Bipolar Disorder is a form of psychosis that causes a person to lose contact with reality and disrupts a person’s life by causing severe disturbances in thinking, emotion and behavior. Psychosis affects 2.6% of American adults with episodes of both depression and mania. Symptoms associated with bipolar disorder manifest as changes in emotion, depression, anxiety and in perception that leads to difficulty in relationships and performing at work or school.
Treatment
At Tree of Life Natural Medicine, Dr. Kaufmann uses multiple therapies to treat bipolar disorder. The first step taken by Dr. Kaufmann is to treat the patient as a whole person, and understand the diagnosis as a guide to decision making. Dr. Kaufmann also considers any obstacle to cure and uses appropriate therapies to remove them.
Thyroid balancing
The balancing of thyroid hormones in the management of mood disorders has a long history in naturopathic medicine. Dr. Kaufmann is skilled in detecting thyroid imbalances and interactions between hormones. Thyroid problems can stem from many different sources including the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, thyroid receptor resistance, adrenal glands, cortisol production and even autoimmune factors such as Hashimoto’s disease. Dr. Kaufmann has several thyroid medications at his disposal that can be used to balance the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis and treat Bipolar disorder.
Homeopathy
Treatment with homeopathy assists in bipolar disorder by moving people through their condition, often giving rapid relief. Homeopathic treatment works to stimulate the body to heal itself. Instead of masking emotions with medications, homeopathy opens the way to process and reflect on emotions to learn, grow and heal from them.
Remove obstacle to cure
Although thyroid balancing and homeopathy have great success in the treatment of bipolar disorder, occasionally there are road blocks which prevent healing. Dr. Kaufmann is trained to recognize these road blocks and remove them so that the healing process can continue.
Supportive therapies
Additional therapies used at Tree of Life Natural Medicine during treatment based on an individual’s need to enhance the response will often include orthomolecular medicine and nutrition. Dr. Kaufmann is skilled in applying each of the treatment options to achieve maximum healing.