Medeya Tsnobiladze, ND, MS, is an experienced naturopathic physician and acupuncturist at Fairfield Family Health in Fairfield, Connecticut. Her particular interest is in conditions that have an impact on the nervous system. She finds that Lyme disease, multiple chronic viral infections, and nutritional imbalances often manifest in neurologic complaints, such as palsies; mental health, memory, and cognition problems; Alzheimer’s; Parkinson’s; and demyelinating conditions.

Dr. Medeya’s training came in handy on multiple occasions with her own family. She and her son had been bitten by ticks and diagnosed with Lyme. With the use of a combination of herbal and antibiotic therapies, they were both cured. Throughout the years, natural therapies helped her family members with symptoms of multiple sclerosis, Bell’s palsy, dysautonomia, and others.

While some of these conditions may be incurable, they respond well to naturopathic interventions, and patients gain time, function, and, most importantly, overall quality of life when they add naturopathic interventions to mainstream protocols.

Dr. Medeya’s initial path to “naturopathic medicine” started long before she knew these words. She was a weak and sickly child. In her first five years of life, she had five pneumonia, persistent respiratory issues, and numerous digestive complaints. She was completely unable to tolerate high-fat foods and carbonated beverages.

Desperate to get better, her mother took her every summer to various towns of “mineral waters,” where they spent a month there following strict diets, drinking mineral water straight from the sources, and utilizing various physical therapy interventions.

All those wonderful treatments were offered at “sanatoriums,” where people lived in hotel-style rooms, ate at cafeterias that offered multiple therapeutic diets, and had dozens of “treatment rooms,” in which they were getting massage therapies, electrophoresis, mud baths, colonic hydrotherapy, nebulizer treatments with essential oils, and many other treatments.

She immensely enjoyed that experience. Something about having a daily routine of drinking salty hot mineral water from specially shaped mugs, walking miles per day, and eating a limited set of products made her feel much healthier by the end of each visit. After five yearly visits, by the age of 10, she was completely cured, emerging as a strong and resilient kid who had the energy to participate in sports and many extra-curricular activities.

The medicine that saved her was just “medicine” without any “naturopathic” or “integrative” modifiers. Doctors at sanatoriums and clinics prescribed drugs, ordered regular labs, EKGs, and imaging studies, but also performed colonic hydrotherapies, selected therapeutic diets, ordered appropriate sets of exercises, and selected mineral water protocols. That complex approach was the best Soviet medicine could offer. That was the best medicine she knew. In America, it fits best into the “integrative medicine” approach, and she is as committed to it now as she was at 10.

During her PhD work in the neuroscience program at the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, she also worked with a clinical team developing treatments for people who survived prolonged cardiac arrest and strokes and saw that both pharmaceutical and natural substances have an impact on the restoration of neurologic functions. During her time in the program, is where she first developed her interest in working with patients.

While still in Russia, she also began her passion for Chinese medicine by taking Tai Chi classes five days a week. Tai Chi helped her to heal compression fractures that led to years of back pain. As the University of Bridgeport had an Acupuncture institute that allowed for enrollment alongside the ND program, it was only natural for her to enthusiastically complete a dual degree. Through first-hand experience, she adds these additional tools to clinical care.

As a trained biophysicist with a love of biochemistry and a deep interest in neurology, she looks forward to working with patients presenting with the most complex neurologic problems.

To better serve more patients, Dr. Medeya speaks English, Russian and Georgian.