The Arche Wellness Center houses a number of different integrative health and wellness services. Integrative medicine involves a combination of conventional and alternative medicine and works to regard each patient as a complex adaptive system. Traditional medicine approaches largely treat symptoms instead of systems. The main issue with this approach is the systemic disruption that occurs when treatment targets symptoms without considering what systemic problems are causing them. Worse yet, a treatment for one symptom can often cause side effects and systemic disruptions that lead to more symptoms, that are often worse than the originating problem.
For instance, we often see doctors prescribe a medication to treat depression, without ever examining the patient for conditions that are most certain to cause depressive symptoms such as infections, malabsorption and vitamin deficiencies. When a depressed patient is assessed, rarely does a doctor inquire about gastrointestinal problems or pains – signs of GI dysfunctions that can lead to significantly decreased nutrient levels in the body which can prevent synthesis of necessary neurotransmitters and cause depression.
At Arche Wellness, we start with laboratory testing that provides an extensive amount of information about each patient's unique biochemistry. These tests provide information on nutrient deficiencies, neurotransmitters synthesis interruptions, gastrointestinal absorption issues, liver process dysfunctions and infections that have gone undiagnosed. All of these issues are often ignored by conventional treatments. Yet they can severely debilitate the human body's ability to perform at an optimal level.
Once we understand your body's biochemistry, we provide a comprehensive treatment plan that includes medical treatment, micronutrient infusions, supplements, dietary guidance, personal training, individual and family counseling and aftercare services. All of these elements are essential to repairing biochemical "wear and tear" and elevating the body's systemic performance to its ideal state. Many of the aches, pains, stomach issues or mood swings that people grow to tolerate over time as their body's systems perform less effectively can be resolved through holistic systemic recovery. Ultimately, Arche Wellness gives each patient an elevated, happier and healthier idea of "normal."
1. Denial or Rejection
This state encompasses anyone who refuses to accept that poor health choices have systemic life consequences. This is the overweight person who feels her obesity has nothing to do with chest pains, arthritis, fatigue, depression or insomnia. This is the smoker who believes that smoking is not contributing to his irritable bowel syndrome or depression. This is the lethargic fast foodie who believes diet has nothing to do with her fatigue and mood swings. This is the insomniac who feels his processed food diet and alcoholism does not impact his sleep.
Moving beyond this state often requires severe disruption in mental health functioning, interpersonal or social loss, a catastrophic medical prognosis or even a professional intervention. Intervening when a friend or family member is suffering due to their own life choices is a very difficult process. But watching a loved one continue to deteriorate and approach invalidity or even death without confronting him is often not an option. While people will often become angry and lash out when confronted with their own destructive lifestyle, most will be grateful once they have gained control of their lives and improved their health.
2. Acceptance
The most difficult part of embracing a healthier lifestyle is accepting that many of your own choices have made you unhealthy. Even individuals who suffer from chronic conditions such as Crohn's disease, Celiac disease, diabetes and arthritis, can exacerbate their symptoms through poor life choices. Accepting responsibility for your life choices and owning your health is a challenging process. Once acceptance and responsibility have occurred, change can happen. Many individuals find that even the smallest changes in health and wellness choices can yield unimaginable and readily noticeable returns.
3. Recovery
Providing detailed data regarding the state of a person's body is the first step to any physical recovery process. Medical professionals who do not educate their patients about the activity inside their body are only promoting ignorance and denial. Through extensive laboratory testing, Arche Wellness has found that individuals who lead maladaptive lifestyles can learn precisely how their choices have altered their bodies' composition and led to significant, systemic malfunctions. Understanding biochemical data helps individuals to associate poor life choices with poor health symptoms and make the necessary changes to feel better. Through counseling, dietary adjustment and personal training, individuals can explore many different options for their new healthy lifestyle and learn what works best for them and their unique needs.
4. Maintenance
Achieving your own state of wellness is a wonderful accomplishment, but maintaining it is where many fall short. Attending regular seminars, support groups and follow-up visits with your wellness professionals is an important component to sustainable lifestyle change. Realizing that there is ALWAYS more to learn, keeping an open mind and continuing to listen to your body are the most important elements to maintaining the great results your recovery has given you. Remember that living things are always changing, and in a wellness program, you will change. Each day you are moving closer to your ideal state or farther from it. But each day provides you that choice. Attending support services and educational seminars helps to ensure forward momentum.
Addicts and substance abusers are the most misunderstood, mischaracterized chronic disease sufferers in our nation. They are often viewed as in control of their own actions and simply a victim of their own poor choices. Nothing could be further from the truth. We tend to understand when people have a physical disease like diabetes or cancer that affects their minds, bodies and actions. We sympathize when someone has a mental disease that impairs perspective and causes inappropriate behavior. But we always blame the addict for their addiction. Addiction is the one disease that, by clinical diagnosis, has a physical component and a mental component. And for this double threat – we all too often have little sympathy and almost no true understanding. Addiction is an overwhelming disease not because addicts don't want to be better, but because they have two diseases to overcome, not just one.
Arche Wellness began in 2006 as the first and only state licensed Orthomolecular Recovery Center in Pennsylvania for treatment of addiction and substance abuse. We began with the philosophy that addicts and substance abusers are people who deserve dignity and respect and have a stake in their own treatment. They are also very sick and must overcome 2 diseases, not just one. You only need to look at them to see, their bodies and minds are very malnourished and suffering from severe toxic burden. To recovery from such an intensely damaged physical and psychological state, takes great effort, expertise and understanding. We treat the physical disease first, repairing the damage, eliminating the toxicity, supporting the liver and restoring nutrition. As the physical symptoms are treated, the mind begins to clear and therapeutic work can begin. Counseling a physically sick person is useless if discomfort is causing the problems in their mind. And if you have ever been really sick, you know that your mind and personality are not the same – counseling won't help.
As our program worked to treat both diseases for hundreds of addicted patients, many of their families began to see the rewards of addressing nutrition, exercise and toxicity as a lifestyle, not just a treatment approach. In awe of the dramatic change their loved ones experienced after completing our recovery program, many of our patients' parents, spouses and siblings began to ask how we might help their health issues as well. Slowly, we found that many mothers were being ineffectively overmedicated with psychotropic medications, due to the years of stress as they coped with an addicted son or daughter. We found family members were experiencing overmedication, toxic burden and mental health issues, not severe enough to necessitate immediate treatment, but disruptive enough to impact their daily productivity and happiness. Because addiction is a family issue, helping everyone impacted by an addiction became part of our program.
Today Arche Wellness continues to offer a state-of-the-art addiction recovery program and much, much more. People have traveled from all of the country and even Europe to address chronic health issues that have not been completely resolved and even exacerbated by toxic, overmedicated traditional treatments. If you or your loved one are sick and tired of being sick and tired, want help with addiction, overmedication or substance abuse or if you have been failed by traditional treatments that address only one aspect of this very dynamic disease, we are here for you.
Office Space in the Arche Wellness Center is Now Available.
- No Leases.
- Share marketing resources and referrals with other wellness professionals.
- Full-time receptionist, full kitchen, free parking, phone, fax, copier and much more!
- Call 412-820-8328 to learn more!
Location & Contact Information
Arche Wellness is located at the Arche Wellness Center in Fox Chapel, Blawnox, about 10 minutes north of Pittsburgh.
Arche Wellness Center
237 6th Street
Pittsburgh PA 15238
p: 412-820-8328
f: 412-820-8327
Office Hours
- Mondays 8:00 to 4:00
- Tuesdays 8:00 to 4:00
- Wednesdays 8:00 to 4:00
- Thursdays 8:00 to 4:00
- Fridays 8:00 to 2:00
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