By Samantha Beidoun • Photo by Hilary Nichols
Dr. Dennis Cousino, ND, HHP, CFT of Dynamic Health lets us in on a journey of pain, faith, and healing in his own life—an experience that can only be described as miraculous. Dr. Dennis Cousino was raised in Tecumseh, MI and stil lives in the area with his wife and three boys. He completed his Naturopathic Doctorate at the First University of Naturopathy and has been practicing for 15 years specializing in chronic digestive and adrenal disorders. He is also a certified QRA Practitioner, a member of the American Drugless Practitioners Association, the International Sports Science Association, and has developed his own form of Energetic Kinesiology, called BioDynamic Testing. Dr. Cousino now shares his passion for healing with his patients to help them discover the root causes of the body’s symptoms.
What first sparked your interest in this type of work?
Dr. Dennis Cousino: I started off in sports medicine but was told that there weren’t a lot of openings for physical therapists, or in that field in general, and that I wasn’t going to make a lot of money. So, I changed paths and started going to school for pre-med. At that time, I was training for a triathlon, and I started having pain in my back. I thought it was just a pulled muscle, but by the third night I ended up in the emergency room–which became the start of seven years of literal hell. I was in such great pain that I’d pass out unconscious. I saw so many doctors; I was going downhill fast, and I even went to different countries to get help.
Eventually, I came to find that I had a parasite that got up into my body and was laying eggs inside of me. From all of the doctors that I saw [and received no answers] I lost confidence in what they were doing. Nobody had any great solutions for me, so I started to see people off the radar so-to-speak, and started getting some actual help, and then took interest in a naturopathic college, and decided to do that to really help people.
In our conversation, I’ve heard you mention your faith. Do you attribute your faith to healing you in your health crisis and ultimately leading you here today?
Dr. Dennis Cousino: Absolutely! I was in such a bad place before my body became renewed. I had to drive down to Georgia for some schooling. My pastor’s wife gave me a CD of a pastor out of California, and he didn’t say anything unusual that I hadn’t heard before, but he was speaking of how the enemy works and how the enemy gets authority when we give place and meditate on the bad. Because I had been stewing and meditating on how bad this pain situation was, I decided to focus and give a stance on what I wish would happen instead. For the entire time I was driving from Ohio all the way to Tennessee I just kept repeating “I’m healed, I’m getting healed.” What was crazy was I stopped at a rest stop somewhere near Nashville, and I remember getting out of the vehicle, walking to the facilities, and I felt really weird–like everything was in slow motion. I even noticed a bird flying by, and I was staring at it in slow motion. When I came out of the restroom, I just didn’t feel rushed. I decided to sit at a picnic bench and was appreciating how peaceful everything was. I probably hung out there for about 45 minutes. And I was just absorbed in this good feeling. I was typically a fast-paced, needing to be told to slow down type of person, so it was out of character for me to be able to take time to focus and notice.
Then, when I got to the hotel in Georgia, and was getting ready to get into bed, I heard a voice that sounded like it was outside of me and inside me at the same time. It said, “Trust me.” And it was crazy because I didn’t have a fear of the voice. I just knew it wasn’t me, and I knew what it meant. I was so tired and so overwhelmed, but comforted by the voice, that I went to bed without taking my pain medication. I woke up in the same way I went to bed, the sheets were not thrown about from any thrashing of pain that usually happened. I actually slept. And that was the beginning of being pain free. It was a miracle, honestly.
Do you think there is a place for modern medicine, or should people seek out more holistic approaches?
Dr. Dennis Cousino: I think there’s a place for modern medical intervention. I often refer to it as a red, yellow, green light. I think sometimes in the red light, people need to stabilize a serious situation, but they should not be sustaining [themselves] in that area. And there are a lot of chronic conditions that absolutely can be remedied and worked out through more functional naturopathic approaches that do not need any type of medical intervention. So, it just depends on the situation.
If our regular medical doctors aren’t finding what’s going on, instead of going in this never-ending circle, people should seek alternative methods. There are a lot of things that are being overlooked [by allopathic doctors]. There are cloaked disturbances that are hidden in people’s bodies, that are not being revealed by blood tests. Symptoms are not the best indicator for how good or bad off a person is because every symptom is a courtesy for survival.
We tend to demonize symptoms and want to kill them rather than trying to help our body work itself out and regulate. Take a fever for example. You don’t kill a fever, you regulate it. If you have a fever of 103-104, you bring it down to 102 and you let the immune system optimize and kill whatever is causing it. A certain level of pain for a short time is helping the body to work it out, but we don’t want to sustain any symptoms–that’s what can create more problems. So, the problem is that we’re suppressing things with a lot of medication as a means of relief. We’re trying to make a person have a false sense of being fixed–when it’s just suppression. It’s like the game Whack-a-Mole. A symptom pops up somewhere, it gets suppressed, another symptom then pops up and makes things look like a different condition and nothing is being solved at the root. You don’t just find a needle in a haystack—you play the game of elimination.
What can people expect when they come in seeking care from your practice?
Dr. Dennis Cousino: I will have an initial evaluation and talk with them. The first thing that we focus on is making sure that we’re establishing systemic circuit communication. We’re making sure that the body is partnered with us to help it to heal. I don’t really just focus on one area, but on restoring cell communication. And the second phase is stabilizing adrenal, liver, and digestive function. When we have these things working, we’re going to be more optimized to help deal with the causes. But to not deal with these things first, then we’re failing to realize why the symptoms were there to begin with. It’s kind of a sequence I use with everyone.
When did you start Dynamic Health and how has it changed since the beginning?
Dr. Dennis Cousino: Dynamic Health started seventeen years ago. My brain has changed. I can naturally speak the language of the field rather than needing to try to recall what I’ve been taught. I’m more efficient in what I do now. I can associate conditions better and resolve things more quickly based on knowing where I’m going. The saying “you don’t know where you’re going unless you know where you came from” rings true. With my experience now I know how to connect more of the dots. I’m a big respecter of certain principles, like the law of individuality. I think that if you are always focusing on some cookie cutter protocol, you need to do something else, because people are very unique, even with similar conditions. And I may have different starting points with people. I could have somebody with diabetes that has a lot of anxiety and depression, and I can have another person who has diabetes who doesn’t have those conditions. So, if I don’t stabilize their stress pattern, then I’m not optimizing healing. Whereas with the other person, I may need to put more focus into giving them a better exercise plan.
What are some key services that you offer?
Dr. Dennis Cousino: We do bio feedback. We do alpha thermography, which is an advanced form of thermography. We do pelotherapy where we’re hoping to remove traumas and reconstruct from lack of communication from one area of the body to others. And I develop regimens for people, but the deeper thing I do is functional medicine. It’s going to be troubleshooting and really kind of carefully listening to the body and the symptoms and tracing out where the causes are coming from. My intent is to get to the root of everything. I don’t want to just try to trim a branch, and they feel better for a little bit and then it manifests back into something else–because that’s what happened to me. I want to actually find out the full picture and make resolutions.
To reach Dr. Dennis Cousino and learn more about Dynamic Health, visit dynamichealthservices.com. The office is located at 6360 Jackson Road Suite M, Ann Arbor, MI 48103. For more information call (734) 997-9400.
Read Related Articles:
Dr. Dennis Cousino, ND, HHP, CFT of Dynamic Health lets us in on a journey of pain, faith, and healing in his own life—an experience that can only be described as miraculous. Dr. Dennis Cousino was raised in Tecumseh, MI and stil lives in the area with his wife and three boys. He completed his Naturopathic Doctorate at the First University of Naturopathy and has been practicing for 15 years specializing in chronic digestive and adrenal disorders.