The Wahls Protocol
Welcome to our Springfield functional medicine treatment clinic. Here we offer the innovative Wahls Protocol Brain Tune Up! treatment program that gives you the tools to not only improve your short term health, but you develop skills that will allow you to continue this improved trajectory for the rest of your life.
The Wahls Protocol, named for Dr. Terry Wahls, is a functional medicine-oriented approach to treating multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune conditions. We offer the people of Springfield functional medicine treatments that emphasize specific nutritional strategies, movement, and stress-reducing practices with targeted supplementation to reverse the course of these chronic diseases.
Download our Seminar overview and learn more about Dr. Wahls and the Wahls Protocol!
The Wahls Protocol gained international attention when Dr. Wahls addressed an audience in Iowa City as part of a 2011 independent TED Symposium. Her talk, Minding Your Mitochondria, is available on Youtube.com and to date has drawn over 2.5 million viewers. A book by a similar name (Minding My Mitochondria) has also been published. However, Dr. Wahls’ best-selling book The Wahls Protocol stands as her magnum opus and has attracted thousands of followers around the world who refer to themselves as Wahls Warriors.
The inspiration for The Wahls Protocol came from her own life experience when, after several years of waxing and waning symptoms, Dr. Wahls was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Despite a career in academic medicine at the University of Iowa, and access to the best conventional medical doctors and treatments, by 2006 her condition declined to the point that she was restricted to a wheelchair. She tried the Paleo Diet, and by chance, after she discovered the principles of Functional Medicine, through research and self-experimentation, she perfected what is known today as The Wahls Protocol. She is now ambulatory and able to ride her bicycle 20 miles. Dr. Wahls spreads her message of therapeutic lifestyle medicine through her book, speaking engagements, clinical research, and her practice at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Iowa City. Dr. Wahls also holds a faculty position with The Institute for Functional Medicine.
Dr. Ken Sharlin is the only M.D. in the world to be a Wahls Protocol Certified Health Professional
I was a key speaker at the 2016 Wahls Seminar held in Cedar Rapids, IA, in August 2016. My writing has also been published on Dr. Wahls’ website.[1] Dr. Wahls and I share a friendship, as well as a similar philosophy and approach to Functional Medicine. Participants at our Springfield functional medicine treatment clinic can be reassured of a 100% Wahls-compliant experience. Brain Tune Up! provides the opportunity to take Functional Medicine to the next level through personalization, advanced laboratory testing, therapeutic technology, outcome tracking, and the support of my entire Brain Tune Up! Team.
Sharlin Health and Neurology serves Ozark and Springfield with functional medicine treatments that help Alzheimer’s, Dementia, Multiple Sclerosis, and many more. Contact our clinic for more information on our Springfield Wahls Protocol programs and get a start on transforming your health today!
Dr. Terry Wahls Video Blog Series
I am thrilled to share with you my video blog series with my dear friend Dr. Terry Wahls . View discussion and topics pertaining to all things functional medicine.
Dr. Terry Wahls Explains How Functional Medicine Improves Health and Performance
Excerpt: “I have thousands of followers that follow me; certainly many of those people are very excited to report their disease is improving, but also I have many many people who are reporting that their athletic performance is improving. That they thought they were well, but after implementing the concepts that I teach, that is basically implementing functional medicine principles, they discovered that they have way more energy. That they have way more joy in their life, that their sleep has improved, that they are surprised to discover that it’s a whole lot easier to get along with people at work, or their extended family members because they’re much less irritable.”
-Dr. Terry Wahls
Dr. Terry Wahls shares Cooking For Life – The Wahls Protocol
Excerpt: “You may be aware that I have a unique story, I have progressive MS, spent four years in a reclined wheelchair unable to sit up, beginning to struggle with brain fog, severe refractory pain, and then I discovered functional medicine and based on my own research, I created a dietary lifestyle program that allowed me to get out of the wheelchair, resolve my pain, resolve the brain fog, and get back to a full and robust life. In fact, yesterday, I was able to do a 20-mile bike ride with my good friend Dr. Ken Sharlin.”
-Dr. Terry Wahls
Dr. Terry Wahls & Dr. Ken Sharlin Discuss The Benefits of Functional Medicine
Excerpt: “The reason this is really critically important is, that while veterans are a special group, they are also everyday people. They are everyday people who eat like many Americans, sleep like many Americans, move their bodies sometimes more, sometimes a little less. So, while I know that Dr. Wahls has thousands and thousands of dedicated followers who have deeply connected to her message, this is maybe a slightly different population because this is, quite frankly, more like the average American. You know, 330 million of us, and most of us don’t necessarily know all of the things that Dr. Wahls has to teach and to share. “
-Dr. Ken Sharlin
Dr. Terry Wahls & Dr. Ken Sharlin Share their bond over functional medicine.
Excerpt: “. Dr. Wahls and I have shared some cases, and I’ve had the pleasure of attending the annual Wahls Protocol Seminar in Cedar Rapids for the last couple of years, which is wonderful in so many different ways. Perhaps first and foremost, the energy of that experience with all the people coming from around the world to be part of that, and to learn with Dr. Wahls, and to embrace the story and the message of reversing their multiple sclerosis and other chronic autoimmune diseases. So, that’s certainly something that I encourage anyone who might be viewing this video to consider doing this coming summer or soon.
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-Dr. Ken Sharlin
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-Dr. Ken Sharlin
Does Functional Medicine Work For Chronic Illnesses? Dr. Sharlin & Dr. Wahls Respond.
Excerpt: “Functional medicine really distills out those basic lifestyle factors, the typical imbalances that we might see using advanced laboratory testing. Whether we’re looking at micronutrient balance that affects the body’s ability to produce energy, as an example, or whether we’re looking at metal toxin exposure, the need for essential elements or whether that person’s amino acids are sufficient to meet the body’s needs for amino acids, you know, whether they may have an imbalance in their gut microbiome, whether they have imbalances in their ability to digest food for a variety of reasons. Those are actually the imbalances that create these separate diseases.”
-Dr. Ken Sharlin
Functional Medicine: DIY or Doctor Guided? Dr. Wahls and Dr. Sharlin Respond
Excerpt: “Go find a functional medicine physician that addresses the medical area that you need. So, it might be a functional medicine neurologist like Dr. Sharlin, or a functional medicine GI doctor, or a functional medicine skin doc, depending on where your diagnoses lie. But the functional medicine doc can do more testing, and guide and personalize the intervention because, you see, when I wrote my book, as any of the other functional medicine docs, when we write our books, we write them with the public health in mind.”
-Dr. Terry Wahls
Dr. Terry Wahls On Why There Is Hope For Chronic Illness
Excerpt: “So, as I was designing my protocols, I was doing everything that I would create. I was doing that to slow the decline, but of course, that’s not what happened. What happened was, we stopped the decline, and then with breathtaking speed, my energy improved, my mental clarity improved, my pain resolved. And then, you know, I began to walk again, and I’m beginning to walk without a cane. And then, I get on my bike and I bike around the block for the first time. And within 12 months of this new protocol, I was able to do an 18-mile bike ride with my family.”
-Dr. Terry Wahls
Just how far functional medicine has advanced in just a few short years
Excerpt: “Yesterday in fact, I shared with Dr. Wahls the results of two large clinical trials that used lifestyle modification in patients with Alzheimer’s Disease, and these were, you know, these had been presented at major medical meetings, published in major medical journals. So, the conventional medical world is kind of catching up and they’re saying, “okay”, now we can validate the fact that these changes that we ask our patients to make on an individual level actually do work to change the direction, the course, of these diseases.”
-Dr. Ken Sharlin
Dr. Wahls Explains The Power Of Functional Medicine
Excerpt: “We use a strategy known as functional medicine, we can begin to understand why the body began to have this broken biochemistry, why these organs began to not work very well leading to these symptoms, leading, ultimately, to the disease states, which, as a conventional medical doctor, I would treat with medication. But as a functional medicine practitioner, I will treat by getting down to the root causes.”
-Dr. Terry Wahls