16 minute read
FINAL THOUGHT
Optimizing wellness is her goal
Preventative medicine and anti-aging treatments can lead you to a fuller, healthier life.
PAID PROMOTIONAL FEATURE
t Age & Wellness Medical Practice in Leesburg, Dr. Weena Favis’s main goal is to optimize wellness by lengthening a person’s lifespan and healthspan by using age management, making sure hormones are balanced, and determining the root cause of any disease a patient is at risk of or is already experiencing.
For most people, age management means anti-aging and longevity care.
“Lifespan is the number of years we’re alive, and there’s a healthspan, the number of years that we are healthy and well,” Dr. Favis says. “Our main focus is to increase our healthspan, not just our lifespan, because there’s no point in getting old when you can’t do much of anything.”
How are lifespan and healthspan measured? “Lifespan is measured by the number of birthdays you have. Healthspan is basically what we call a biological age. Let’s say a 50-year-old person has a biologic age of 65, and their cells are older than their body. But if someone really takes care of himself or herself, they may have a biologic age of 40,” Dr. Favis says. She uses epigenetic testing to measure healthspan and the “age” of a person’s body. Once she knows a patient’s biological age, she is able to intervene and make that age younger so that person can increase their healthspan.
People are typically afraid of aging because it is associated with being frail and developing things like arthritis, cataracts, dementia, wrinkles, hair changes, and diseases like hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and Parkinson’s. “So with age management
—DR. WEENA FAVIS
you want to start as early as possible to develop or prevent these diseases from setting in. If they already have it, treat it and prevent further progression,” Dr. Favis says.
As part of age management and overall wellness, Dr. Favis’s practice off ers IV Nutrient Therapy. “IV nutrient therapy is for people who don’t have time or don’t want to take medication by mouth or supplements by mouth, we give them IV, and there are also supplements that are not absorbed very well by mouth,” she says.
Hormone imbalances factor into aging as well. If your hormones are unbalanced, “you have changes like fatigue, weight gain or loss, insomnia, depression, mood changes, hot fl ashes, low sex drive, weak bones, hair loss, brain fog, erectile disfunction and sweat,” says Dr. Favis.
Dr. Favis also really focuses on the root cause of a disease. “When somebody has hypertension, cardiovascular disease, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, infl ammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, dementia, memory problems, neuropathy, any chronic disease, there’s a root cause,” she says. Most conventional doctors will look at and treat your symptoms, but working in functional and innovative medicine, Dr. Favis would rather backtrack and fi gure out what caused the disease in order to reverse it and prevent it from progressing.
As for other services off ered, Dr. Favis says, “in the state of Florida there are 13 diagnoses that qualify for Medical Marijuana, and the 14th is any medical condition of the same kind of class comparable to the 13 others.” If a patient thinks they may qualify for Medical Marijuana, they can bring their records to Dr. Favis and she can confi rm that. Then, the offi ce will help the patient submit their application to the state and help them get their Medical Marijuana card.
Having worked in conventional medicine for over 25 years, Dr. Favis herself has struggled with some health issues. “About 15 years ago I developed a brain aneurysm that was induced by trauma, and I’ve had breast malignancies, hypertension, chronic pain,” she says. A year ago, she had to give up her previous practice when she shattered her left shoulder. She had continued to work despite the pain and suddenly one day she could no longer move her right shoulder. At that point, she says, “I was not being helped by conventional medicine, so I did peptides, stem cells, and a lot of other unconventional ways that helped me, and that’s how I got into this.”
She then fi gured she could help a lot of people who are also not getting results from conventional medicine. Though she considered opening her new practice closer to Orlando, because this type of age and pain management is more common in that area, she decided that she would rather serve Lake County, where the idea of “unconventional” medicine is less known. Her new practice opened in Leesburg in early July of this year.
“Until people know and understand that they can do a lot more than what conventional medicine is, they are not encouraged to do something about their health, to upgrade their health. This is preventative maintenance and upgrading their health or improving their health,” Dr. Favis says.
352.901.6359 / 10123 US Hwy 441, Leesburg / ageandwellnessmed.com
There’s No Place Like Home
Tissue-sparing surgical techniques, narcotic / opioid-free anesthesia combined with rapid mobilization are allowing patients to recover safely at home following total joint replacement surgery.
PAID PROMOTIONAL FEATURE
Telemedicine
At UNOVA Hip & Knee Center we have embraced the outpatient concept because we believe that as Dorothy said, for our patients, “There is no place like home.”
In today’s COVID-19 impacted world, many people are trying to leave their house as seldom as possible. Dr. Jeff rey Kerina and Dr. Tom McCoy of Unova Health Hip and Knee Center in Lady Lake has developed a way to perform total joint replacement procedures in an outpatient setting, without the need for a hospital admission.
“With the current COVID-19 issues, most people don’t want to venture outside their homes unless it is essential. This has accelerated a re-evaluation of our care delivery processes and caused us to look very carefully at what we’re doing. We began asking ourselves if we were really addressing the patient’s best interests. After evaluating the Medicare databank, we realized that the data was telling us that
Dr. J. Mandume Kerina Dr. Tom McCoy
the longer you’re in a facility, the greater your chance of having an adverse event. Data shows that discharge to skilled nursing facilities and rehab centers also increases the chances of having an adverse event. That being said the safest way for the patient to undergo surgery is as an outpatient in an outpatient center, and the safest place to recover was in the comfort and safety of their own home.”
“What we are doing with total joint replacement surgery is conceptually no diff erent from other medical practices that are now incorporating telemedicine into their care delivery. Telemedicine is safer for the patient than bringing them to a facility or medical offi ce for an issue that can be managed on the telemedicine platform. I would not be surprised if more medical practices started incorporating house calls into their delivery. House calls are in essence what we deliver through our home health processes.
Procedure
Dr. McCoy and Dr. Kerina specialize in hip and knee replacements, surgeries that have been around since the ‘60s but that are historically very big and painful surgeries with long recovery times, in a hospital or rehab center environment. The thing that is diff erent now is the focus and shift to outpatient services. This he said, is better overall for patients for many reasons. Dr. McCoy says that these procedures can be done safely in many settings, but patients are safer at home because they are less likely to fall, get a blood clot, or get an infection at home. Home is especially safer now with COVID-19.
Anterior total hip replacement and kinematic alignment total knee replacement are a way of doing these procedures, that are tissue-preserving and allow the doctors to rapidly mobilize patients with low risk.
The surgery itself is diff erent now Dr. McCoy says. “The anterior way is the newest way to get to the hip although the approach was fi rst described in the late 1800s.” No muscles are cut, detached, or released on the way into the joint in the anterior approach. “You don’t penetrate any muscle to get to the joint, you’re just kind of shifting the muscles to the side to get into the hip,” Dr. McCoy adds. In the other approaches’ muscles are either cut, split, or detached on the way in, leading to a much longer and painful recovery.
“During total knee replacements, in the past, doctors would release ligaments to straighten the leg or balance the knee. Today we do not cut the quadriceps, which is the big muscle in the knee that keeps it from buckling and causing people to fall down. Instead, Dr. McCoy says, “there’s a way to get under the muscle and not have to cut it. You’re not cutting the tendon and not cutting the muscle, which means that again there’s not as much pain. Now we can customize the patient’s procedures, using the anatomy of the patient as a guide and working with the patient’s problem, such as a bowlegged or knock-kneed deformity specifi c to the patient.” It’s like getting a tailored suit instead of getting one off the rack…Since only 43 percent of people are born with and develop a straight leg to begin with.” Says Dr McCoy.
“Utilizing these procedures allows us to signifi cantly decrease our patients pain profi les post-operatively and allows us to do the other things that enhance our patients’ recovery,” Dr. Kerina says.
In both instances, people can get up and walk within hours of their procedure. “The key thing is making it faster, less painful, and less expensive,” Dr. McCoy says. Their patients can typically go home about 1-3 hours after surgery because they use techniques during surgery that are more advanced.
“The criteria for going home is based on how well a patient can function after surgery. They have to be able to walk 200 feet; they have to be able to go upstairs; they have to be able to urinate and to eat and our patients can do all that within a few hours,” Dr. McCoy says.
Pain Management
As far as the narcotic and opioid-free anesthesia, McCoy says “Historically, these are phenomenally painful surgeries, so from a humanitarian standpoint, you want to control the pain.” By using narcotic-free anesthesia, patients are not nauseated or dizzy after surgery.
With no narcotics, the patient feels wide awake after surgery and that helps in the recovery because they can go home feeling good and with a signifi cantly diminished risk of falling, Dr. McCoy says. During the knee surgeries, how they control the pain is that they numb the nerves by injecting medication all around them. It is a procedure Dr. Kerina discovered.
Dr. Kerina will insert a needle and inject a long-lasting knee medication in the layer between the knee joint and capsule where all the central nerves travel, and it controls the pain. “It works wonderfully, and it wears off after two to three days when the patient is through the most painful part of the recovery,” Dr. McCoy says.
Ensuring that patients can walk painfree after surgery is a safe way to avoid blood clots and falling and fractures. There is also no risk of addictions to narcotics, no kidney damage, no nausea/ vomiting, and no respiratory problems or breathing diffi culties.
“The big white elephant in the room was the opioid crisis. It truly exploded into something that nobody ever intended. And then when you look at the hundreds of thousands if not millions of people that have been aff ected by this, you tell yourself, if 8-16% of people started their opioid addiction because of exposure to opioids and narcotics through elective surgery, we need to do everything we can to diminish that entry point,” Dr. Kerina says.
The doctors began to look very consciously at what they were doing and realized that it is sometimes necessary to change the technique of an operation, as well as the processes and procedures around that technique in order to best serve the patient.
‘When we’re being asked to take care of a population that’s fragile, to begin with, our over 65 population, one of the key concerns is cognitive preservation. We all know that narcotics and opioids will aff ect the mental acuity, so we felt that we should develop programs that allow us to steer away from as opposed to steering into narcotic use as a pain option,” Dr. Kerina says.
The doctors have switched to regional and local nerve blocks, which block the sensation in a specifi c part of your body during an operation, used with combinations of anti-infl ammatory medications is now their standard of care`. “Because as we learn more and more about pain control, we learn that infl uencing those infl ammatory pathways around the pain may do more for our patients than just giving them narcotics and opioids to help deal with their pain,” Dr. Kerina says.
PATIENT TESTIMONIAL
“Top notch, absolutely the best. From the time that you know you're going to be scheduled for surgery, the entire process. With my knees I did outpatient surgery so I was home in a few hours. They had the nurse come in two or three times during the night to check on me, check my vitals, and then I started physical therapy right away at home.
I'm a big water aerobics participant and I was back in the swimming pool in five weeks for one knee, the other knee was six weeks. I’m active and I've never had any trouble with them since I've had the replacements. I had a total hip replacement two and a half weeks ago and I'm walking without any aids at all, no walker, no cane. I've been doing my own housework, I even went grocery shopping yesterday. [Dr. Kerina] is always up on the latest and newest techniques, so you know you're going to get the best. So I always say, why go to the rest when you can go to the best?”
— GAIL BENOIT
888.847.4895 / 539 Rolling Acres Rd, Lady Lake / unovahealth.com
COMMENTARY
A special mentor
Remembering my late friend, who survived the Spanish flu and lived to 108.
STORY: THERESA CAMPBELL
hen COVID-19 broke out, I immediately recalled stories I heard from the late Leonard McCracken, a survivor of the 1918-20 Spanish fl u pandemic who lived to age 108. The former Tavares resident had childhood friends who died from the fl u, he saw businesses shuttered in his Warren, Ohio, hometown and he didn’t graduate because his high school had been closed.
When I fi rst met Leonard, he was 100. I was interviewing him for a newspaper story as a regular diner at a former Leesburg restaurant, and immediately I was mesmerized by Leonard’s sharp mental alertness, quick wit, common sense and upbeat spirit.
Leonard reminded me of my late grandparents, so it felt wonderful to talk to a centenarian from their generation. Leonard and I developed a special friendship, and it was easy to lose track of time during phone chats and a few lunches together. My late husband jokingly referred to Leonard as my boyfriend.
In seriousness, Leonard was a wonderful mentor. He was a former banker and salesman, a Dale Carnegie speaker and a devoted father and husband who was married for 75 years before his wife died at age 95. I sought Leonard’s advice about work, the economy and issues of the day.
He would tell me not to stress over things that were out of my control. “Slow down. Smell the roses,” Leonard would say.
And whenever anyone would ask about the secret to his longevity, Leonard always would reply: “Oatmeal, positive attitude and gratitude.”
Leonard didn’t start eating Quaker oats until age 50. I did the same thing on the morning of my 50th birthday, inspired by Leonard, of course. Oatmeal was his healthiest meal of the day, while he’d often enjoy a hearty lunch of a sandwich and fries, always leaving room for a slice of pie.
One special conversation with Leonard occurred in 2005. He was so excited by an invitation to fl y to his childhood home in Warren to receive his high school diploma at age 102, some 85 years after the Spanish fl u epidemic. The local newspaper photographed him beaming from ear to ear as he talked to graduating seniors. I had the photo framed a few months later for his 103rd birthday.
Leonard made the big time at age 106, when he was photographed with several other centenarians for Time magazine’s cover story on “The Science of Living Longer.”
He also was among 850 centenarians interviewed for the New England Centenarian Study at Boston University, where health experts were eager to discover the behavioral and personality traits of people who reached the age of 100. The study found these common similarities: not smoking, staying lean and being extroverted and easygoing.
I wasn’t surprised by the fi ndings, and in thinking about what Leonard would often say, he advised that “easygoing” was the way to be at any age.
Leonard died Dec. 22, 2011. I’m grateful to have known him, and it’s hard to eat a bowl of oatmeal and not think of my 108-year-old friend.
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THERESA CAMPBELL
