Edina physician finds new ways to promote wellness BY SUE WEBBER CONTRIBUTING WRITER Dr. Alyse Hamilton had been a longtime internal medicine doctor and Emergency Department physician when she discovered she “just didn’t feel well.” “I was in my early 50s, and I was going through menopause,” she said. “I noticed I was losing energy, was tired, couldn’t remember things and had a lot of hot flashes. My gynecologist told me I was just getting old. So I started on a quest to improve my health on my own.” Through a colleague, she found the A4M, the American Academy of AntiAging and Regenerative Medicine, and knew she’d discovered a new way to resolve her problems. “I looked into the curriculum and found that it was a new way of looking at medicine and of promoting wellness,” Hamilton said. “I wanted to offer that to others. As I practiced conventional medicine, I felt like a drug-pusher. I felt dissatisfied with medicine because patients weren’t getting answers or help. I decided I was done with conventional medicine. I wanted to be open-minded to other forms of treatment that were not drug-centered.” After two years of study, training and testing, conferences, textbooks, oral and written boards, and continuing medical education, she made the decision in 2012 to leave emergency department medicine and become the founder and medical director of the Advanced Health and Vitality Center in Edina. “It’s a different way of thinking, and it’s been very rewarding,” said Hamilton, who is not a primary care physician. “It’s more proactive. I can give patients more education about health care and wellness.” Now, Hamilton works with her patients to help them reclaim their energy, memory and sexual health through a
comprehensive medical assessment, bioidentical hormone therapy, micronutrient infusions and high-grade nutritional supplementation. She specializes in the treatment of underlying causes of menopause, andropause (male menopause), fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, chronic and undetected Lyme disease, thyroid and adrenal gland restoration, and nutritional supplementation, as well as treating energy, memory and sexual health issues. Hamilton said she is seeing a wide range of ages in her patients these days. She has some patients in their late 70s. “The benefit of maintaining hormones is that it prevents bone loss, and maintains sexual health and memory,” Hamilton said. “Some women are still having hot flashes in their 70s.” The emphasis is finding the cause of their problems, Hamilton said. “I don’t just treat the symptoms,” she said. “I look at deficiencies, lifestyle, and how the thyroid, adrenal gland and gastrointestinal tract are working. Everything is interrelated.” A patient’s first and second visits with Hamilton will be about one hour each, while she completes a comprehensive assessment, saliva testing and blood work. “I need to know what’s going on in the body so I can make some recommendations,” Hamilton said. “I want to get my patients back to feeling their best. I want them to be symptom-free with no side effects. I want to help them reclaim their good health.” And once she makes her recommendations, unlike her work in the Emergency Department, she is rewarded with the chance to do follow-ups on her patients, to see how they’re improving and feeling better. Patients are monitored every three or four months for the first year, she said. DOCTOR - TO PAGE 5
Dr. Alyse Hamilton is the founder and medical director of the Advanced Health and Vitality Center in Edina. (Submitted photo)