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It is with great sadness that we write to inform you that Privategp.com will be closed with effect from the 30th of September 2023.
It has been our privilege to look after you, our PGP “extended family”, which includes over 30,000 patients during our 28-year history.
Our integrative work has been groundbreaking with some truly remarkable and humbling results for which, I believe, we became quite famous.
I would like to thank past and present patients and staff for your tremendous work as an extended team, together with our network of colleagues throughout the UK.
We have worked very hard to try and ensure a smooth transition for your healthcare.
We hope that the information below will be helpful to you.

Your future medical care

It is important that you have access to your NHS GP or other medical service in future should you need prescription-based medications. We are unable to recommend a medical practice but may be able to signpost you to appropriate support via drpiper@privategp.com
If you have special requirements as a past patient please email drpiper@privategp.com. Responses are not guaranteed and will be discretionary.

How we handle your data

We have a legal duty to inform you of the way we are managing your data. Over the past two or three years, our policy has been to send you copies of all your letters, blood results, and notes from your consultations. Therefore, you should have enough information to provide any new GMC-registered medical practitioner.
Past medical records are held securely. Please send any SARS requests to drpiper@privategp.com

PGP still retains the contact data of all patients with an email address. This is with a view to making future contact to advise of any services being provided by PGP going forward. All patients are offered the option of opting out of this and having their contact data removed if they so wish.

Yours in health and happiness.
The PGP Team

Anxiety

We all know what it’s like to get worried about something.

And most of us have also been down the road of feeling constantly anxious, where we are unable to take our mind off of something and we constantly ruminate about it in our head.

But for some people, feelings of worry, tension and anxiety can completely consume their lives, day in and day out.

The key with all of this is recognition. Sadly, anxiety is not always accurately diagnosed. Quite often it is confused with depression. Therefore, when you seek guidance on this, which you most certainly should, you must try and guide your medical practitioner, along The correct route. So often, patients with anxiety are given medications for depression.

Medications for depression can have properties that will sometimes help with anxiety. But the danger is that initially, they can make the anxiety very much worse.

So the key here is accurate diagnosis.

As for all things in the human body, once we know what the cause is, it becomes a little bit easier to treat.

One of the ways of treating anxiety, is to increase the level of one of the calming chemicals in the brain and body, called GABA. We can do this by a number of means, but there are medications that can help. 

With anxiety, there are very strong physical manifestations and symptoms such as a very fast pulse rate, shortness of breath, sweating, and others. Beta-blockers helps stop the physical Manifestations of anxiety and in most people, this then reduces the actual feelings of anxiety themselves.

Let’s look at anxiety another way. 

Anxiety can be linked to very high levels of another chemical that most of us will have heard of, called serotonin.

Interestingly, the majority of this is produced around the gut wall and there is a strong link between symptoms of the digestive system and mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. So sometimes, we need to look at our digestive system, the food we eat, the way it is digested, and how this may be impacting the way we feel.

We mustn’t forget hormones. We know only too well that some women, before their periods, suffer with increased levels of anxiety, so it is important to keep a mood diary and note the times of the month where your symptoms are better or worse. A food diary could also give interesting information. Nutritionist & dietician link 

Sometimes our anxiety is situational, so a visit to a good psychologist link to psychology can be very helpful.

Techniques involving psychotherapy, mindfulness, and CBT can also be added to our tool bags. Hypnotherapy techniques and neuro-linguistic programming link to nlp can also help to get to the root of the start of the anxiety, thereby allowing healing tools to be applied, so that the current symptoms of anxiety can be reduced.

Don’t forget that EMF or electro Smog, can have a significant impact on the way the body is driven from an energy perspective. Minimising this effect is very important and taking action to protect yourself from  excess levels of EMF, can, in some people, significantly improve anxiety levels or other mood problems.

Sometimes, deficiencies can be implicated in anxiety. In particular, magnesium is very important as it has relaxation properties. Indeed, it has over 100 important actions in the body.

We need to understand that symptoms of anxiety depression and indeed psychosis, may also be related to a condition called neuro-inflammation. This is something that happens when the immune system has been overstretched. The microglia, which are the immune system cells in the brain, can become activated. In general, when the immune system is overstretched, it will make mistakes and have difficulty recognising the enemy. And in some circumstances the cascade of overreaction from the immune system whilst it tries to sort out the problem, can cause disruption in the body.

There are specific ways of reducing neuro-inflammation and it is better to talk to a functionally trained practitioner in order to address this. In severe anxiety, once medical problems have been excluded of a more traditional nature, an functional practitioner who is experienced in chronic infection, M-SIDS may help to exclude underlying infection that maybe part of the root cause of the neuro inflammation. Depending on the severity of symptoms, this can range from extreme tiredness, also anxiety, depression to full blown psychosis.

Our anxieties and worries are often caused by the happenings of life itself and can sometimes be quite a normal reaction. But if you feel your symptoms are governing your life, speak to someone who knows what they are talking about and can understand.

Sometimes, anxiety is related to our blood sugar levels link to blood tests especially if we have a very high level of sugar in the diet. Sometimes they can also relate to our thyroid gland being overactive. Sometimes they are there because of bereavement or problems that we experienced in our childhood, sometimes they are there because we are not very well and need a proper diagnosis.

I mentioned one or two drug treatments at the beginning of this article and in the middle, I have mentioned various psychological tools. Also, in our tool bag, we can add one or two other more natural ways of supporting anxiety, such as: yoga, herbal support, some of the amino acid‘s, such as taurine can be very helpful. We should also, in the current climate, be considering CBD or cannabidiol.

Your attention is drawn to the blog article produced by Dr Julie Moltke on this subject.

You are unique and we are ready to listen

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