PROVOKE Health —

Addressing the Root Causes of Chronic Fatigue and Brain Fog

By Dr. Matt|2023-01-09T16:45:04-05:00January 9th, 2023|Categories: Brain Fog, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome|Tags: Brain Fog, Chronic Fatigue|1 Comment

Chronic fatigue is common, but it’s certainly not normal. It’s common, in that many people experience it on occasion. But a healthy body doesn’t naturally feel worn out — even when dealing with a fairly hectic lifestyle.

In fact, if you’re unsure about the underlying cause of your brain fog or fatigue, you shouldn’t be feeling that way. For example, if you’re working 12 hours a day and your baby or your neighbor’s dog is keeping you up all night, you have a clear reason to be fatigued.

However, if you’re eating healthy foods, remain physically active, get six to eight hours of sleep each night, and you still feel tired or unfocused during the day, something’s wrong. And you most likely have a medical condition that requires evaluation and treatment.

In this blog post, I discuss how to move away from brain fog and fatigue and toward increasing focus, energy, and vitality. You and your doctor need to take it seriously, acknowledge the problem, and work together to identify the root cause(s), with the end result being solutions intended to restore your energy and mental sharpness.

The take-home message here is this: Solutions exist. Stay focused and be persistent until you receive treatment that makes you feel your best.

Where Conventional Medicine Falls Short

If you have read any of my other blog posts, you already know what I think about the conventional medical approach to treating chronic health conditions, including thyroid disease, chronic fatigue, depression, menopause, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Conventional medicine focuses on diagnosing illness and treating its symptoms —typically with medication. It rarely identifies or addresses the root causes of these illnesses. These often include:

Poor nutrition
Too much, too little, or the wrong types of exercise
Exposure to environmental toxins
Poor sleep
Leaky gut
Other lifestyle and treatment options we have influence over

Imagine entering your doctor’s office and complaining of fatigue or brain fog. Your doctor orders some blood tests and tells you the results show no cause for concern. According to your doctor, you’re perfectly healthy.

Or, you go to see your doctor complaining of fatigue and brain fog, and you’re treated for high blood pressure or high cholesterol, neither resulting in a resolution to your fatigue issues. You have digestive issues, so you’re referred to a gastroenterologist who treats you for acid reflux or irritable bowel disease, but again your fatigue remains untreated. Why is this? Because none of the “solutions” were the Continue reading…

Taking a Holistic Approach to Hormone Therapy

By Dr. Matt|2022-08-15T22:52:43-04:00August 15th, 2022|Categories: Hormones|Tags: Estrogen, Hormone, HRT, Women's Health, Xenoestrogen|3 Comments

Many clinics — including conventional healthcare and those that promote themselves as “med spas” — offer hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for women.

HRT, when part of a thoughtful treatment plan, can be a safe option for alleviating symptoms of perimenopause and menopause, as well as optimizing health. Having robust and balanced hormones slows the aging process and can help reduce the risk and slow the progression of chronic diseases associated with aging.

Unfortunately, the HRT often being offered by both traditional healthcare practices and med spas is typically a one-size-fits-all solution that overlooks other factors that may be causing or contributing to your health conditions or symptoms.

Graphic for hormone replacement therapy

Worse, typical HRT offerings overlook the fact that the body needs to be able to metabolize hormones effectively in order to maintain optimal hormonal balance. If the body is already struggling to metabolize its endogenous (internally produced) hormones, adding exogenous (pharmaceutical) hormones can do more harm than good.

In my healthcare practice, I take a more holistic approach to hormone replacement therapy — one that accounts for each patient’s diet, lifestyle, body composition, and overall health and that not only supplements hormone production but also supports hormone metabolism.

What we offer in my clinic is unique because we take a holistic approach to your health and the use of hormone replacement therapy as part of your doctor-supervised treatment plan.

Recognizing the Benefits of Hormone Replacement Therapy

If you’re a woman around the age of 50, your ovaries are gradually producing less and less estrogen, resulting in a hormonal imbalance. You may start to experience hot flashes, anxiety, depression, mood swings, fatigue, brain fog, dry skin, wrinkles, brittle hair, reduced sex drive, vaginal dryness, tender breasts, weight gain, and poor sleep.

Hormone replacement therapy can Continue reading…

Functional Medicine Explained: Experiencing the Difference

By Dr. Matt|2022-07-14T16:55:44-04:00July 14th, 2022|Categories: Functional Medicine|Tags: Functional Medicine Tampa|2 Comments

You can find plenty of information on the web about functional medicine — websites, blogs, videos, podcasts, and more. In fact, I’ve even written about it myself (please see The Difference between Traditional Doctoring and Functional Healthcare here on my website).

But based on my 20-plus years of experience as a functional medicine practitioner, it dawns on me that some potential patients may not fully understand or appreciate the advantages of functional medicine until they experience the difference for themselves.

The patients who describe the most dramatic epiphanies say they reached a dead end on the path through conventional medicine just before discovering functional medicine. They arrive at my office only after having “tried everything.” They are frustrated and they say I was the last house on the block in their search for a solution to their health issues.

Even their doctors were losing patience — and patients — because nothing in their many years of conventional medical training offers them any insight as to what’s going on or how to treat it. As a result, these patients often are led to believe that “it’s all in their head” or that the best they can hope for is the ability to manage their symptoms.

Functional; Medicine Graphic

Patients say their first encounter with a functional medicine doctor resulted in a session with someone who not only listens to them but understands and empathizes with them. These health practitioners can describe what’s going on in their patients’ bodies and in their lives and how corrections can be made. They begin to feel a huge burden lifted as their frustration is replaced with understanding and hope.

In this blog post, I explore some of the attributes of the practice of functional medicine that make it so different from conventional medicine. And despite my obvious bias, I will attempt to do so from a patient’s perspective.

Time and attention

One of the big differences you’ll notice when you visit a functional medicine practice is Continue reading…

Chronic Itching? It’s Usually More Than Skin Deep

By Dr. Matt|2022-04-21T16:00:24-04:00April 21st, 2022|Categories: Skin Conditions|Tags: Case Study, Chronic Conditions, Dermatitis, Eczema, Itching, Leaky gut, Psoriasis, Skin infections|3 Comments

If you are suffering chronic itching — a common but difficult-to-treat symptom of an inflammatory skin condition — then you’ll want to read about my experience with diagnosing and treating Lexi.

Chronic Itching

Lexi is a 25-year-old woman who came to see me about a skin condition that was causing persistent itching. She was suffering with cellulitis on her face and eczema on her hands. (Cellulitis a common, potentially serious bacterial skin infection. With cellulitis, the affected skin appears swollen, red, and is typically warm to the touch and painful.) In Lexi’s case, she had been previously treated by another doctor with several rounds of topical steroids, oral steroids, and antibiotics.

She told me that, at first, the infections and skin cleared. But after a few short weeks, all of her symptoms reappeared. She said the skin on her hands was itchy, and the cellulitis on the side of her face was causing her to feel depressed and self-conscious.

The astonishing thing to me, was that her dermatologist continued to write prescriptions without actively seeking out the cause — the root cause. Lexi was never questioned about her environment at home or work or her stress levels, and her diet was only briefly discussed. And perhaps most shocking of all — no lab tests were ever ordered.

If this sounds familiar, you might be relieved to find out that skin conditions like Lexi’s — while often more than skin deep — can be effectively treated. In fact, you can start experiencing relief in a matter of days and be on your way with a treatment plan aimed at curing you in a matter of weeks.

Common Skin Conditions

Before we investigate the causes and cures for itchy skin conditions, let’s take a look at the most common diagnoses: Continue reading…

How I Interpret Your Thyroid Lab Tests

By Dr. Matt|2022-02-15T14:51:55-05:00February 15th, 2022|Categories: Thyroid|Tags: Hyperthyroidism, Hypothyroidism, Thyroid Lab Test|0 Comments

At least once each year, most adults have — or should have — a blood test to evaluate thyroid health and function. For most people, these tests come back normal. That’s good news. It’s usually a sign that the thyroid is doing its job properly.

When everything is working well, the thyroid helps to regulate body functions. These functions include metabolism, which is the process of converting food into energy. Too little thyroid hormone causes weight gain; excessive thyroid hormone causes weight loss.

Heart rate and blood pressure also rely on proper functioning of the thyroid. A lack of thyroid hormone (hypothyroidism) can cause fatigue, depression, brain fog, muscle cramps, cold intolerance, weight gain, or dry skin. Too much thyroid hormone (hyperthyroidism) can result in rapid heart rate, excessive sweating, nervousness/agitation, anxiety, weight loss, restless sleep, headaches, or chronic fatigue.

A Challenging Diagnosis

More than half the people with normal thyroid function will display some of the symptoms associated with thyroid dysfunction, and this can make it difficult to accurately diagnose the problem. What’s required is a closer look at blood tests, symptoms, medical and family history, and any previous diagnoses and treatments.

Some form of thyroid disease is apparent in about 6 percent of the population, with the majority of those cases showing low levels of the thyroid hormone (hypothyroid).

At BioDesign Wellness Clinic, a Tampa functional medicine clinic, I often see patients who are looking for a Continue reading…

ISEAI Profiles Dr. Matt Lewis

By Dr. Matt|2022-01-04T18:47:52-05:00January 3rd, 2022|Categories: Environmentally Acquired Illness|Tags: Dr. Matt Lewis, EAI, International Society of Environmentally Acquired Illness, ISEAI|0 Comments

Among the complex health conditions that I study, diagnose, treat, and write about, Environmentally Acquired Illness (EAI) continues to reveal itself as an pervasive underlying factor. If you’re unfamiliar with EAI, it covers a category of illnesses caused by mold and biotoxin exposure; Lyme disease and other persistent infections; toxic chemicals such as pesticides, heavy metals, air pollution/smog, and dust; and other irritants found in our natural environment.

EAI is so pervasive that there’s even an international medical society dedicated to raising awareness of the environmental causes of inflammatory illnesses and to support the recovery of patients affected by these illnesses through the integration of clinical practice, education, and research. That organization — the International Society for Environmentally Acquired Illness (ISEAI) — recently interviewed me about my healthcare practice and approach to patient care.

Below is an except for that interview, along with a link to read the entire write-up on ISEAI’s website:

Member Spotlight: Matt Lewis, DC, CFMP, DACBN

Dr. Matt Lewis, DC, CFMP, DACBN, is a doctor and Functional Medicine Practitioner who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of chronic health conditions. His passion is seeing his patients put their chronic conditions in the rear-view mirror and enjoy their lives again. He is an active member of the International Society of Environmentally Acquired Illness (ISEAI).

What is the name of your practice, where are you located, and do you offer remote help?

BioDesign Wellness Center is located in Tampa, Florida, where we offer on-site appointments for our patients as well as virtual healthcare appointments online. In-person visits take place at our offices at 4111 West Kennedy Blvd. in Tampa. For an appointment, patients may call (813) 445-7770. For virtual appointments, visit doctormattintampa.com. Our email address is .

What are your specialties and unique perspectives on environmental health?

I have been practicing clinical nutrition and functional medicine for…. click here to continue reading

Thank you to the International Society for Environmentally Acquired Illness for choosing to shine a spotlight on me and the work I do at BioDesign Wellness in Tampa, Florida. If you’d like to read the interview in its entirety, please click on the image below:

Battling Burnout and Building Resistance to It

By Dr. Matt|2021-11-08T20:27:04-05:00November 8th, 2021|Categories: Mental Health|Tags: anxiety, Brain Fog, Burnout, Headache|0 Comments

I enjoy writing about what I commonly treat in my Tampa Functional medicine practice, and one of the most common conditions I treat is burnout.

Few people would consider burnout to be a medical condition, but it is, by far, the root cause of millions of annual doctor visits. Think about it. When your energy stores are totally depleted; you’re feeling overwhelmed by life’s burdens and demands; and you don’t have the time, money, and other resources to give yourself a break; your body becomes more susceptible to all forms of illness.

My grandmother provides the perfect case study in how burnout can impact health and how it can be treated successfully. Her second child, my uncle, was born prematurely and received excess oxygen, which resulted in blindness. My grandmother did a great job caring for him and ensuring that he would have a normal life. At the same time, she was caring for her first child, maintaining the household, and helping my grandfather run their family business.

After several years, she started to feel overwhelmed and began experiencing numerous health issues related to her hormones. She eventually developed ovarian cancer. Thankfully, it was detected and treated early and successfully.

Following surgery, she continued to feel overwhelmed, additionally burdened with worries over her health. While she survived the cancer, she still had to care for her children, maintain the household, and assist in the business. She met with her primary care doctor who noticed she was visibly anxious. Back then, prescribing an anti-anxiety medication like Xanax or Valium wasn’t as common as it is now. Instead, the doctor suggested she board a train and go somewhere nice for a few weeks.

Now this may sound like strange advice, it may even strike you as dismissive, but it was — for that day and age — the ideal prescription for treating the root cause of my grandmother’s medical condition. Based on her doctor’s orders, she carved out the time and headed from New York to California to visit some old friends for a few weeks. She returned refreshed, healthy, and relaxed, and from that point on, she experienced no major health issues. She died at the age of 92 and wasn’t taking a single prescription medication.

I tell this story to remind people that life isn’t just about work and responsibilities — and that healthcare isn’t merely about treating illness. With the right approach, we can alleviate and manage stress, replenish our energy reserves, and make our minds and bodies more resilient. I realize not all of us have the time and resources to hop on a train, travel cross-country, and visit friends for weeks at a time. But we all have the power to Continue reading…

Anxiety is Normal But Also a Hindrance to Optimal Health

By Dr. Matt|2021-05-19T19:20:42-04:00May 19th, 2021|Categories: Brain Health|Tags: anxiety, Case Study, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Treating Anxiety|2 Comments

At some point in our lives, most of us can expect to experience some form of anxiety. It might occur as the result of a life challenge, whether that be a relationship, health issue, work conflict, finance, or traumatic event. Such anxieties are normal and seldom anticipated.

Having said that, I believe it’s important to avoid downplaying the impact that stress has on our lives. It can ruin a person’s health and yet it’s so often treated superficially or worse — it’s blown off by the medical provider.

However, if you are going through a period of acute stress, or you remain in a state of chronic stress and now find yourself feeling fatigued, unmotivated, or irritable, you may be experiencing the negative health impacts of stress. And that stress might possibly be diagnosed as Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).

In our culture — curated as it is by conventional medicine — anxiety is often seen as a disorder and, in such fashion, labeled GAD. However, anxiety is also a normal part of life. It’s a normal part of physiology and in many cases it’s not a disorder. When anxiety becomes a disorder, it is far more obvious to recognize in ourselves and those around us and there is a greater likelihood a diagnosis of GAD will be provided by a psychologist or similar health care professional.

Whether you actually have GAD or just suffer mild to moderate anxiety, it can feel as if you’re being treated for anxiety or depression abstractly, and even with such treatment your health can decline because the underlying issues have not been resolved.

I have observed many patients seeking out functional medicine or holistic medicine who are struggling with a low to moderate anxiety level that doesn’t fit the formal diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

Some men and women can be reluctant in acknowledging their anxiety, while others freely discuss their concerns. It is also common for people to dismiss anxiety or lower the value it has on their health outcomes. In some ways I think we have the wrong understanding of what anxiety is and how it blocks us from reaching our optimal health.

Breaking anxiety down, I like to classify it as follows:

Generalized Anxiety Disorder — advanced anxiety often benefitting from prescription medication
Moderate/ mild anxiety — successfully treated without the use of prescription medication

Conditions and Symptoms Associated with GAD and Moderate to Mild Anxiety

Anxiety can create or exacerbate many conditions including:

Chronic Fatigue
Cortisol Imbalances
Hormone Imbalance, altered libido or painful cycles
Hypoglycemia
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) — Constipation or Diarrhea
Insomnia or restless sleep
Neurological Symptoms
Restless Legs
Weight Gain or Loss

Besides the commonly known symptoms of anxiety, which cause worry, upset and inability to relax, there are others, including: Continue reading…

The Unintended Side Effects of Birth Control: A Doctor’s Case Study

By Dr. Matt|2021-03-17T19:44:11-04:00March 17th, 2021|Categories: Hormones|Tags: Accutane, Birth Control, Candida, Case Study, Estrogen, Gut, Hormone Imbalance|0 Comments

If you’ve been taking birth control and feel bloated after eating, or have gained weight that is difficult to drop, or have been set back by sports-related injuries that happened years ago, perhaps this case study on the unintended consequences of birth control on women’s health is for you.

Meet Stephanie — a 24-year-old professional who came to see me with a concern about her digestion. Well, it turned out to be more than that, and as you’ll see, very much related to her use of birth control pills.

Stephanie’s most pressing concern was related to her constant bloating after eating, along with constipation. During her initial consultation, she also told me that while playing sports in high school she suffered a terrible ankle injury that required surgery and months of bed rest. During this time, this 5-foot, 4-inch young woman went from weighing 120 pounds to 183 pounds.

Stephanie’s pediatrician recommended a gluten-free diet to assist her with digestion problems and weight loss. As a result of following her initial doctor’s advice, she did manage to lose a little more than 20 pounds, but still wasn’t comfortable at 162 pounds.

So far, Stephanie’s scenario seemed pretty straightforward to me. This young woman, concerned about her weight, had experienced a setback due to a sports injury a decade earlier as a teenager. Since then, exercise and diet haven’t helped her lose weight, and now she’s stuck at 162 pounds.

More to the Story

One important lesson I’ve learned over the course of my 20-plus years in practice is that there’s usually more to the story leading up to a patient’s primary symptoms, and this was certainly the case with Stephanie. As we explored her medical history, including the information she provided on the functional medicine analysis form she completed prior to her initial consultation, I discovered some interesting and enlightening details: Continue reading…

Is Your Antacid Making You Sick?

By Dr. Matt|2020-09-15T20:38:01-04:00September 15th, 2020|Categories: Gut Health|Tags: GERD, Heartburn, N-Nitrosodimethylamine, PPI, Proton Pump Inhibitors, Zantac|0 Comments

Heartburn has been in the news a lot lately — and I’m not talking about the heartburn you get from watchingthe news. All those stories about COVID 19, peaceful protests, looting, and the upcoming presidential election are certainly enough to cause indigestion. But before you reach for that “little purple pill” to relieve your heartburn, consider its potential impact on your overall health.

As highlighted in a number of recent reports, prescription and over-the-counter drugs commonly used to alleviate symptoms associated with heartburn, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), acid reflux, and ulcers, may increase the risk of numerous health conditions, some of which can be fatal. Among these risks are cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, and cancer.

Most recently, the news buzzed about the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) recall of all prescription and over the counter (OTC) ranitidine medications, commonly known by the brand name Zantac. The FDA discovered a contaminant called N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) in some ranitidine products that “increases over time and when stored at higher than room temperatures and may result in consumer exposure to unacceptable levels.” NDMA is a probable human carcinogen (a substance that could cause cancer).

Ranitidine is a histamine-2 (H2) blocker, a class of heartburn medication that’s normally not nearly as harmful as another class of medications commonly used to treat heartburn (I should say commonly overused) — proton pump inhibitors (PPIs). One study of PPIs — Estimates of mortality associated with proton pump inhibitors among US veterans — was published in May of 2019 in the British Medical Journal. In that peer-reviewed study, researchers from the Department of Veterans Affairs-Saint Louis, Saint Louis University, and Washington University School of Medicine in Saint Louis concluded that taking proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) is associated with a small excess of cause-specific mortality, including death in 45 out of every 1,000 people. Another study published in 2006 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, concluded that long-term PPI therapy is associated with an increased risk of hip fracture.

Other potential adverse side effects associated with PPIs include Continue reading…

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