Dogwood Wellness

09/09/2025

We have received some expired Gaia products that we are giving away. Elderberry syrup, immune lozenges, and turmeric. If you would like some, stop by the office between 10 am and 3:30 pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday or Friday.

02/16/2023

We are excited to announce our new affiliation with Southwestern Community College, and their Apprenticeship Program. We would like to invite the right candidate to be a part of our front desk staff, if that same person is interested in earning a front desk medical office certificate from Southwestern. Tuition is partially reimbursed for this certification and the candidate will work with us with the opportunity to continue working for us when (s)he graduates. The Apprenticeship Program can only be offered to people between the ages of 16 and 25. If interested, please send a résumé to us at Dogwood 1125@yahoo.com or call the office for more information at 828-586-6262.

04/28/2021

Good morning. I have an opportunity to get discounted tests from Great Plains Labs, one of the best testing labs in the country. In a nutshell I can offer the ENVIROtox panel for $350, and regular pricing is over $500. The ENVIROtox complete includes the mycotox profile (mold testing) and is $520. Regular pricing for this two is over $800. I need to prepay for these tests by Friday, so if anyone is interested in the testing, call the office and leave a message or portal us. If you need more information on what is contained in the tests then go to www.greatplainslaboratory.com.
The deadline for ordering is Friday!

The Great Plains Laboratory, Inc. is a world leader in providing testing for metabolic, genetic, mitochondrial, and environmental factors in chronic illnesses. We offer a variety of state-of-the-art metabolic and genetic tests such as the Organic Acids Test, GPL-TOX (Toxic Organic Chemical Profile

05/08/2020

Good morning all!

We are opening up as a state and encouraging more people from other places to come and start their touristing. Georgia and Tennessee have been open for several weeks now. While our cases in Jackson County and surrounding counties have stayed stable, I do not expect that to continue.

I would like to reinforce several of my previous points. Many of you know how much I emphasize the use of vitamin D. A recent study (in press) from New Orleans tested vitamin D levels of hospital patients with COVID-19 and found that THE PEOPLE WITH THE LOWEST VITAMIN D LEVEL WERE THE MOST SICK. I continue to recommend vitamin D 5000 IU daily for everyone until the threat of the virus has passed. For more information I would refer you to Dr.Mercola, who has summarized the recent vitamin D research in an article:

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/05/08/vitamin-d-level-correlated-to-covid19-outcomes.aspx?cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20200508Z1&et_cid=DM527863&et_rid=867390097

I would also like to point out the NY Times has an opinion article from an emergency room doctor, Dr. Richard Levitan, published April 20, 2020. In it, he details his concerns about people staying at home without realizing that the pneumonia from COVID-19 was progressing for them. He recommends an oxygen saturation monitor for in home monitoring.

Both the vitamin D and the oxygen saturation meter are things that I have recommended in my previous post. Please look at the rest of the list and make sure that you have the other valuable supplements that may help. I now have some nebulizers and oxygen monitors in the office, so if we don't get overrun with cases, we may be able to manage people with the equipment that we have.

If you feel casual about this virus, I would encourage you to read anything coming out of New York. They do not know where to put the dead. We are going to have this virus with us for the rest of the year. We need to live our lives, certainly, but please take the vitamin D and C supplements and do good food and some exercise as basic precautions. The masks and hand sanitizers as well of course.

Please, if you are a Dogwood patient and have symptoms that you think are due to the coronavirus, let me know. I would test for the COVID-19. The nebulizer protocol should be put into place in the first 24 hours of symptoms to reduce the risk of significant pneumonia. My cell phone is on the answering machine message. Call or text. Let me take it seriously so that you don't have to :).

Stay safe!

An analysis of medical records revealed a direct correlation between vitamin D levels and the severity of illness in people infected with SARS-CoV-2.

04/08/2020

My Out of the box COVID BOX

Practice the anti-inflammatory life
Exercise outside the house and meditate. Remember that this virus is too big for you to have control (OUCH!)
Tea, especially green, 4 cups daily
Lots of protein 80-100 grams per day while sick = beans and nuts are great!
Chicken soup/bone broth
3 hot tea: garlic, chili pepper and ginger good at the start of viral symptoms
Bone broth with ginger and turmeric always a winner
Miso soup
Anti-inflammatory foods: I would refer you to Dr. Andrew Weil’s Anti-inflammatory diet pyramid, because it is a 4-page document with a list and explanations of what anti-inflammatory foods are. You already know, though. Less sugars, more veggies.

A thermometer
An oxygen saturation meter – little monitor that you stick on the finger to measure how much oxygen you have. One per household.
A nebulizer machine – if you have one, get it out and dust it off. Make sure it is working.

If anyone has extra thermometers, oxygen saturation monitors or nebulizer machines that they would like to donate, please let us know. Many households don’t have them or won’t be able to get them at this point.

I have listed supplements/herbs in the order of importance from what I can glean from the data, and also the best brands (have the quantity as labeled and minimal heavy metal contamination) as identified by Consumer Labs, an independent testing lab.

Vitamin C: 1000 mg per hour for the first 6 hours after fever then minimum 4000 mg in divided doses daily thereafter.
Top picks Ester-C, Bronson labs, CVS Health C, Emergen-C, Garden of Life, GNC vitamin C, Jamieson C, Costco Kirkland, Life Extension,Live-on labs, Metagenics, Nature made, Nature's Bounty, Nature's Plus, Vitacost, Twin Lab, Sundown, Spring Valley, Shaklee, Piping rock

Vitamin D: at least enough to continue to 5,000 IU/day
Top picks: Source Naturals, Carlson Kid’s, Member’s Mark, Vitacost, Bronson, Garden of Life, Nature Made, and Now

Vitamin A 25,000 IU/day
Top picks: Spring Valley, Now, Blue Bonnet, Pure encapsulations

Zinc: 20 mg/day minimum
Top picks: Swanson Zinc, GNC Zinc, Shaklee zinc, Vitacost zinc, zicam, Cold-eeze

Quercetin 500 mg 2 tabs twice a day
Top picks: Bulk supplements (1/4 tsp twice a day), MRM *, solaray, solgar, source naturals

Turmeric/curcumin 500-1000 mg twice a day
Top picks: Nature’s way, Gaia
Elderberry 500 mg po daily
Also helpful: Resveratrol 100-150 mg by mouth daily, Melatonin 5-20 mg daily, PEA 600 mg three times a day for 3 weeks (Palmitoylethanolamide)

04/08/2020

I apologize in advance that this is soooo long.
A couple of basic comments. We are already in an economic depression and the unemployment rate is > 10%. We cannot make plans based on a possible vaccine at this point. I think that we should all plan to be exposed to this virus because, at some point over the next 12-18 months, we will be. At that point, my goal is to have everyone have the mildest case.
Can we predict how someone is going to respond to the virus? If we knew that, some people could breathe more easily at night (literally). Unfortunately, we don’t yet. I am sure that many of you have seen cases of the virus killing someone relatively young and with relatively low risk factors. I think that the key assumption there is “low risk factors”. We are walking around in a sludge of environmental toxins, anything from Roundup to mold to mercury, which all have a negative effect. Exposed to multiple toxicants, we all have negative effects on the immune system which may be undetectable. By undetectable I mean it may be as subtle as anxiety or poor bowel function, and nothing as obvious as cancer.
95% of the population has Roundup in their urine. Add mold toxicity to that (anyone around here have mold issues in house or workplace?) and an unidentified genetic predisposition to respond poorly to these combinations of toxins and we each may have an immune system which may not handle the COVID-19 well.
So how do we get the mild case? What is a mild case? Eighty percent of the population that gets COVID will get “mild” symptoms. This is vague and not incredibly helpful. Not bad enough to be hospitalized, I guess. So a mild case is great because we want your body to create an immune response and get antibodies that protect you against reinfection by COVID-19 (at least this strain). Nobody in the medical community wants to commit to people being immune, but I think that we have watched this virus enough that, if a lot of people were getting reinfected, we would have seen that pattern by now.
So, probable immune and mild case is the next goal. How do we do that?
Get a great immune system in 2 weeks! Right. It took years for us to get into our current states. However, don’t forget the basics:
Do lots of healthy stuff and to hit the mindfulness hard. Prepare your immune system with antioxidant food (not sugar and carbs), exercise outdoors (not while eating sugar and carbs), get good sleep (no sleepwalking to the refrigerator), and a great brain (not inflamed by sugar and carbs). Supplement with vitamin D 5000 IU/day and vitamin C 1000 mg 2x daily to enhance your immune system. Check YouTube for mindful meditations – there are many of them. Listen to them while walking outside – barefoot is best.
We are offering an Immune Boost formula. This is good for people who know that they are immune compromised, over 65 years, have poor gut function where they know that absorption of nutrients is sketchy, or anyone with those underlying chronic diseases that the CDC has put in the high risk list, or morbidly obese. The Immune Boost is IV therapy and comes in packs of 4 infusions. You do not need to use all of the infusions, but there is a minimum order for us. Each infusion is $100 and takes 30-60 minutes to complete. If you are interested, we need a $200 refundable deposit in order to prescribe the kit. Insurance does not cover the infusions. Call us for more information. If you invest in a series, we will give one infusion to one of our immune compromised patients who can’t afford to get them.
Meanwhile, what do you do if you think that you have the COVID-19? Take the vitamin D and vitamin C. If you have a fever and muscle aches, or any of the other symptoms, please call us. If it is after hours, please text me (not after 9 pm and not before 7 am because I won’t be doing anything for you in the middle of the night for the fever). If it is on the weekend, please let me know. We have a protocol that I would like to put into place as soon as someone has symptoms. Remember, reduction of the severity is the first goal and that means being aggressive with supplements and herbals before the day 5-6 mark when the horse manure hits the fan.
We will also have IV vitamin C infusions, which is good for the more severe cases. These also need to be ordered in advance. Each infusion is $100 and takes 30-60 minutes to complete. If you are interested, we need a $200 refundable deposit in order to prescribe the kit. Insurance does not cover the infusions. Call us for more information. If you invest in a series, we will give one infusion to one of our immune compromised patients who can’t afford to get them. I cannot guarantee that you will need the infusions, which is why the deposit is refundable. I am confidant that other people will need it instead.
My next post contains the list of things that I think one should have in their household. Order the list below, and make sure that you have enough of each item to cover any member of your household or other folks for whom you are responsible for at least 3 weeks of dosing.
Stay safe and call us for questions or symptoms.

04/04/2020

I would like to recommend the recent webinar, now on YouTube, by Dr. Mark Hyman. He and colleagues discuss COVID-19. The link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dyoraDWPAs. It is a great conversation with a lot of important points and things that we can do right now.

Full article: https://www.drhyman.com/c19 - A Functional Medicine Approach to COVID-19 As a Functional Medicine doctor on the front lines of our chronic dise...

04/03/2020

We are creating more outdoor space as fast as we can. We are doing blood draws outside and working on another space for visits. Telehealth is up and running. Please call if you get a fever or Covid symptoms because I am working on a protocol to keep you safest. I also recommend investing in an oxygen saturation meter. Get on a waiting list because that oxygen number will tell us how well you are doing every day. Some blood pressure cuff monitors have add on that you might get more easily.