http://www.hospitalityurgentcare.com/

Hospitality Urgent Care, 4734 LJ Parkway, unit 310, Sugar Land, TX (2025)

04/27/2023

Hospitality Urgent Care has permanently ceased operations. We thank you for your support over the years.
If you need to request your medical records from Hospitality Urgent Care, please contact us at hospitality@allymedical.com
Our team will be happy to assist you with any medical record requests or questions you may have.
Thank you for your understanding, and we wish you all the best in your healthcare journey.

04/13/2023

Mind and Body Connection, Part 2

Yoga is defined in various ways. This one from NIH is precise. "Yoga is an ancient and
complex practice rooted in Indian philosophy. It began as a spiritual practice but has
become popular as a way of promoting physical and mental well-being. Although classical yoga also includes other elements, yoga as practiced in the United States typically emphasizes physical postures (asanas), breathing techniques (pranayama), and meditation (dyana)".

I like yoga for health improvement because it incorporates different aspects of physical activities in one practice; therefore, you reap multiple benefits simultaneously. Many research studies show how yoga can help alleviate various health conditions, especially mental health: anxiety, depression, stress, ADHD, etc. Some studies show the beneficial effects of yoga on hypertension and autoimmune diseases, including fibromyalgia.

Proper breathing through yoga alone can do so much for your anxiety, sleep, stress
reduction, improving your digestion, etc. Asanas (physical postures) can help strengthen your functionality by gently training specific muscle groups. Back pain and arthritic conditions, which many people suffer from, can be relieved with yoga practice (we are excluding the exotic yogic postures here). The meditation part of yoga enhances the positive healing potential of asanas and pranayama.

There are overwhelmingly many different types of yoga practices. And there are many learning resources out there. I recommend you find a studio that teaches yoga in person. Online lessons are convenient for someone who has mastered the basics of yoga practice. However, if you are new to the practice, having a solid foundation is essential to receive the most benefits and prevent injuries.

Mind affects your body and vice versa. In that sense, mind and body are one. Yoga is one of the best tools to tend both mind and body. The book Yoga as Medicine by Dr. Timothy McCall is an excellent resource if you want to delve into the topic.

This is going to be my last Facebook post for our clinic. If I may have some departing words on health...

1. Your body has unlimited healing potential.
2. You are the best doctor for yourself.
3. True health cannot come from pharmaceutical products except for a few.
4. "If you try to treat someone's illness without knowing its cause, you will only make
the person sicker than before." -Nichiren.

Thank you for all your support thus far.

Seobun Kim, FNP, Certified Functional Nutrition Counselor.

04/10/2023

Mind and Body Connection

I have discussed the interconnectedness of physiology in a few posts in the past. In today's post, I would like to discuss the connection between the tangible, your body, and the intangible, your mind.
For many years, scientists studied the body's physiology aloof from psychology or the mind. This dualistic approach of considering mind and body as separate entities has changed dramatically as scientific tools and techniques have improved over time. For example, functional MRI can detect changes in a certain area of your brain related to specific emotions in real-time. We can literally measure the blood levels of certain substances that reflect the changes in your stress level. Many people know how chronic stress can negatively affect their health in various ways. For example, some studies indicate loneliness and social isolation are related to a significant increase in premature deaths from all causes in older adults: one study showed patients with heart failure had a four times higher risk of death and a 68% higher risk of hospitalization, another study showed loneliness was associated with about a 50% increase in dementia (from the CDC website).
Chronic stress (psychological stress only in this discussion) in modern society is one of the biggest challenges related to mind and body connection. Acute stress is an essential component in human beings' survival. Acute stress causes your body to respond to a threat in a precise way, so you can overcome it and continue to live. Chronic stress, conversely, has deleterious effects from head to toe: from atherosclerosis that causes heart and brain disease to cancer development.
There are various methods to alleviate day-to-day stress: substance use, including sugar, screen addiction, or isolation have adverse effects, while exercise, meditation, prayer, volunteer work, and friendships have profoundly better results. Among many, yoga is the number one activity I recommend to get out of a chronic stress state. Let us discuss yoga in the next post.

Seobun Kim, FNP, Certified Functional Nutrition Counselor.

03/31/2023

The weather is getting warmer which means swimming in all locations is resuming! According to the YMCA there are the 10 rules of water safety:

1. Never swim alone
2. Supervise children while they’re in the water
3. Always wear a life jacket
4. Enter water feet first
5. Stay away from pool drains
6. Stay within the designated swim areas
7. Avoid using alcohol
8. Learn CPR
9. Don’t jump in to save a friend
10. Don’t play breathing holding games

03/27/2023

The sun is back! Make sure you wear plenty of sunscreen (and reapply every two hours) to keep you and your loved ones safe out in the sun.

03/25/2023

How can you tell what’s allergies and what’s a sinus infection? How can you tell if a cut needs stitches? How can you tell a bone is broken or just fractured? Hospitality Urgent Care is here to answer all your questions. Our focus is YOU!

03/23/2023

Leaky Gut - Part 2

First, let us review the causes of a leaky gut we discussed in the last post.

Frequent antibiotics use
Poor diet: excessive grain consumption, gluten, and dairy consumption
Excessive stress
PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)
NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen, naproxen, and
aspirin)
Birth control pills
Steroids,
Antacids,
Chemo drugs.
C-section born (C-section will not cause a leaky gut, instead, being born through C-
section can, an error created in the last post by omitting born).

Other speculated causes include early childhood vaccinations before a baby's gut gets populated with probiotics.

Lab tests to diagnose a leaky gut are available through specialty laboratories.

The first action necessary to cure any illness is to remove the trigger(s) if they are
known. So, removing the offensive foods listed above can be an easy and quick
intervention you can do on your own. Other aspects of diet need to be incorporated,
such as chewing your food well (the foremost essential step to improve overall digestive health) and adding fermented foods and digestive enzymes. Also, minimize the use of offensive medications, have a vaginal birth, and delay childhood vaccinations. However, stress and PTSD management can be challenging and may necessitate expert care.

Some supplements can help heal the small intestinal lining: L-glutamine, omega 3,
vitamins A and D (fermented cod liver oil is a good source for both vitamin A and D),
aloe vera juice, glutathione (master detoxifier in your body, you can take supplement
form), berberine, ginger, prebiotics to feed beneficial bacteria, and probiotics (should be individualized).

A diet of a low FODMAP(Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides, and Polyols) can also be beneficial. Some people use a low
FODMAP diet to treat IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) or SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrown) by removing specific kinds of fibers from their diet that cause gas, bloating, and abdominal pain.

Please see a qualified provider for assistance in the healing journey of your gut. You
might heal many mysterious illnesses (symptoms) that no one could resolve (please see an example in the post from 5/26/2022) by focusing on a leaky gut and reversing it.

Seobun Kim, FNP, Functional Nutrition Counselor

03/20/2023

Pollen and mold are at an all time high in the Houston area this spring! Staying on top of allergies by consistently taking antihistamines and staying inside on high allergy days are just two ways you can fight allergies. If they become too much, please come see us. We’ll get you feeling better and give you an allergy prevention plan moving forward.

03/18/2023

Hospitality Urgent Care makes it safe and convenient for you and your loved ones to receive urgent medical care from the comfort of your own home. Visit hospitalityurgentcare.com to book an appointment today!

03/16/2023

Gut healing is the priority.

Andrea Nakayama, the founder of Functional Nutrition Alliance, the organization I received my certification as a functional nutrition counselor, stated that we are not what we eat, but we are what our body can do with what we eat, illustrating the importance of digestion in a healthy diet.

We don't think much about our digestive system's ability to function properly until the symptoms of a malfunction occur. Common digestive ailments many adults suffer from are acid reflux, indigestion, constipation, and bloating. These symptoms are easily recognizable and treatable with dietary changes and physical activities. However, there is a digestive condition that not only causes digestive symptoms but also chronic systemic inflammatory diseases such as allergies, various skin conditions, autoimmune conditions, neuroinflammatory disorders (ALS, dementia), and even type 1 and 2 diabetes.

Leaky gut or intestinal permeability is no longer a bizarre concept that most medical providers used to dismiss. We will discuss leaky gut in this post. A leaky gut is when your small intestinal lining becomes unhealthy. The small intestine functions mainly as an absorptive organ of your digestive system. The healthy intestinal lining has tight gap junctions (slight spaces) between the cells designed for only the smallest nutrient end products to pass through to blood circulation. In addition, it has healthy finger-like projections (villi) on the surface necessary for the absorption of nutrients and the right kind and amount of microorganisms that help nourish the cell lining and make certain nutrients.

In contrast, the unhealthy intestinal lining has compromised tight gap junctions between cells where larger particles can escape through to blood circulation, which will cause your immune cells to detect them as foreigners and initiate an inflammatory response. These large particles are protein molecules and other toxins that are supposed to be kept inside the intestine. Also, the compromised small intestinal lining will have smaller or atrophied villi resulting in suboptimal absorption of nutrients (all those expensive and high-quality foods you eat proudly will go in vain). Lastly, the wrong kind of opportunistic microorganisms (bacteria or candida) starts thriving on unhealthy villi and intestinal mucosa, producing toxins harmful to the lining.

Again, Hippocrates stated that all diseases begin in the gut, and the leaky gut provides the best example of his insight. Once the things that need to be kept inside your digestive tract leak out to your bloodstream, your immune system has to mount an attack leading to chronic systemic inflammation manifested in the abovementioned conditions.

Below are the things that make the intestinal lining more porous than it needs to be, wipe off the villi, and promote the opportunistic microorganisms.

Frequent antibiotics use
Poor diet: excessive grain consumption, gluten, and dairy consumption
Excessive stress
PTSD
Medications: NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen, naproxen, and aspirin), birth control pills, steroids, antacids, and chemo drugs.
C section

In the next post, we will discuss how to repair a leaky gut.

Seobun Kim, FNP, Functional Nutrition Counselor

03/13/2023

Spring break has different dangers for different groups of people. Here are some safety tips for families traveling during spring break according to the Memorial Hermann Health Blog:

1. Determine a healthcare provider at your final destination
2. Take your insurance and prescription cards
3. Pack your medications
4. Wear sunscreen, light-colored cotton clothing, wide-brim hats and sunglasses to protect skin
5. Supervise your children at all times
6. Wear protective gear as needed for recreational activities

03/11/2023

Anil, we are happy to hear you had a great experience! Thank you for trusting Hospitality Urgent Care with your care.

03/09/2023

Reflection.

I came across this piece I wrote three years ago as a rookie family nurse practitioner and wanted to share it.

Sty, ankle pain, and reductionism
A 43-year-old male patient comes in for right eye pain in a hurry stating he needs to go to the airport to catch the flight. He gives me an unpleasant look when he hears me asking a medical assistant to check his vision. Vision slightly decreased on the right side. I enter the exam room. The patient blurts out, saying, "This is my fourth time having the same problem, and I have seen three ophthalmologists in four months." I am thinking, "What? What do you want me to do for the
problem three eye specialists haven't solved." I talk to him nicely, "you know there is not much I can do for you today in urgent care since you have seen eye doctors for the same problem already, but let me examine you." I examine the patient. Guess what I see? Good old sty. I tell the patient it is a sty and give him the standard treatments.

A 33-year-old male patient presents with right ankle pain for a few days. The patient reports no recent trauma or injury. However, he mentioned having pain in the left ankle a few months ago. He saw his primary care provider, who did an x-ray (no acute findings) and gave him NSAIDs. I examine the patient. I don't see any redness but mild swelling and tenderness on R anterior ankle.

We know the above cases are related to inflammation. Do we, however, ask where the inflammation is coming from? Both cases were not associated with an acute injury that caused inflammation. Acute inflammation is essential to our body's immune system, but chronic inflammation harms health. Chronic inflammation is the root cause of many chronic illnesses, including HTN, DM, cancer, heart disease, dementia, autoimmune disease, etc. I learned in nursing school and NP school that we should treat our patients holistically (a person has a mind, body, and spiritual connections). And yet how we learn about the human body is fragmented. We learn GI, GU, neuro, skin, and ortho, all separately, which might facilitate learning but fail in making connections in organ systems. For example, the link between mental and gut health. Are depression and anxiety the problem only with the brain? The research findings are robust that there is a close relationship between brain and gut health. Therefore, both systems need to be addressed when we treat mental health.

You will less likely be able to find the cause of inflammation if you tend to the eye only for eye problems or ankle only for ankle pain unless it is related to acute injury. But looking at the body as a whole, understanding that it is one whole being that is connected by blood vessels, you can connect the dots, such as excessive sugar igniting your ankle or eye inflammation. One extreme example is diabetes. Diabetes causes diabetic retinopathy, nephropathy, neuropathy, and so on. Many other substances can cause unnecessary inflammation (I am limiting the discussion to blood glucose here).

These two cases are among many others where I gave patients some insight into what might have caused their symptoms.

We might need to focus on one part of our body in certain areas of medicine, such as the surgical world. But do we need so much reductionism in managing chronic conditions?

Going back to patient 1, I confirm his medical history because he denied past medical problems when asked in the triage. I ask him if he has diabetes or prediabetes. He says he was diagnosed with prediabetes quite some time ago. I ask him how his diet has been. He says it hasn't been good because he travels a lot and eats processed and restaurant foods, which contain a lot of sugar and other inflammation-causing ingredients. I tell him, "When you have excessive sugar in your body, it causes inflammation, and you may have this recurring sty as a manifestation of inflammation due to poor glucose control." His eyes lit up. By now, his demeanor is not as uptight, but he gets upset again, saying, "Why didn't anyone tell me this before?" I remain silent and suggest he reduce sugary foods and visit his primary care provider to recheck his prediabetes.

Patient 2, unlike the previous patient, is obese but has no medical history of prediabetes or diabetes. I ask him what kind of foods he eats and if he does sugary drinks. He says he recently has been doing a lot of sugary foods, looking guilty. Here I go again. I explain to the patient how sugary foods can cause inflammation and that he might have ankle pain due to the inflammation from excessive sugar. Also, I further explain to him about looking at our body as a whole, not separately. The patient says it makes sense. I advise him to cut out sugary drinks and foods gradually.

Seobun Kim, FNP, Certified Functional Nutrition Counselor.

03/08/2023

March is Multiple Sclerosis Awareness month. Approximately 2.5 million people worldwide suffer from multiple sclerosis. This is a time for sufferers, family members, and supporters to raise awareness and education.

03/01/2023

Insulin Resistance, part 5.

"It runs in my family." is the phrase I often hear when talking about type 2 diabetes with my patients. Genes play some role in certain disorders, but undesirable lifestyles cause most chronic conditions. Genetic predisposition does not mean you will always manifest the trait. As explained in epigenetics, genes get turned on and off by external factors such as diet and exercise.

For example, you might have genes that will make you more insulin resistant, but you can alter the course of the gene with lifestyle interventions, including physical activities. The priority in improving and reversing insulin resistance is the diet: low carb, limited carbs, healthy carbs, fasting, and so on, depending on your level of insulin resistance. In this post, we will discuss how to improve insulin resistance (IR) with physical activities.

The muscle, the biggest organ in your body, is the biggest consumer of blood glucose. As with other body parts, such as the liver and brain, muscles become insulin resistant (IR). The best exercise to improve IR is resistance training, for example, weight lifting. An interesting fact is that your muscles have a mechanism for using glucose without the help of insulin when you actively contract them, as in resistance training, resulting in insulin sensitivity.

Aerobic exercise can improve IR, but less than resistance training does. Simple post-meal walking for only 20 minutes effectively lowers blood glucose and improves insulin sensitivity. Coaching from a personal trainer can be instrumental in learning how to maximize your workout and do it safely while improving IR and building some muscles.

Whether you do post-meal walking or are on a workout program, the essential aspect of exercise is finding the activity you like and enjoy. There are many activities, such as yoga, walking, running, dancing, boxing, weight lifting, CrossFit, etc., but doing it with joy and consistency is the key.

The book "Why we get sick," by Dr. Benjamin Bikman is an excellent read if you wish to delve into the topic of insulin resistance. I learned a great deal from the book, especially the science of insulin resistance in detail, that I didn't learn from my NP training.

One last thing I would leave here is when you think about prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, or high blood glucose, think of high insulin as a pair. High insulin is as damaging as high blood glucose. This new paradigm should lead medical providers to a treatment plan that fixes high glucose and insulin levels in the blood instead of focusing only on high glucose.

Seobun Kim, FNP, Functional Nutrition Counselor

#

02/23/2023

Insulin Resistance Part 4

In this post, let's touch upon fasting as an effective way to improve insulin sensitivity. The core premise of insulin resistance is hyperinsulinemia (high blood insulin level). So, keeping insulin levels low is an essential step to take to reverse and improve insulin sensitivity. We discussed dietary change, especially carbohydrate consumption, as a foremost important strategy: Less or no starchy carbohydrates lead to less insulin production, improving insulin sensitivity.

Fasting has become a buzzword for a good reason. Numerous studies on intermittent fasting show the benefits in various ways. In addition, more experts recognize it as an effective tool to treat chronic conditions: obesity, prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, autoimmune diseases, Alzheimer's disease, asthma, arthritis, stroke, and so on (refer to the post on intermittent fasting from October 2022).

Fasting will produce minimal baseline insulin your body needs for its functions, improving insulin sensitivity. One mechanism worth noting that makes fasting the best strategy to improve insulin resistance, therefore improving obesity, prediabetes, and type 2 diabetes, is associated with the change in two hormones.

We know insulin is one of them. However, glucagon is an essential counter hormone to insulin that rarely gets attention. When you fast/eat low carbohydrates, your insulin level naturally decreases but glucagon increases. Here are a few negative actions of insulin, and they are related to its building-up/storing things nature: it increases fat storage, therefore, inhibits using fat for energy, and increases liver glycogen storage while inhibiting its use. In addition, insulin inhibits ketogenesis and autophagy (your cells' self-cleaning mechanism). In contrast, glucagon inhibits fat storage while activating fat use for energy. It inhibits liver glycogen storage while activating its glycogen use. Glucagon activates ketogenesis and autophagy (from the book "Why we get sick" by Dr. Benjamin Bikman).

As you can see, insulin and glucagon exert exactly opposite actions in your body. You will have more insulin than glucagon with a high carbohydrate diet but more glucagon with a low carb diet and fasting. Glucagon has more desirable effects on your metabolic health and insulin sensitivity.

It is important to remember though the crucial roles insulin plays in your body. Without insulin, one cannot survive, as patients with type I diabetes must take insulin to survive.

With almost everything in life, not too little or not too much principle applies to insulin. We discuss the harmful effects of too much insulin in these posts.

Another crucial point that deserves a few words is that fasting is NOT the same as calorie restriction. We will limit our discussion to intermittent fasting (IF). IF involves not eating for a specific time window but doesn't include calorie restriction, so you don't need to count calories. This aspect of IF makes it an excellent tool because you can eat until you feel full without counting calories and still extract benefits. Short-term calorie restriction can be helpful when treating acute illnesses, such as using a calorie-restricted ketogenic diet to treat certain types of cancers. However, chronic calorie restriction causes chronic stress on the body, increasing the stress hormone cortisol, which can worsen insulin resistance.

In the next post, let's discuss using physical activity to improve and reverse insulin
resistance.

Seobun Kim, FNP, Certified Functional Nutrition Counselor.

# #

02/21/2023

Our providers include Nurse Practitioners and Physicians skilled at clinical medicine and experience in the hospital setting. The goal for our clinic is to adjust services to meet the requests of our community in and around the Sugar Land area. We want to be your home clinic and your trusted source for compassionate medical care. At Hospitality Urgent Care, our focus is YOU.

02/16/2023

Insulin Resistance part 3

Let us discuss food factors in reversing insulin resistance and improving insulin sensitivity.

Eating high-carbohydrate foods for a prolonged period is the culprit for insulin resistance, so logically, low carbohydrates should be the mainstay of treatment for high insulin levels and insulin resistance, right? This is not a rhetorical question. Yes, reducing carbohydrates should be the first step in the healing journey.

First, remove all refined carbohydrates such as bread, pasta, sweets, and noodles. It does not matter whether the product is made of gluten-free flour. Eliminating these foods will have the most significant impact on the health of your insulin.

Then, you can eat healthy carbohydrates in moderation. Healthy carbohydrates are in their whole forms, such as rice, beans, root vegetables, and fruits. For those already having prediabetes or type 2 diabetes, further reduction of even healthy carbohydrates will be necessary. Cutting down on carbohydrate consumption is much more complex than it seems. The challenge is how to have a hearty meal without or with less of our favorite carbs. Here are a few tips.

Second, I recommend adding more healthy fats such as coconut oil, olives, olive oil, and fats from pastured meats, eggs, dairy products, avocados, nuts, and seeds, but not vegetable oils such as soy oil, canola oil, and trans-fat to your foods. Fats raise blood insulin levels minimally and give you satiety.

Third, reduced carbohydrate consumption makes a proper amount of protein consumption essential. Protein raises blood insulin levels, but much less than carbohydrates do. There is some debate about how much protein to consume. Protein requirements vary depending on age, medical conditions, and activity level. Here are a few principles for protein consumption: 1. Consume more protein for muscle building (twice as much as for a sedentary lifestyle which requires 0.3-0.4g of protein per pound of weight for healthy adults). 2. More protein consumption is necessary with aging due to the body's decreased ability to recycle amino acids. 3. Protein supplements are helpful, especially if you do intermittent fasting, which gives you a limited eating window. 4. Eating protein, non- starchy vegetables first, and carbohydrates last in a meal has less blood glucose and insulin spikes. For example, if you eat steak, eat the beef and broccoli first, then baked potatoes at the end of your meal.

Lastly, adding more fiber to your meals can slow the absorption of carbohydrates, which triggers slower insulin release improving insulin sensitivity. Soluble fibers such as psyllium husk, fruits, and vegetable sources seem better than insoluble fibers found in grains to improve insulin sensitivity.

In the following posts, we will discuss two other interventions to improve insulin
sensitivity.

Seobun Kim, FNP, Certified Functional Nutrition Counselor.

Hospitality Urgent Care

04/27/2023

04/13/2023

04/10/2023

03/31/2023

03/27/2023

03/25/2023

03/23/2023

03/20/2023

03/18/2023

03/16/2023

03/13/2023

03/11/2023

03/09/2023

03/08/2023

03/01/2023

02/23/2023

02/21/2023

02/16/2023

Address

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Contact The Practice

Shortcuts

Share

Category