Best Pediatric Rheumatologist Scottsdale Near Me

4worldlovers:
I work alongside men and women with autoimmune and rheumatologic disease.

Please note! I am not a board certified Rheumatologist. If you prefer an MD or DO with board certification and a fellowship, excellent! But, that is not me.

Who are the men and women presently on my patient roster?

The bulk of women and men I consult with come from larger rheumatology practices with positive antibodies, vague symptoms and they would like someone to take a second look.

These individuals often do not fit classification criteria for an autoimmune disease, but may have positive ANAs/ENAs, Rheumatoid Factors, other autoantibodies, inflammatory markers or and ongoing concerns that have been have not been approached sensitively enough.

That’s where I come in. My perspective is that the diagnosis of an early autoimmune problem is an art – we do not have great guidelines in approaching more vague presentations and early autoimmune diseases. This ultimately leads to patients being dismissed, led to believe they are somatoform, or treated inappropriately.

These early presentations are often incredibly difficult to firmly diagnose. Minimally, I am confident I can get a sense of whether a problem is autoimmune versus not in most cases. And the good news is despite precise specification, there is much we can trial.

The problem with many of the cases that are lower acuity disease who are not your “explosive” or obvious type inflammatory cases is absence of treatment for up to several years. Absent of treatment may mean gradual destruction of joints, organs, etc. Hence, sentiments of empiricism as above.

Please also note, some interventions I discuss with patients would be classified as non evidence based medicine. We do not have rigorous clinical trials for almost all of what we do in Naturopathic medicine, as we do for standard of care in rheumatology. Thus, the Naturopathic physician and patient are essentially putting their brains together, based off of the individuals history, translational research, and other ideas. Rather than wait for “evidence based medicine” to “catch up” my belief is act earlier rather than later. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

In this way, I consider myself very unique. Unlike many providers out there, be they board certified conventional rheumatologists versus naturopathic, functional, or alternative providers – I do my best to balance our best practices from standard of care versus naturopathic and alternative approaches. In my estimation, many providers on either side are abducted by ideology. Bonus points if you’re familiar with the concept of “abduction by ideology” and it’s origins.

And old timer taught me this simple gem… the best answer with a very complex problem to solve like autoimmunity is going to be somewhere in the middle, and one should have a sense of when a patient will need to be approached with only medication versus only natural approaches versus a combination of both.

My primary goal is to help your body along with it’s capacity to heal itself, rather than work against it!

I’m nothing in particular. I subscribe to the eastern tenants of being formless, like water flowing and crashing, forever mutable. I’m also a westerner, originally from Tustin, California. Son of the modest Bill and Jan Mitchell. Brother to baby sisters Cassie, Teri and brother, Aaron. I love ruminating over philosophy, film, musical artists of old, athletics, anime and beyond, appreciating critical moments and performances of the best of the best in various dimensions. This is usually done over a dirty martini or two… or maybe three.

When I figured out I wouldn’t be a superstar athlete, had obsessive geeky tendencies, a very kind gentleman by the name of Mitchell encouraged me to explore health and wellness. Coupled with walking the path of thorns with history of chronic health concerns, I couldn’t say no. The rest is boring history.

Naturopathic Doctors are licensed health care providers able to diagnose and prescribe in the state of Arizona, who prioritize the manipulation of environmental factors in addressing your disease process and investigation geared towards finding the root cause of your illness.