Why We Treat Psychiatric Illness

Before becoming an alternative doctor, and before even becoming a family physician, Dr. Vance did his internship in Psychiatry at the Navel Medical Center Portsmouth. There he got extensive training in recognizing and treating psychiatric disease. He has recognized that not only is there not nearly enough providers treating psychiatric illness, but it is often treated with a one-size-fits-all approach, which focuses on medicines that tend to make the mind sluggish at best.
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Here at Vance Medical, we think there is a better way.

Brain Nutrition

New evidence tends to suggest that the root of psychiatric disease may be different than what we thought it was. Instead of people being "weak-willed" or having a "prozac deficiency disorder," it is becoming apparent that in many if not most cases of psychiatric illness there is a strong component of nutrient deficiencies. Add to this the fact that most people with psychiatric illness have certain genetic defects that can make the processing of certain vitamins difficult, and you can begin to understand the epidemic we're facing in the psychiatric arena.

Here at Vance Medical we are proud to offer Empowerplus Q96, a nutrient which has multiple research papers demonstrating its effectiveness for conditions like bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, and a host of other psychiatric conditions. Consider it "brain food" - nutrients that are needed to help the brain "work right."

Genetic Predisposition

Very commonly psychiatric illness tends to run in families, and it has long been assumed that there must be some genetic component. Due to the vast amount of work done in the Human Genome Project, we have discovered several genes which have defects of varying frequency that can be associated with various types of mental illness. Some of these, MTHFR in particular, can be very common.

Recognizing the genetic defects can be helpful in certain cases to figure out the best way to treat the patient.

Neurotransmitter Therapy

Most antidepressants work by artificially raising the level of chemicals called neurotransmitters (eg. serotonin, dopamine, etc) in the brain. Unfortunately, while they can make people feel better, they do nothing to address the problem of there frequently being insufficient neurotransmitters to begin with.

​Neurotransmitter therapy seeks to treat the problem in a different way, by giving people either the chemical itself or a precursor to it that can easily be turned into the needed neurotransmitter. Hopefully, by doing this, the levels of the individual chemicals can actually be raised instead of artificially elevated.

Neural Reflex Therapy

A small portion of the Neural Reflex Therapy protocols can help with various psychiatric problems, like anxiety, phobias, or PTSD. This is a manual therapy which can stimulate either relaxation or correct processing of memories. Within a few minutes patients can frequently feel much more calm and relaxed, often with reduced intrusive thoughts or memories. We have found it to be very helpful for most of the people we have used it on.

IV Ketamine

An effective treatment for the relief of depression, anxiety, and suicidality.

Ketamine is a general anesthetic which has been used safely worldwide for many years and is considered by the World Health Organization as an indispensable drug. It is much safer to use than most other general anesthetics because it does not inhibit the respiratory drive.

It works by creating a dissociative effect - inducing something like a dreamlike state. When used in a much lower dose than needed for general anesthesia, it can have a remarkable effect on treating things like major depression, suicidality, PTSD, and even a depressive phase of bipolar disorder. It tends to be effective for people who have tried multiple other therapies unsuccessfully. Although there is ongoing medical research on the safety and effectiveness of this therapy, this use is still considered experimental and alternative.

PTSD PROTOCOL

The PTSD protocol is a collection of manual therapies that when grouped together tend to work very well for people struggling with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. While there are no guarantees, we have generally been able to permanently eliminate PTSD symptoms for any particular trauma or event. In our experience, patients usually need just one but occasionally two or rarely three treatments.

​In order for the protocol to work well, two criteria need to be met: 1) the trauma needs to have occurred at least 1 month in the past, and 2) you need to put yourself emotionally back in the middle of the situation at up to about 8/10 on an anxiety scale. The treatment typically takes 30-45 minutes. You do not have to say what happened, only where you are on the anxiety scale. Usually people start around 8/10, and as the treatment progresses it gradually comes down to a 1/10 or even a 0/10.

​Oftentimes different visits will be needed for separate unrelated traumas.

IV KETAMINE

An effective treatment for the relief of depression, anxiety, and suicidality.

MTHFR

What does MTHFR stand for? I'll give you a hint - it's NOT a swear word. It really stands for a common genetic deformity that could be the key to why certain people struggle with mental illness!

NEURAL THERAPY

As you might expect from the name, Neural Therapy is a collection of treatments that focuses on the nerves.

NEURAL REFLEX THERAPY

Neural Reflex Therapy is a term created by Dr. Vance to describe a group of generally painless manual techniques to treat a wide variety of conditions.