Edge Integrative Wellness: Get Your Edge Back

Mar 31, 2020 06:25AM ● By Suzie Agrillo

Overcoming health issues can be one of the biggest challenges of our lives. Traditional medicine alone is not always the answer. At Edge Integrative Wellness, owner Maria Crawford, FNP utilizes a multifaceted therapeutic approach to help her patients restore their health in our toxic world.

Crawford is a Tucson native and a 2004 University of Arizona graduate with an MS in nursing. She began her career as a nurse in the pediatric unit of Tucson Medical Center. A former triathlete, she has always been involved in sports and nutrition. A bad car accident was the impetus for her to go back to school to become a nurse practitioner specializing in sports medicine.

After graduation and some practical experience, this plan was revised. Crawford realized that her true passion is functional medicine. “I love it so much. It was like opening Pandora’s Box. It’s such an evolving field,” she observes.

Crawford opened Edge Integrative Wellness in 2018. “Down the rabbit hole I went,” she says. “I think the true root cause of why people are ill is environmental toxicity. What I’ve found is that many people have been exposed to mold, chemicals, parasites and other toxic substances. This exposure can cause pain, fatigue and other illnesses.”

Toxic Overload
We acquire toxins from our environment by breathing them in, by ingesting them or through physical contact. Every day we are exposed to new and stronger chemicals, air and water pollution and radiation. We often eat more sugar and refined foods, use prescription or street drugs or turn to alcohol to help us deal with rising stress levels.

Other factors, such as lack of sleep, exercise and even negative attitudes, are thought to enable toxins to build up in the body and upset its regulation. If we are taking in more toxins than we can eliminate, our body will reach a state of toxicity.

The digestive system can also wreak havoc on the immune system. If our digestive system is not working properly, there may be an overgrowth of destructive bacteria/yeast in the gut that encourages even more toxins to proliferate. Detoxing improves the health of the immune system. It will also increase our vitality and underlying health, and may even help with weight loss.

Crawford will navigate her clients’ journeys through the complex maze of treating their illness. She considers herself to be the Sherlock Holmes of medicine. “I focus on discovering the root cause of a patient’s ailments,” she comments. Patients come to her with a white flag, because they are in dire need of getting their health back. “Sometimes the perfect storm causes the problem,” she notes.

An environmental toxicity specialist, Crawford is also trained in medical weight loss, anti-aging, hormone replacement therapy, endocrinology, peptide therapy and genomic evaluation. Edge Integrative Wellness utilizes state-of-the-art genetic evaluations to customize patients’ fitness and wellness plans.

Medical Weight Loss
Genetic testing is used by Crawford for the Medical Weight Loss program at Edge. She analyzes an individual’s genetic code to determine what types of exercise and diet to recommend. “Through DNA, we learn how many fats, carbohydrates and proteins you should be eating, how to tailor your supplements to support your genetics and the best type of exercise for your genetics in order to optimize weight loss and improve fitness,” she says.

Crawford often prescribes a ketogenic diet for weight loss, using fat for fuel. She also uses intermittent fasting to treat fatigue, brain fog and joint pain. She discloses that her diet is organic, unprocessed food. She avoids corn, canola, cottonseed, soybean, sunflower and safflower oil, due to their high omega-6 content. To maintain her own health, Crawford is physically active. She currently has a personal trainer, hikes and practices yoga to remain fit.

Adverse Effects of Stress
Stressful situations trigger our body’s fight or flight response, a biochemical reaction that puts the body on red alert. If stress continues unabated, physical and mental health can be undermined as the stress hormones disrupt the functioning of the immune and circulatory systems. Thus, the body becomes less efficient at eliminating toxins and the toxic load increases.

Another important member of the Edge team is Andria Pizzato, who holds a Doctor of Nursing Practice from the University of Arizona. In 2017, she completed a fellowship at Dr. Andrew Weil’s Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine. In addition to offering women’s health services, stress reduction and lifestyle changes, Pizzato helps her patients with functional and regenerative body therapies to speed up the elimination of toxins.

Edge Integrative Wellness offers memberships to make the cost of these therapies more affordable.

Complementary Detox and Pain Relief Body Therapies
Prolozone is a form of nonsurgical ligament reconstruction and a treatment for chronic pain. It is a connective tissue injection therapy of a collagen producing substance and ozone gas, which can reconstruct damaged tissue in and around joints. It signals the body’s own mechanisms to do its own repair and heal.

Pizzato also administers advanced intravenous (IV) therapies, including vitamin C therapy, glutathione, Meyers, NAD and ozone.

The vitamin C IV provides a powerful boost of immune enhancing ascorbic acid (vitamin C). This IV therapy delivers from 15,000 up to 50,000 mg of vitamin C that infuses straight into the bloodstream, which surpasses the maximum orally tolerated dose.

Glutathione protects our cells from free radical damage and helps to improve cellular function at all levels. Glutathione is extremely important for maintaining intercellular health. Glutathione levels have been shown to diminish substantially with age, as well as with chronic illness and poor health.

Meyers therapy includes key cellular ingredients necessary for a robust immune system and optimal energy. It includes powerful antioxidants such as B-complex, vitamin C and minerals, including zinc, selenium and magnesium.

NAD+ is a naturally occurring substance that is in every cell in the body. Boosting NAD+ may help manage a wide spectrum of diseases ranging from diabetes to cancer. Originally used for drug addicts and people with neurological disorders, some research has shown that it can improve mental clarity, alertness, concentration and memory.

IV ozone therapy helps with pain, coronary artery disease, boosting the immune system, chronic fatigue, macular degeneration, aids in the anti-aging process and much more.

Peptide therapy is administered orally or by injection. It can repair the immune system, bacterial issues and diabetes.

Additional Therapies
Other therapies offered at Edge Integrative Wellness include Tissue Regeneration Therapy and LYMPHpresso.

The Tissue Regeneration Therapy machine can deliver effective shock wave therapy for the treatment of injuries and degenerative ailments. This treatment is approved by the FDA and is highly effective at treating chronic pain.

The lymphatic system is part of the circulatory system, the “sewage system” of the body. Its function is to remove cellular debris, toxins and waste products, such as bacteria and proteins from the body. This is part of the body’s immune system and is essential in maintaining health. The LYMPHpresso System is a full-body suit that works through compression, deep pressure therapy and infrared heat to improve energy, enhance lymph and blood flow.

The Mind-Body Connection
Well-being depends on maintaining a balance between our emotional, mental, spiritual and physical health. If this balance is upset, it disrupts the body’s harmony and leads to poor health. The goal at Edge Integrative Wellness is the restoration of total mind-body-spirit healthfulness. This might range from hormonal evaluation and treatment to providing patients with techniques to help connect them to the activities in their lives that bring joy.

As an adjunct to the functional medicine offered at Edge Integrative Wellness, Paula Rapp, Certified Emotion and Body Code Practitioner, helps patients release trapped emotions in the subconscious mind that can affect well-being. Energy healing is a holistic practice that activates the body’s energy systems to remove blocks and stimulate the body’s inherent ability to heal itself.

One might be striving for longevity so they can live to see their grandkids, or maybe they want to lose weight to fit into their favorite pair of jeans. In order to maintain determination and consistency in reaching those health goals, Crawford opines, “Always remember why you started. Never give up on something you really want.”

Edge Integrative Wellness is an alternative to traditional medicine that offers a wide variety of innovative treatments to heal and improve life. Their programs help clients to restore their underlying health, and to once again be prepared to face the stresses of modern day living.

Edge Integrative Wellness is located at Plaza Palomino, 2900 N. Swan, #102, Tucson. Connect at 520-232-3360 or EdgeIntegrativeWellness.com. See ad. page 5.

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