| 12 July 2010
Interview with Dr Karl Hromek about holistic medicine,
injectable nutrients,
and becoming a doctor...
“Framing has been a great passion for me, as well as music, which is still something I love… a hidden passion that not many people know about. I play guitar and mandolin, and a bit of piano… I’m pretty much self-taught, and write songs as well. Yes, there is a band and we meet at my place once a week and practice originals and covers — we’re called The Girlfriends. We’ve done a few gigs, we rock out and have fun.
If I hadn’t dedicated so much time to becoming a doctor, I might have been a musician. I have always been interested in music and would have done a lot more of that. It really was hard to become a doctor, extremely challenging, but something happens to you and you become somewhat (ha ha) indoctrinated.
The most confronting thing early in my career was people looking at me for a solution. This felt like an overwhelming responsibility initially, and it took me a while to get my head around this… and accept it. I’ve been a doctor for 24 years now and I still vividly remember, as an intern, coming home and laying on my kids trampoline and looking up to the sky and saying to myself, ‘Oh what have I done?’ This voice came from within me, it truly happened, and said, ‘You can do this if you want to.’ I knew instantly that I could and something just lifted from me, I felt that I could really trust my choice and then it was a natural progression into medicine.
They tell you different in medical school, but you really do, as a doctor, learn a lot from your patients and as much as we are taught not to, I continue to trust what my patients have to share. So often you will hear the same stories from different patients, and that was an important lesson from me, to really listen… I learn so much from my patients.
I started practicing medicine in Byron Bay in 1987, but I first moved to this shire in 1974. Back in the ‘good old days’ you could park anywhere you wanted, when you went for a walk you would know practically everyone on the streets, it really was that small. I had my holistic practice there, in Byron, for 15 years and with such a rapid increase in tourist population I decided it didn’t really suit me anymore so I now practice from Mullumbimby.
Every day I drove through Mullum to Byron, from my tropical fruit farm I bought in 1976, and thought it was the obvious place to move the surgery to. I used to run the land I live on as a business but now I don’t grow fruit commercially, now the land just kind of runs me. I don’t really understand all the dreaming stuff but I do feel something, like the relationship Aboriginal people have with the land… it does something to you and this is why I still call Boogarem Falls home.
When I first became a doctor I did have a leaning towards natural medicines. If mainstream medicine has a better solution then I do prescribe that, but I prefer natural modalities and in some circumstances there are no solutions in mainstream medicine. Every patient is so individual in their biochemistry so it really does depend on the patients and their particular problem.
I am interested in injectable nutrients and have written a book about that. It involves finding out what biochemical problems people can have, and then finding ways to fix them through nutrients given intravenously, often at high doses. One of the greatest advantages of injectable nutrients is that they go directly to where the problem is, rather than orally taken nutrients which you can’t guarantee the patient will fully absorb. Injectable nutrients have a 100% absorption rate.
Sensitive patients are usually sensitive to taking medications and vitamins orally, because commonly their digestive system is the cause of sensitivity. When we treat sensitive patients intravenously it is uncanny how they have no sensitivity reaction, and they tolerate the high dosages very well. These high dosages mean that the nutrients can act like pharmaceuticals in action... and have much power.
Only some nutrients are injectable, you wouldn’t be able to inject proteins for example. There are about a dozen nutrients that a holistic practitioner can use… like vitamin C and vitamin D now, antioxidants, many of the B vitamins and glutathione. Iron is especially successful taken intravenously, especially in child-bearing aged women, pregnant women, and especially pregnant women who might be vegetarian or have coeliac problems, gluten intolerance issues or other intolerances that make it difficult to absorb iron any other way. It can take years, literally years to build up iron levels after childbirth, heavy menstruation or long-term low iron ingestion and a course of injectable iron will lift the levels almost instantly. Some women can struggle for half a life time with low iron levels and are amazed how quickly, after a course of injectable iron, they get their life back. We are not well designed to extract iron from plant foods.”
You can find a concise and informative explanation of injectable nutrients and the different vitamins that can be used in this natural health system in Dr Hromek’s book, Injectable Nutrients, 2009 published by KAM publishing, Mullumbimby. You can to purchase a copy of the Injectable Nutrients book at Karl and Ann-Mary Hromek’s surgery, Mullumbimby Argyle Medical Centre, 1 Argyle Street Mullumbimby, phone 02 6684 3531
