In this episode we dive into the world of functional health and discuss Functional Neurology with our special guest Freddy Garcia, director of operations at the Carrick Institute for Neuroscience and a clinical neuroscientist with more than a decade of experience.

Dr. Garcia is a leader in education and travels the world teaching other doctors, in various specialties, the latest in functional neurology.

We discuss his journey that led him to where he is today as a leader in functional neurology with the most prestigious in the field, The Carrick Institute for Neuroscience. We discuss his experience learning from Dr. Ted Carrick himself and explore what it means to practice functional neurology as a paradigm in healthcare.

The paradigm of Functional Neurology allows providers across all specialties to adapt their backgrounds and tools and apply a functional approach to healthcare in neurology. Understanding and utilizing the concept of neuroplasticity, functional neurology utilizes sensory therapies to target very specific neurological pathways identified by a specific detailed neurological examination with the goal of driving neuroplasticity to identified regions of the nervous system needing improved function.

We discuss how this paradigm of Functional Neurology can be applied across various continuums to adapt to where the individual patient is at in their health journey. From post stroke rehabilitation and traumatic brain injury to sports performance optimization, functional neurology can be utilized.

We hope you enjoy our discussion on Functional Neurology!.

Your Health, Wealth and UltimateSelf Team!

In this week's episode we tackle headlines from the month in research and have a candid analysis and discussion around each article.

This is a common in office discussion that our team naturally has and we figured we would do an episode reflecting our common discussion and insight of the various headlines.

There is so much research being published each day, week, and month. What influences which ones reach the media outlets and the public eye? Is it their significance? Is it their financial ties? Each day there are hundreds to thousands of articles published across the globe on various health subjects. Weekly, there are several thousand published and monthly this number easily hits tens of thousands.

What is even more astonishing is that last year over 10,000 articles were retracted, setting a new annual record. This number of retractions reflects issues with an increase in fraudulent papers and compromised peer-reviewed processes. An article is retracted because there are findings that question the merits of the article and its findings and/or its legitimacy. Now how often do we hear about the hype of a new article but fail to hear if that article has later been retracted? This happened in the case of COVID 19 and early treatment using a pre-existing medication. Major media outlets pushed the retracted article and offered no apology when the article was later retracted. This is despite numerous articles demonstrating benefit and yet one article that was soaked up to push away from the majority of these other articles. This is why it is critical to always question and allow discussion. The moment the ability to question and have open discussion is taken away around a subject is the moment one should have suspicion on the article in reference. Scientific prinicples welcomes debate and discussion and acknowledges that what we know today may change with new research findings of tomorrow and that is ok.

We hope you enjoy this discussion by our team!

From Dance Floors to the Doctor's Doors: Ketamine's Emerging Role in Mental Health...

In this episode we have on a special guest, friend and colleague, Dr. Spencer Zimmerman, to discuss the world of Ketamine.

Dr. Zimmerman calls Idaho home where he runs a clinic that serves people both locally as well as from across the country.

He has a unique back ground with his specialties in functional neurology, peptide therapy, ketamine therapy and functional medicine and he uses this unique understanding to approach and target a variety of chronic disease and complaints.

Ketamine has a unique history, originally gaining FDA approval in 1970 for use in humans as an anesthetic. It was used commonly in surgery and on the battlefield as an anesthetic due to its safety profile compared to alternatives.

On the street, Ketamine became popular as a party drug, with common street names being "Special K, K and Cat Valium". This drug became known on the street for the dissociation, euphoria and the altered perception it would place on its user.

In the early 2000's Ketamine began receiving scientific interest for its psychiatric potential. The early scientific observations showed ketamine had rapid-acting antidepressant effects. This is where our episode on ketamine keys in on and the growth of ketamine in the world of mental health.

We discuss the potential benefits with Dr Zimmerman on the benefits of ketamine for: Depression; PTST; Anxiety and OCD. We also discuss the mechanism of how ketamine works and the various routes of delivery.

Lastly, we jump in and discuss with Dr. Zimmerman how to get the most out of treatment with ketamine and how to approach the entire health picture and not solely focus on Ketamine as a stand alone. Dr. Zimmerman emphasizes ketamine can drastically help improve brain chemistry but there are other important areas that we discuss that also impact brain health that often go overlooked in many of the ketamine clinics out there. This is where an integrative approach is essential to serving the patient.

We hope you enjoy our discussion as we dive into the world of Ketamine and its potential uses in the world of mental health.

Health, Wealth and The UltimateSelf Team.