If you’re a patient, you may already be familiar with Dr. Simon Yu, a brilliant integrative physcian who practices here in St. Louis. In fact, he may even have referred you to Dr. Rehme to evaluate and, as needed, treat any dental conditions that may have been contributing to long-term health problems – everything from the presence of mercury amalgam fillings to the hidden infections popularly known as cavitations.

For one of the keys to both doctors’ practices is a commitment to treating causes rather than symptoms. Often, this requires a collaborative approach, doctor and dentist working together to support their mutual patient’s return to health and wholeness.

We’re grateful that Dr. Yu is one of the local practitioners of integrative/functional/biological medicine that we get to collaborate with on a regular basis.

And we’re pleased to let you know that Dr. Yu has just published a new book, AcciDental Blow Up in Medicine, that can help patients and practitioners alike better understand the tooth/body relationship, offering innovative approaches to dealing with chronic and often enigmatic illnesses, conditions that often stump practitioners of mainstream medicine.

Dr. Yu was discouraged by how many patients he saw suffer or die, not from their illness but the conventional treatment they’d received – whether chemo, radiation, or cocktails of pharmaceutical drugs.

Typically, drugs for chronic diseases may alleviate symptoms, improve lab markers, and slow progression, but few address underlying causes or fully restore health.

Fortunately, there are many tools beyond the usual arsenal that can both help identify root causes and treat those causes so health may be restored.

One of the most important of these in his practice is Acupuncture Meridian Assessment (AMA). This needle-free testing of acupuncture points – also known as Electroacupuncture According to Voll (EAV) and electrodermal screening EDS) – measures energy flow along the body’s various meridians, allowing the practitioner to identify disturbances that may be contributing to illness.

“Acupuncture Meridian Assessment,” he writes,

although not considered a diagnostic test, can reveal unique biofeedback information about a patient’s energy patterns based on ancient knowledge of acupuncture and meridian flows of the body, updated to the biocybernetic and digital worlds.

He adds that it may even help identify possible areas of infection, including “parasites, fungi, and dental-related problems.” Once identified, of course, the causes can be addressed – “treating and removing biochemical and bioelectrical blockages through a spectrum of conventional and integrative medical treatments.”

Because Dr. Yu’s skill set includes 25 years as a medical officer in the US Army Reserves, where he often had to treat conditions and infections far less common stateside, his broader perspective on the variety of factors affecting patient health greatly informs his approach. It also informs his perspective on treatment, where he plans tactical approaches for dealing with whatever “enemies” are undermining a patient’s health.

Even the subtitle of his book reflects this: Battle Plan for Your Life.

Dr. Yu also greatly emphasizes the importance of the patient’s own role in healing. “I do not claim to cure my patients,” he writes,

and I never promise a cure. Healing and recovery is something the patient undertakes–physically, emotionally, spiritually. My work is to remove obstacles to healing–to identify and address the hidden invaders–so that the biological terrain improves, making it easier to heal.

AcciDental Blow Up is geared toward health professionals and patients alike, with a vast wealth of information, resources, guidelines and advice. While some sections are more patient-oriented than others, Dr. Yu’s careful and thorough explanations, supported by meridian illustrations clearly showing tooth-body connections, make his book impressively accessible.

AcciDental’s most inspiring sections are those featuring Dr. Yu’s numerous case studies, all of which begin with his use of AMA to identify problems for patients with symptoms of cancer, Lyme, fibromyalgia, and many other chronic conditions, including the simple yet overwhelming diagnosis of MUS (Multiple Unexplained Symptoms).

The stories of these journeys toward health – sometimes long, sometimes complicated, and even sometimes unsuccessful – illustrate the crucial value of seeing each patient as an individual, a central principle of biological dentistry and medicine.

“Understanding where illnesses come from,” he writes, “is the first part of finding the solution, the cure.”