The medical practice of Dr. Toni Bark is permanently closed. Should you require your medical records, please contact the office directly.
Neurostimulation is the use of electrical impulses to block or restore nervous system function and sensation. It is used for pain control but is also used in non-painful medical conditions like anxiety, IBS, depression, or other syndromes involving an imbalance of autonomic tone. Neurostimulation could be considered the game-changer in pain medicine because it has…
How to Reverse Stress Response Damage Changing health habits related to diet, sleep, exercise, and stress management are difficult in any stage of life. But it is especially true when you are already in the throes of chronic stress. The lack of motivation, mental fog, and low energy levels that usually accompany chronic stress are obstacles that are difficult…
Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Transform Your Life A Dangerous Dietary Shift During the last 100 years we have seen a shift in the American diet away from fats and protein towards carbohydrates. Presumably this push was motivated by a desire to lower cholesterol and improve heart health. In reality, this directional change encouraged diets filled with refined grains and…
How Does a “Steel Trap” Mind Evaporate into an Unresponsive Mist? A Quick Tour Through the Gray Matter How many neurons are in the average brain? Hint: if you were to count one neuron per second, around the clock, it would take over 2,720 years. Researchers tell us there are about 86 billion neurons and 84…
How Does Toned Muscle Morph to Blobs of Blubber? Turning lead into gold was the ultimate challenge for any alchemist. As far as we know none of them ever succeeded. There is, however, an alchemy that is effortless, effective, and extremely disconcerting: the transformation of muscle tissue into fat deposits. It happens right before our…
Spiraling Physical and Mental Decline Can Be Reversed: Anti-aging researchers tell us that the human body is designed to live well beyond the 100-year mark. They frequently cite the longevity of the Hunzas, or other tribal peoples in the mountains of Eastern Europe or South America. Reportedly these peoples were strong and vibrant into their…
I spent a good 15 months devising a product which will help increase stress resilience and reduce mitochondrial damage. My product is called Invigoral and can be found here and here The next few blog entries will be chapters of the blooklet I created about Invigoral: New Hope and Help for an Age Old (Old Age)…
Cancer rates have skyrocketed, we are seeing cancers in younger and younger patients every year. It has become the new normal. While many experts will tell you if you live long enough you develop cancer, it wasn’t always like this. The focus in mainstream medicine is to state cancers are unrelated to each other and…
It seems as though every week I am seeing new patients in my Chicago area office, with a complex of bizarre symptoms. The common denominator is a recent Gardisil vaccination. Gardisil is a vaccine produced by Merck with the implication it will prevent cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is the 19th leading cause of cancer death…
The concept of a Ketogenic diet has been around for decades and was historically recommended to treat intractable seizures. The initial iteration was yukky! All cream, butter, margarine, corn oil, mayonnaise and nothing tasty, interesting or very healthy. Ketogenic diets have come a long way, and the concept of eating low carbohydrates and higher fat…
In the early nineties, the buzz word for anyone seeking out alternative views on chronic illness was candidiasis. Candidiasis is an overgrowth of Candida, a yeast that is normally present in our environment but is opportunistic and can overgrow when normal bacteria are missing or reduced. Candida was blamed for everyone presenting with chronic inflammation,…
I have always taken pride in the natural looking results I achieve in the aesthetic work I perform on my patients. If you are someone who wants to look frozen in time and would rather have a bizarre looking upper lip than vertical lines, I am not your woman. However, if you just want to…
Most patients with chronic complaints, describe feelings or sensations in the body of generalized anxiety. Whether their list of complaints include things like insomnia, hot flashes, tingling in their extremities, irritable bowel. Or, more specifically, chronic back pain, an inability to move past an injury, or issues in a relationship, the one thing in common…
In my Chicago area office, I often discuss nutrition, recipes and the need to avoid GMO and pesticides as part of a smart disease prevention program. The past year, I had the honor to be intricately involved with creating and shooting a film (Bought) to be released this summer, which highlights the conflicts of interest…
It seems that everyone is on some sort of low carb diet. The wave of people on some variation of a paleo diet is growing for good reason: carbs are inflammatory and excess carbs lead to increased triglycerides and dense LDL, and hence, heart disease diabetes and even increased cancer risks. However, it seems many…
Every week, new patients present to my Chicago area office, with pain in one of their joints. And often there is pain in many joints. Pain in multiple joints can be an autoimmune arthritis, systemic inflammation or side effects from medications, while pain in one or two joints is most likely due to wear and…
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) used to be termed, Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy or RSD. In fact, the older name is truly a more accurate description of the syndrome. For some susceptible people, once injured, the autonomic nervous system does not stop sending pain signals to the brain, long after the actual injury should be healed.…
I have written about Peyronies disorder in other blog entries. It is one of the least talked about ailments due to the nature of the disease. In general, men aren’t comfortable speaking about personal issues and there really isn’t anything more personal than a syndrome which directly affects the shape, size and function of the…
Many patients come to my office for sexual dysfunction (SD). SD can look like painful intercourse for women and erectile dysfunction (ED) or Peyronies for men. While there are many reasons for SD, one commonality among patients is an underlying dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system. The exception is ED caused by vascular damage or…
This is a high protein, nutritious and easy to make soup meal, a type of meal often requested by my patients who either taste my lunch or hear about my cooking or attend my food prep classes. And, who have patiently been waiting for a cook book (ugh, don’t hold your breath)! Measure a cup…
While this season has been particularly bad for viral illnesses, not all viral illnesses with fever are actually influenza. In a typical year, only about 7% of those labelled as having flu, actually have influenza. This year could be a very different percentage. we won’t know until the “flu” season is over. I would not…
So many patients ask for my recipes and not everyone can make it to my cooking classes. For an easy holiday meal that feels like cozy comfort food I’m sharing my favorite quinoa-lentil dish. This dish, a one pot, meal wonder, is a super easy and really yummy dish without being high glycemic or un-healthy…
I have been treating women for hormone disturbance in my Chicago area office for almost 20 years. I was prescribing bio-identical hormones way back then. Giving grand rounds at various Chicago area hospitals on the subject, often taking loads of flack by the OB-GYNs who would attend. Of course, that was then. Now, the OB-GYNs…
Every now and then, I write about facial rejeuvenation techniques such as liquid facelifts, something that sets me apart from the average “filler”. What I’d like to write about today is the use of blunt tipped cannulas for facial filling. While this sounds technical (it is ), it can make a world of difference between…
I have mentioned Scenar a few times in my blog mostly regarding pain and injury. The FDA approval for the device is for pain which has been the most common indication for using the device. However, while in Haiti after the earthquake in 2010, I discovered patients describing having more energy and feeling a lifting…
I recently ran into a patient of mine at the local market. I inquired if she was still with her husband. She had expressed extreme dissatisfaction with him during the last few visits to my Evanston office, complaining he was completely selfish. During the conversation at the market, my patient informed me that the behavior…
Everyday, I notice women in the Chicago area who have had obvious facial filler jobs performed on them. They all look similar. Why is this and is it the only way to rejuvenate one’s face? The answer to the second question is, no. The answer to the first question is twofold: Most doctors use fillers…
Once again, the mainstream medical PR machine has managed to infuse a reductionistic and myopic conclusion on a study which was set up from the beginning to focus on distracting issues. The Stanford study on organic food as compared to standard commercial food did look at some important issues including pesticide levels in the children…
While the medical community likes to focus on cancer cures, there are those of us who believe in putting our energies into prevention. So many of our chronic illnesses, including many common cancers, can be prevented. Much of our focus is on cures because big pharma makes it’s profits on selling cures and it’s big…
Everyone likes to have good energy. What often attracts people to others is energy: positive energy, “a good vibe”. We are all packets of energy, and what we pick up on when we meet others, is how they make us feel. Feeling good mentally, physically and spiritually is the biggest attractant we have. How do…