Genetic Testing Specialist
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Palo Alto Mind Body
Concierge Psychiatry & Ketamine Therapy Clinic located in Palo Alto, CA
The recent advances in accessible genetic testing allow Palo Alto Mind Body to better tailor a treatment plan specific to your genetic makeup. When you need psychiatric medication, you’ll normally go through a trial-and-error process to determine how your body responds to the many drug options. M Rameen Ghorieshi, MD, MPH, and colleagues prefer to avoid that often grueling process and expedite your healing through personalized pharmacogenetic testing. Pharmacogenetic testing reveals how your body metabolizes drugs, allowing your provider to prescribe the best medication and dose to achieve optimal results from the outset. Your symptoms may also originate from specific genetic mutations on your methylation pathway. In other words, your body may not optimally utilize key nutrients to produce the neurotransmitters critical for your mood and energy. In testing for these mutations, Palo Alto Mind Body can create a customized plan to circumvent any genetic hurdles and launch you on a path of healing. To schedule genetic testing, call the office in Palo Alto, California, or send a confidential email. We also serve many patients located in the surrounding Bay Area, such as South Bay, North Bay, East Bay, Peninsula, San Jose, and San Francisco.
Genetic Testing Q & A
What is the best medication and dose for me?
When you need medication to rebalance brain chemicals and improve your symptoms, Dr. Ghorieshi and colleagues use their extensive training and experience to choose the best medicine and dosage for you.
There are many variables at play when it comes to medication, and one of the most important is your metabolism. Each person metabolizes medication differently.
All drug classes, such as antidepressants and antipsychotics, contain multiple medications with different mechanisms of action. Your metabolism may respond well to one medication, all of them, or none of them. You could need a combination of medications to get optimal results.
Dosing is another variable because, even though there are guidelines, each person needs a different dose to alleviate their symptoms.
With all these different variables, most patients go through an exhausting trial-and-error period before finally finding the best medication and dose for their unique metabolism. The innovative genetic testing, also referred to as DNA testing, offered at Palo Alto Mind Body, can eliminate this fatiguing trial-and-error process, and get you on the road to recovery quickly.
How does genetic testing improve my medical treatment?
Genetic markers from pharmacogenetics testing provide unique insights such as:
- How your body metabolizes psychiatric medications
- How your genes affect a medication’s action and effectiveness
- Variations in your metabolism that affect the dosing
- Your potential risk for medication side effects
- Your risk for interactions between multiple drugs
Your test results may reveal that you metabolize certain drugs rapidly, so the doctors know you’ll need a higher dose or more frequent doses to achieve therapeutic concentrations.
On the flip side, you might metabolize certain drugs slowly, so you’ll need a lower dose to avoid toxicity. With pharmacogenetic testing, you gain the best result with the lowest risk of adverse effects.
How else does genetic testing improve my treatment outcome?
At Palo Alto Mind Body, the team believes that in better understanding your genetic code, you can improve and refine many aspects of your health. Through innovative, evidence-based approaches, you can understand your genetics and how your lifestyle or environment can be changed to improve your health.
In testing for a range of genes, including MTHFR, COMT, DAO, MAOA, and more, you can often identify why you suffer from certain psychiatric symptoms. Through personalized treatment plans, Palo Alto Mind Body will work to make any genetic hurdles more manageable.
How is genetic testing performed?
Pharmacogenetic testing is quick and easy. Your doctor at Palo Alto Mind Body swabs the inside of your cheeks and sends the sample to a lab for testing. The swab takes only a few minutes, and when the results come back, your doctor can customize your treatment.
To learn more about how genetic testing guides treatment, or to schedule an appointment, call Palo Alto Mind Body or send a confidential email. Please note, we also serve many patients located in the surrounding Bay Area, such as South Bay, North Bay, East Bay, Peninsula, San Jose, and San Francisco.