Accurate Treatment Selection
Understanding disease category and causation is critical to treatment decision-making. By carefully identifying the evolution of a health imbalance, Dr. Hoover is able to appropriately target a treatment plan using the specific types of therapy that are most likely to be of benefit.
For example, Deficiency states must be identified in order to be properly diagnosed and treated. While the initial treatment is simply the replacement of the deficient nutrients, understanding and correcting the process that created the deficiency is critical to long term health.
Chronic inflammatory conditions are typically treated using drugs that suppress the immune response like steroid medications. While this clearly improves the symptoms, most physicians realize that it does not address the actual source cause of the inflammation and is therefore not curative. Eczema can be helped by using topical cortisone, but the patient still has eczema which will be evident if the cream is stopped. Addressing the underlying cause of the inflammatory state is essential to resolution of the disorder and improvement of health. Frequently, homeopathic treatment can be of value in conditions that result from primarily inflammation.
Failure to consider the precise underlying mechanisms of disease is a frequent cause of treatment failure. Often an individual patient's disease process is treatable once the mechanism is elucidated and targeted appropriately.
Medical conditions fall into several broad categories:
Genetic Problems are the result of "hard-wired" variants of genes that produce alterations in the metabolism that result in abnormal health. These conditions are actually present from birth, but may develop symptoms at later points in life once the connected environmental triggers are encountered. For example, you may have an altered gene for alcohol metabolism, but this will not be problematic until you drink alcohol.
Injuries and Infectious Disease are the result of environmental factors that are encountered during your lifetime and include all types of infections, mechanical traumas, drug side effects, injuries that result from cold or heat, and others.
Deficiency States include disorders that result from a lack of critical nutrients or environmental factors that are necessary for optimal health. Depression due to lack of sun exposure and subsequent vitamin D deficiency would be one example.
Chronic Inflammatory Conditions is a category of disorders that includes a large percentage of ongoing problems that can affect people. These inflammatory states include everything from Eczema and Asthma to Crohn's disease and Multiple Sclerosis. The common thread with these disorders is that the body's immune system is creating an over-response to some type of environmental or internal factors resulting in the diease state.
Chronic Degenerative Conditions include those disorders that result from the natural aging effects, and the inability of the body to completely repair damage that occurs as a result of traumas, infections, and inflammations.
Cancer is perhaps best thought of in a separate category. While most disorders can be traced to primarily one of the above categories, cancers often involve a combination of some or all of these categories. The root of Cancer can often be traced to a genetic weakness, combined with trauma such as sun exposure or a virus or environmental toxin; a secondary inflammatory response, and an inability to correct the cellular damage similar to the degenerative state lead to the cancer development.