My Jewish Indian Doctor

I was late to Gerson’s office, but he smiled and said, “I can sense that you’re a little out of whack, but underneath that, everything seems fine.” This reminded me of my favorite thing about him: his lack of preachiness. In fact, he told me once that as he was writing a book about Ayurvedic weight loss, he gained forty pounds.

My visits to Gerson over the years have been cathartic, silly, and life changing, and I’ve sent many people to him as well. Years ago, I talked my mother from the mountains of Virginia into seeing him after she’d been diagnosed with a form of heart disease. She has a flare for the Southern Gothic, and she had started clutching her new nitroglycerine tablets and talking about her funeral.

When I picked her up from Gerson’s office, she had a smile on her face and held her medical chart tightly to her chest. She refused to talk about her visit. Eventually she admitted that Gerson had looked at her file and said “There’s nothing wrong with your heart.” At that moment, he became my Favorite Person. There is no one else on Earth who would have gotten her attention the way he did. To this day, she has not had a problem with her heart. My oldest sister (back pain, stomach pain) who has always been a super-athlete went to Gerson too. Twelve years later, she’s still stupefied by the curative powers of the hot oil enema.

I even sent my husband, the dramatic, emotional two-hundred-pound Jewish director, to Gerson after an electrocardiologist told him he needed to have wires inserted into his heart to shock it and reset the heartbeat. He’d been suffering from arrhythmia and frightening panic attacks. When he met Gerson, they fell into a brotherly love. They talked about their common Russian Jewish ancestry, their love for jiu-jitsu, and when my husband left, they actually hugged. That visit changed our lives. After examining Adam and reviewing his medical files, Gerson told him that his panic disorder and arrhythmia were psychological. He taught him breathing techniques, prescribed a cocktail of herbs, sesame oil massage, and told him he would get better. Adam hasn’t had a panic attack or irregular heartbeat since.

What makes Ayurveda so different from other types of alternative medicine is the fact that, once you learn how things work, you can do it yourself. It’s empowering and positive, not rigid and dogmatic, if you learn it from the right person. And it works seamlessly with Western medicine, which can be nice, especially since it increases your chance of getting reimbursed by your insurance company.

Check out Dr. Scott Gerson’s Web site for more information. He runs the National Institute of Ayurvedic Medicine and has written two books about Ayurveda.