Be Well Blog

Gail Yurman, Licensed massage Therapist

Why I Do What I Do

After working in the corporate world for over 20 years, in 2003 I made the decision to follow my passion to help others experience the benefits of massage and enrolled in massage school, at the ripe young age of 40!

When I was a child I was diagnosed with a mild case of scoliosis, curvature of the spine. Nonetheless, I was active and participated in many sports.  I had my first professional massage when I was 18 years old. I was home on a college break suffering from pinched nerves in my neck and terrible low back pain.  A friend suggested I see his chiropractor, who recommended that, in conjunction with his therapy, I get a professional massage from the therapist in his group. That massage greatly increased the mobility in my neck and I felt tremendously energized when the session was over.  

From that time forward, I have used massage to manage stress, reduce anxiety and fatigue.  Regular massage therapy has also given me improved concentration, greater flexibility, a calmer heart, and increased energy, not to mention so many fewer aches and pains!  I love being a massage therapist and am so delighted that my work brings these same benefits to my clients. 

I incorporate a lifetime of knowledge into my massage practice, utilizing my intuition and personal experiences, as well as formal training.  An initial intake interview with each new client helps determine your level of wellness and therapy goals, and together we create a plan to reach those goals. Your session with me should be as unique as you are.

To make an appointment with Gail call The Center at 203.708.9299

Integrative Medicine Explained

By Dr. C. Evers Whyte

What is “Integrated Medicine?”  Ask ten different doctors this question and you might get 10 different answers.  It’s an exciting topic in that new findings are being published every day about how the success of medical outcomes are  improving through integrating different therapies, protocols and even medical paradigms.

My answer is this: Integrated Medicine is a model through which a physician or therapist first looks at a person who is coming for help, asks themselves, “What does this person need to become whole again?” and then uses any and every tool and resource available to facilitate that healing process.  It is more than the combined use of various “conventional” and “alternative” therapies, but aims to access deeper levels of our consciousness.  For example, a hug could be clinically described as, “two persons wrapping their arms around each other and squeezing,” but we all know this explanation lacks the true essence of what a hug is all about!

To begin to understand and appreciate the “process” of Integrated Medicine we first have to appreciate that while our bodies are made of interconnected physical systems–cardiovascular, skeletal, endocrine, nervous, etc, we are more than the sum of these parts.  We are in actual fact, beings composed of integrated and interpenetrating Intelligences: body, mind, soul, and spirit.

To be healthy, we need all these aspects of our beings to be “aligned” and working harmoniously.  If there is dis-harmony, there is dis-ease.  As an Integrated Medical physician, I seek to align and integrate all effective medicinal modalities to heal all the integrated elements, or Intelligences, of your being.

The patient that comes into our office with fatigue and brain-fog may be suffering from iron-deficiency, anemia, or adrenal exhaustion, perhaps hypoglycemia, decreased melatonin production, or the reluctance to go through the natural process of grief at a loved-one’s death after a long illness.  As I work with the patient to find the root of her ailments, we may discover that a number of these diagnoses are correct, perhaps even all of them.  This patient doesn’t have a Prozac deficiency.  She may need a change in

C. Evers Whyte, MS, DC, DACBN

Non-Surgical Spine Specialist
Clinical Nutritionist

Why I Do What I Do

In college, I took up martial arts and while I was training, I stepped in some gymnasts’ chalk as I was throwing a kick.  I slipped and flew about 5 ft up in the air before landing flat on my sacrum on the wooden gym floor.  The pain in my low back was intense and continued to worsen until I was taking 25 Advil just to get through the day.  The stronger pain drugs made me sick.  I stopped exercising because of the pain and gained 20 lbs. After visiting 3 chiropractors, an orthopedist, a neurologist, a rheumatologist, and a neurosurgeon I always ended up with the same result:  “We can’t find anything Physically wrong with you.”  Obviously, my pain itself was not enough to convince these physicians that something was indeed seriously wrong.