What Is Integrative Medicine?
Integrative medicine combines conventional medicine and holistic therapies to enhance a patient’s vitality, focusing on whole-body wellness.
A Personalized Approach To Healthcare
Our practice believes enhancing your vitality is possible through holistic lifestyle changes. Integrative medicine focuses on the relationship between your mind, body, and soul. We are mindful of this significant union when supporting your path to whole body wellness.
Our healing-oriented therapies combine complementary and conventional medicine to promote whole body health and wellness.
Many people experience feeling like a cog in the wheel of a factory assembly line when it comes to receiving medical care. Healthcare needs to feel detached from the individual patient entirely. And unfortunately, when most people go to their doctor for an ailment, they are immediately given a prescription with a very little conversation outside of their immediate symptoms.
This type of interaction between patients and the healthcare system can be frustrating and infuriating. Patients crave more and practitioners want to provide more.
Our practice believes enhancing your vitality is possible through holistic lifestyle changes. Integrative medicine focuses on the relationship between your mind, body, and soul. We are mindful of this significant union when supporting your path to whole body wellness.
Our healing-oriented therapies combine complementary and conventional medicine to promote whole body health and wellness.
Whole Body Wellness
Integrative medicine is an approach to your healthcare that encapsulates all aspects of you as an individual. Integrative Medicine (IM) values the relationship between mind, body, and spirit to provide total body care. Integrative medicine combines conventional medicine and holistic therapies to enhance a patient’s vitality, focusing on whole body wellness.
Traditional medical approaches (such as diagnostic tests and medications) will be incorporated with complementary and alternative medical practices. However, it is important to note that the holistic approaches an integrative medicine doctor would incorporate in their treatment is evidence based. This includes scientific research to support its addition to conventional medical practices.
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What does Shakthi Mean?
Shakthi (Shuk-thee) means Strength, Empowerment, and Agent of Change.
Shakthi Digital Guide
At Shakthi Health and Wellness we offer a la carte and yearly plans that are more comprehensive and often cheaper than traditional insurance plans.
Integrative Medicine & Its Benefits
Integrative medicine looks at the patient as a whole person. This means it looks at everything from their environment to their actual physical health. We use integrative medicine to try to get down to the root cause of illnesses and medical concerns. This medical practice uses science-based approaches to address an individual’s overall wellness in order to be not only reactive but preventative.
This means that along with traditional diagnostic treatments and assessments we will look at everything from your diet to your stress management techniques in order to build a comprehensive wellness plan that addresses every aspect of your life.
Here are some of the major benefits you can take advantage of when opting to let us at Shakthi Health & Wellness use our whole-body integrative medical approach:
Treatments That Are Less Invasive
Though prescriptions may be necessary for some instances many patients struggle with serious side effects. But with integrative medicine, there is a heightened focus on natural remedies that tend to be less invasive. We feel that integrative medicine is the best of both worlds. Using both conventional medical treatments and marrying them to complementary ones allows for a plan that utilizes your body’s natural abilities to heal.
Overall Improvement of Health and Well-Being
Illness prevention is one of the chief advantages you get from using integrative medicine but there is also a big emphasis on overall well-being by incorporating healthy lifestyle adjustments. By doing this you are likely to have to deal with fewer prescriptions and visits to your physician.
Whole Body Approach
Conventional medicine treats the symptoms of the specific illness you are looking to address. Instead, integrative medicine looks at the patient as a whole person taking into consideration all the factors that can affect one’s health. This means you and your physician assess and address not just the physical causes but the emotional, spiritual, and mental all of which have just as much impact on one’s overall wellness.
Tackles the Root Cause
Conventional medicine is designed to address symptoms not attack the problem at its root cause. With integrative medicine, that is quite the opposite. The use of a wide range of factors to create personalized treatment plans allows us to get down to what is actually causing the issues.
More Patient Focused
With the heightened focus on the patient’s specific situation, integrative medicine delivers more customized treatment plans. The care and treatment are all centered on the individual's unique health history including their physical, family history, and things like the environment. This gives a comprehensive look at their lives and therefore allows for a more in-depth whole-body approach to their healthcare.
Uses Holistic and Alternative Treatments
There are centuries of holistic treatments that have been scientifically proven to be helpful in treating a wide range of health issues. However, often conventional medicine overlooks them. With integrative medicine, you don’t only get access to conventional medical treatments but also the more alternative and less intrusive ones associated with these ancient practices.
How Integrative Medicine Works
An IM physician will review non-traditional medical topics such as your emotional state, spiritual state, lifestyle habits, and environmental influences that may have an impact on your physical state.
Integrative medicine emphasizes the relationship between patient and practitioner. For your integrative medicine doctor to be able to treat your ailment, they will want to consider all aspects of your life. The relationship between your doctor and you should be therapeutic and healing oriented.
An IM physician will address the root cause of your illness and not just treat your symptoms. By determining what the root is, you and your practitioner can devise a health plan to successfully treat the disease. Your IM provider will consider other factors in your life that may be preventing the root cause of your illness or disease from fully healing.
Patients will work closely with their IM provider to address their immediate health needs while developing a personalized wellness plan that encourages whole-body wellness.
The point of integrative medicine is to maintain your body’s inherent functions at peak performance. Integrative medicine healthcare providers will encourage personal responsibility in their lifestyle choices for their patients. When patients take control of their healthcare needs, they can be empowered to improve any aspect of their health.
Hand arranging wood block stacking with icon internal organs
Integrative Medicine Treatments
Shakthi Health and Wellness Center offers patients various methods they can include in their daily health routines. And the best way to provide these services is through concierge medicine.
Our practice offers patient-centered care with an emphasis on developing a meaningful rapport with patients. Concierge medicine liberates patients from restrictions that insurance burdens many patients with. Dr. Jyothi Rao makes quality health care accessible to her patients without the restrictions of time limits and jumping through insurance hoops. Her patients are provided with in-depth consults with each appointment, reaffirming confidence in their treatment plans.
Dr. Rao offers patients nutrition recommendations and advice when training for physical activity. She can evaluate your eating habits and determine ideal ways to incorporate plant-based food to improve gut health. Shakthi Health and Wellness Center also offers diagnostic testing to evaluate inflammation levels, hormone balances, and recommendations to reduce stress.
Other tools Dr. Rao enjoys incorporating for patients are the amethyst bio mat and infrared sauna. Our Bio-Mat is embedded with Amethyst crystals (a quartz mineral) that generate far infrared radiation (FIR) and negative ions when heated. When the body absorbs FIR, circulation is improved, muscle recovery is supported, and joint pain can be relieved, all while encouraging healthy cell functioning.
An infrared sauna uses infrared lamps that use electromagnetic radiation as opposed to traditional heating elements. This type of sauna penetrates more deeply than warm air, with better intensity at a lower temperature. Our infrared sauna improves sleep, promotes better circulation, and enhances recovery for sore muscles.
Shakthi Health and Wellness Center offers patients Alternative, Holistic, Natural, Preventative and Functional Medicine approaches to enhance your vitality.
Integrative Medicine Treatments Mount Airy Maryland
If you are interested in learning how Integrative Medicine can help you or would like more information about holistic approaches to enhancing your health, CALL Shakthi Health and Wellness Center today! You will speak to one of our dedicated integrative medicine staff members who will set up your consultation with Dr. Jyothi Rao. Dr. Rao is a deeply experienced specialist who will effectively evaluate your symptoms and optimize your body’s vitality. Call (301) 703-5067 and speak to direct primary care staff to schedule your appointment today!
About Us
We believe in practicing medicine that focuses on whole body health. As integrative medicine doctors we focus our on root cause of your condition with comprehensive treatments that actually heal the body rather than just masking the symptoms of your illness.
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Patient Testimonials
I started by seeing Dr. Sudhir Rao for my Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) Syndrome. I had an accident in July 2010 that caused nerve damage in my ankle. After treatments and surgery, it spread up the entire left side of my body. The only way to describe how you feel is by saying you’re a human pinball machine ? you just never know where the pain is going to be that minute. I had asked about acupuncture because someone had told me that it worked for them. I was at the point of trying anything to lessen the pain because it was getting worse every day.
- Susan Doyle
I am actually a relatively healthy 50-year-old woman. I try to eat well and exercise, but I (like many) felt the creep of age in the form a subtle pounds and decreasing energy. Dr. Rao helped point me in the direction of the correct detox program for me (Core Restore!) as well as the supplements I needed to boost my metabolism and increase my energy! I still need to eat what works for me and avoid the things that don't, and I still have to exercise every day, but my clothes fit better and I have more energy!!
- Shakthi Patients
I came to see Dr. Rao with symptoms of chronic fatigue, abdominal pains, depression, and weight gain. I had seen a couple other doctors and they had found that I had very high inflammation levels and over 15 food allergies/sensitivities. They wanted me to just take prescription drugs, but I wanted more than a quick fix. I wanted my health and my life back! When I scheduled the appointment, I was surprised how by helpful Kelly was on the phone. I didn’t know the details of my insurance coverage and Kelly offered to call my insurance for me. I’ve never had anyone at a doctor’s office do that before.
- Anna Smoot
After visiting the Shakthi website and reading other patient testimonials, I was curious about the wide variety of treatments that were available. I have a very slow metabolism, was fatigued, had insomnia, back pain, and just didn’t feel as well as I wanted to in general. I had more allergic reactions and respiratory issues in the preceding months before coming to see Dr. Jyothi Rao. I had completed three courses of prednisone while under the treatment of my traditional doctor and was fed up with that cycle and was looking for another path.
- Debbie Helman
I was given the gift of Dr. Rao's primary care for Christmas in 2016. I didn?t take advantage of it until March of 2017. My mindset at the time was negative. I had heard about changing eating habits and I felt that I liked the foods I was eating and I was nearly 70, so why change now? After meeting with Dr. Rao and hearing her suggestions, I said I would take it one small step at a time and see what happens.
- Linda J.
I was in the worst shape of my life with depression and anxiety. I had given up. Shakthi provided me with a manageable plan that included supplements, diet, and an exercise program that has transformed my body and given me a new outlook on life. Perhaps the most surprising outcome was learning how to be healthy and have a good relationship with my body. I am now more productive, energetic, and focused. The fog that had been clouding my thoughts has lifted.
- Shakthi Patient
What To Expect
Integrative Medicine Providers
Meet Our Doctors
Our team is composed of skilled medical professionals who are highly knowledgeable in the practice of holistic integrative therapies. We believe patients shouldn’t have to settle for “quick fixes” for their health.
Our Direct Primary Care model provides patients with in depth consults with each appointment without the restrictions of time limits and jumping through insurance hoops. Our Integrative medicine doctors in Maryland, Dr. Jyothi Rao and Dr. Sudhir Rao, have the same medical training, licensing, and certifications any other physician would have working in other healthcare models
Jyothi Rao
MD, ABAAHP, FAARFM
Dr. Jyothi Rao is the founder of Shakthi Health and Wellness Center. She has over 20 years of experience with integrative, holistic, alternative, and complementary approaches to medicine. Dr. Rao believes knowledge is empowerment and focusses her practice on whole body wellness, and disease prevention
Sudhir Rao
MD, ABAAHP
Dr. Sudhir Rao is a board certified doctor over 20 years of experience with traditional medicine and alternative medicines for chronic pain. he developed a strong interest in Functional and Integrative Medicine to treat chronic illness after a personal experience with limitations in traditional medicine.