Wellness Is a Team Sport
Achieving a Balance Between Healthcare and Selfcare

FirstHealth of Andover celebrates its tenth anniversary in Dundee Park by continuing to offer inspiration, education and a top team of Integrative Medical professionals dedicated to serving your healthcare needs. We continue to learn from you by listening to your challenges, finding the best healthcare possible whether it is within our facility or by referring you to our extensive list of top medical professionals in the area. Here are a few thoughts from reflecting back and looking forward.

Learn How It Feels to Win

Many of my patients enter FirstHealth of Andover having faced significant health challenges. These may be from experiencing protracted illnesses or a feeling that they are just “stuck” in their healing process. I’ve often referred to this as a gap in care. They may be better from the therapies or medications they have used, but not better enough for their quality of life to be satisfactory. The weight of their condition hangs heavy around them. They often tell me they feel sad, lack the confidence they once experienced in their lives,  and have started to limit their activities around a certain unchanging condition. Some patients have used terms such as being a hostage or prisoner of their condition. No one wants to feel that their possibilities in life are being limited.

One of the first challenges we face as practitioners is to help a patient restore their confidence, help them achieve small victories that lead to building confidence. Here we balance the interventions with self care. I had a patient who presented with chronic tennis elbow pain. She was an active tennis player, not that everyone with this diagnosis plays tennis, but this is how she burned off stress. The pain was increasing daily. She had been diagnosed; MRI was negative for a tear, was prescribed an anti-inflammatory, was given a cortisone injection and still experienced significant pain. All of the care she was given helped, just not all the way. Without tennis, she began to build up pent up tension as job stress mounted without the release exercise had provided. Her moods changed, sleepless nights began, and she began to feel grumpy throughout most of her day. I recognized that she was a self starter and need to feel like a winner again. The injury had given her some insights into her life and now it was time to get back on the road to healing.

The Balancing Act

The medications and cortisone injection created a window of opportunity. The inflammation and pain levels were better, just not enough for her to get back to playing tennis. We discussed using this reduced-symptom time wisely to create a program designed to slowly get her back in the game. She still needed to bring down the inflammation and pain, so we added two treatments a week of acupuncture. Electro-acupuncture has been shown to greatly increase levels of the body’s natural anti-inflammatory and analgesic chemicals. We instructed her in a daily home-active therapeutic icing program and discussed some supplements that could reduce inflammation.

Her symptoms began to decrease. She was encouraged and began to feel that she might get better. The following week we introduced concentric exercises into her home routine, allowing her to safely target the chronically weak and painful areas of her forearm. Strength and function slowly improved over the following week. We reduced her treatments to once per week, while she continued her home routine. I also suggested she get a lesson from the club’s tennis pro, so we could rule out her tennis form as a potential aggravator in her recovery. She met with her medical doctor, who was following her progress and found he was delighted. After one month we eliminated weekly acupuncture and she was able to begin to play tennis the following week. She iced twice a day on tennis days and continued her exercises. She began to feel like a winner again.

Wellness is a team sport. We need to be on our game and so do you. We need each other's knowledge, feedback and participation to reach our goals of sustained health. We at FirstHealth of Andover encourage you and your family to learn more about your role in healthcare. Thank you for the many years of support and encouragement by choosing us as part of your healthcare team.

- David Sollars, Owner/Founder, Medical Director