Dr. Connealy in Cali, Dr. Contreras in Mexico
Earlier this month, I had the great privilege to study (after speaking to a group of 300) with Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D., in Irvine, California, and then Francisco Contreras, M.D. in Mexico. Each has interesting strengths.
Dr. Contreras is carrying on a powerful legacy as the son of the first-ever “integrative oncologist.” Like his father, he believes in healing with love, spirituality, and anything legal that works. He’s an absolute veteran, then, and a good speaker. His clinic has been shut down twice–it’s always a challenge to buck “standard of care”–and he’s battled it back to life. Practices are radically different now than 35 years ago, as science advances integrative care.
Dr. Connealy is a widely read, walking encyclopedia of alternative-health modalities who brings that rare female intuition and emotional connectedness to scientific clinical practice. Hers is a world-class medical spa in addition to the first Oasis of Hope licensed by Dr. Contreras in the U.S. She is one of six children, and the only one pregnant with whom her mother took DES, to prevent miscarriage, later pulled from the market for putting offspring of the medicated mother at great risk for many reproductive cancers. (At that same time, Thalidomide, for morning sickness, notoriously was taken off the market when thousands of babies were born with birth defects. It came to be called one of the biggest medical tragedies in history. Amazingly, it has been reintroduced and is now prescribed as a treatment for multiple myeloma.)
Dr. Connealy had to go far outside drugs to deal with the personal repercussions of her mother’s choice to take that drug. (They were handed out like Smarties to over 6 million women. Prescribing doctors were told by drug reps it would lead to big, healthy babies.) That, and her openness to her patients constantly telling her about alternative treatments that she wanted to research, led her to a more inclusive practice than the path her original medical education started her on.
She has been treating many conditions, including being an expert in women’s hormone and bioidenticals. But like me, she is drawn to and fascinated by cancer.
Both doctors are published authors, very brave to step outside the insurance codes and do what’s right. They are doing phenomenal work that more people should know about.
I hope, even if cancer is not on your radar, that you will read this blog series over the next two weeks. Being educated about the subject long before it pokes its ugly head into your life can be profoundly empowering. (A few of my family and best friends have said, “You know so much about cancer–if I get it, I’m coming to you.”)
No problem. But, that much better if you know quite a bit yourself. Cancer is FASCINATING, so even if your chances weren’t 1 in 2 of getting it, it’s just interesting to learn about. What if injecting derivatives of WWI and WWII’s mustard gas ISN’T a good idea and is, in fact, entirely unnecessary?
Much of what I write about cancer TREATMENT in this series is valuable as well for cancer PREVENTION.
Posted in: Detox
