll focus on my spirit and soul on real healing," she says.

Through Waveland, Danielson arranged an appointment with Dr. Richard Sandore, M.D., an obstetrician and gynecologist, who abandoned conventional medicine two years ago in favor of shamanic healing.

Danielson knew she had come to the right place when he put a blanket on the floor and asked her to sit down. "He asked me about my life and not my health problems," Danielson says. "I felt like he was listening to me as a fellow human being and not as a patient."

A Non-clinical Environment

The size of these centers varies. Some, like the recently opened Beyond Wellness Therapeutic Massage & Healing Center in Tinley Park, are small operations. Others, like American WholeHealth, have several doctors and practitioners in various locales in and surrounding Chicago.

Beyond Wellness Therapeutic Massage & Healing Center, owned by certified massage therapist and reiki master, Don Massat, has three certified massage therapists on staff, including Massat, and other holistic practitioners who work on a part-time basis. Massat says that his center may be smaller than most natural healthcare clinics in Chicago, but the work done here is just as serious.

"I work on quite a few doctors," says Massat who also teaches massage at the Wellness and Massage Training Institute in Woodridge. "Some of them are very receptive to the work that I do. Some of them weren’t receptive when they first walked in, but after a few massage sessions they’ve changed."

Dr. Jose Abreu, 62, is one such patient. When his wife recommended he see a massage therapist and reiki master for neck pain that had traveled to his arms and shoulders, Abreu, an anesthesiologist at a south suburban hospital, was skeptical. "I had never heard about him or the type of medicine he practices. It was something unfamiliar to me," he says.

Abreu agreed to visit the center because he began experiencing numbness in his fingers. He also wasn’t having success with physical therapy, and the medication that he was taking was a bit harsh on his system. In an effort to solve his impending health challenges, Abreu met with a neurosurgeon hoping to discuss the possibility of surgery, but he really didn’t want to go under the knife.

He admits that visiting the natural health care center was a last resort. "When you are suffering excruciating pain, you are willing to try anything that gives you hope for improvement," he says.

After his first session, he noticed massage therapy was gentler on his body than physical therapy. He also realized that his body had stopped aching. Abreu says that he saw definite improvements after the third massage session and decided to see the massage therapist twice a week instead of having surgery. "Don uses massage and cranial sacral therapy on me and it works. I’m delighted I found out about this place because it has saved my life," he says.

American WholeHealth, the largest holistic healthcare facility in the Chicago area, is determined to combine personal service with widespread availability. Currently, the medical group has two offices in Chicago, three satellite offices in McHenry, Oak Park, and Olympia Fields and additional centers in Massachusetts, Maryland, and Colorado. Two new sites are scheduled to open in the Chicago area sometime next year.

Dr. David Edelberg, one of the founders of American WholeHealth, had a vision in 1991 that people would slowly, but surely, seek something other than conventional health care to cure their aches and pains. So he and a partner decided to open a couple of clinics in the area devoted to a more natural healing regimen. The first clinic was established in the city and was called the Chicago Holistic Center and the second, in the north suburbs, called the Evanston Holistic Center.

Edelberg envisioned a chain of these centers dotting the country, but soon felt the pinch of having to finance facilities himself. So he submitted a business plan to a venture capitalist group to which he hoped to sell his vision of a holistic healthcare franchise. And to his own surprise, they bought the idea. They invested money, opened more centers, and took over the day-to-day business of running a natural healthcare facility, which freed Edelberg to do what he does best — heal. The Evanston Holistic Center has since decided to break its affiliation with the group; it’s been renamed The Miro Center for Integrative Medicine, and it serves as another local option for holistic health care.

At American WholeHealth, as at other holistic healthcare facilities, doctors and practitioners work together on a patient’s healing path. This may include several different treatments and educational programs to help patients achieve optimal wellness. Dr. David Zeiger, D.O., who works at the American WholeHealth’s Michigan Avenue Center, is a primary physician at the center and assists patients in choosing alternative treatments.

"I am the healing quarterback, who oversees the overall care of the patient," he says. "As the team leader, I am their advocate. I’m the one who’ll ask‘how are things going with the acupuncturist?’ and‘how’s the nutritional program going?’"

Zeiger says that working in a healthcare facility like American WholeHealth allows him to help more patients with natural healing methods than he could when he worked in private practice. "Before, I was wearing multiple hats. I was the nutritionist, massage therapist, acupuncturist, homeopath, and family doctor all rolled into one. Now what I’ve got are tremendously gifted, talented, and humanistically oriented professionals in each one of those areas. Now I have a team," he says.

Zeiger’s comments reflect the benefit of holistic healthcare centers; regardless of their size, they attract people by the individualized care they offer, and the non-clinical atmosphere they create. Gore, for example, has constructed a new facility for the Center for Holistic Medicine situated on an acre of lush land near a forest preserve.

"We are on well water; we have full-spectrum lighting, windows that let in fresh air, and a kitchen where patients can learn to fix vegetarian meals," Gore says. "The feeling of a nicely run place is a remedy in and of itself."

Getting Personal

This personalized approach to health care is often pricey because of the amount of time doctors spend with patients. A forty-five minute visit, for example, can run as much as $185 to $200 and an hour appointment hovers around $235 to $250. Unfortunately, insurance companies aren’t quick to cover natural healthcare services. And several natural healthcare centers in the area require their patients to pay before they receive such services.

Dr. Connie Catellani, medical director of The Miro Center of Integrative Medicine, had to re-evaluate her center’s billing procedure several times because some of their services weren’t being covered by insurance companies. "It made collections difficult, and it made our cash flow terrible," she says.

When Catellani announced that patients would have to pay up-front for medical services, she thought the clinic would lose several patients. She was wrong. "One of the huge advantages of a center like ours is that people like the fact that the practitioners work together and talk to one another about their health concerns," Catellani says. "Communication is one of the key things that make people want to come to a place like this. It would be nice if insurance paid, but I don’t think it will turn many people away from this kind of care."

Darcy McCarthy, of Buffalo Grove is a case in point. She and her husband and their two daughters are patients at the Center for Holistic Medicine in Riverwoods. They’ve had to pay out of pocket for some services and supplements like vitamins, herbs, and homeopathic remedies, but McCarthy, 36, doesn’t mind. "If I went to a hospital to see a medical doctor, he’d prescribe medication and I’d probably never use it." she says. "I don’t mind paying for health care that works."

So how do you go about choosing a natural health clinic? Take it from me—it helps to do your homework. First, call the center and ask for information. Some places offer brochures and even videotapes on the type of services they provide. You may want to ask if they also have information on the different therapies their practitioners practice.

Depending upon a center’s policies, you may be able to meet with a representative from the clinic to discuss their healthcare philosophy before you make an appointment. Whatever you do, pay attention to your gut feelings. "If you don’t feel comfortable with a particular clinic, don’t feel like you have to go, and if you’ve already arranged an appointment, don’t feel you have to stay," says Tim Schurr, president of the Association of Wholistic Medicine, a group that provides free information on alternative therapies to the public. "Pay attention to your feelings. They are your best guide."

My own research netted something slightly different — but perhaps better — that the Hammond Clinic on which my family once depended. The clinic I visited when I was a child took care of our bodies; now I’ve found places and people that will help me care for my mind and spirit as well. At natural health clinics I can choose from a variety of natural health options and practitioners. I feel good about that. And I know Mom and Dad would be pleased

Darlene E. Paris is the author of Healthy and Natural Living in Chicago: The Best Alternative Resources in the City and Suburbs (Chicago Review Press).The book is available at bookstores or by calling 800-888-4741.

Resources

Dr. David Edelberg, M.D., American WholeHealth, Lincoln Park Center, 990 W. Fullerton Ave., Suite 300, Chicago, IL 60614; 773-296-6700

Dr. David Zeiger, D.O., American WholeHealth, Michigan Avenue Center, 150 E. Huron, Suite 1100, Chicago, IL 60611; 312-266-8565

Don Massat, M.T., Beyond Wellness Therapeutic Massage & Healing Center, 16345 S. Harlem, Suite 2 South, Tinley Park, IL 60477; 708-614-6860

Dr. Jerry Gore, M.D., Center for Holistic Medicine, 240 Saunders Road, Riverwoods, IL 60015; 847-236-1701

Dr. Connie Catellani, M.D., The Miro Center for Integrative Medicine, 1639 Orrington Avenue, Evanston, IL 60201; 847-733-9900

Dr. Richard Sandore, M.D., Waveland Wellness Center, 1346 W. Waveland, Chicago, IL 60613; 773-935-5050

Tim Schurr, The Association of Wholistic Medicine, 877-944-4673

The Balancing Center, 1871 N. Clybourn, Chicago, IL 60614; 773-327-3333

Chandler’s Health Emporium, 8 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 820, Chicago, IL 60603; 312-782-2285

SoderWorld Holistic Health & Wellness Center, 10 S. 410 Route 83, Suite 2, Hinsdale, IL 60521; 630-455-5885

Nancy Floy and Andrea Gunderson, The Healing Center, 1599 Maple, Evanston, 60201; 847-491-1122.

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