Dr. Richard Nahas
Physician, Healer and Innovator in Integrative Healthcare
Revolutionizing Health Through Innovation and Holistic Care
At the core of modern medicine’s evolution stands Dr. Richard Nahas, a pioneer in blockage-based care and a leader in integrative medicine. With decades of experience, he has redefined how we approach pain, chronic conditions, and overall well-being. His mission? To bridge cutting-edge medical advancements with time-honored healing practices, empowering patients to take control of their health.
As the founder of Seekers Wellness Group (SWG), Dr. Nahas leads a collective of scientists, researchers, and wellness practitioners dedicated to rethinking health from the inside out. His expertise spans regenerative medicine, neural therapy, and personalized treatment plans designed for long-term transformation—not just symptom management.
Dr. Nahas’ Story
Dr Nahas is a Canadian MD practicing in NYC to further his mission to advance medicine. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Toronto in 1998, at the age of 24. He did two years of post-graduate training in anesthesiology, choosing to complete his training in family medicine to allow him to combine more of the things he loved about medicine. These include hands-on procedures, acute care medicine, diagnostic problem-solving, whole-person care and mind-body medicine, exercise and nutrition, mindfulness and wellness, peak performance and human potential.
The first chapter of his career was in emergency medicine. He worked as a staff ER physician at Mount Sinai Hospital, the North York General Hospital and other teaching hospitals in Toronto, and also served as a locum ER physician in several rural and remote hospitals in Canada. During the SARS epidemic of 2003, he was a front-line physician with the CDC and Toronto Public Health at the Sunnybrook Hospital.
His experience with SARS led him to seek a deeper understanding of the innate healing power of the body.
He spent two years travelling the world, studying traditional medicine and working with indigenous healers in South America, Europe and Asia. This led to his integrative practice in Ottawa, Canada, where he has led a multidisciplinary team treating severe chronic pain for almost two decades.
During this time, he developed skills and expertise in many therapies and disciplines, incorporating acupuncture, manual medicine, natural health products, kinesiology, and many other integrative tools that have improved his patient outcomes. His research includes evidence-based reviews, clinical practice guidelines and an NIH-funded clinical trial. He has taught medical students and residents, has been an invited lecturer at international conferences, and served as Chair of the Medical Interest Group for Complementary and Integrative Medicine at the Ontario Medical Association.
In 2010, Dr. Nahas was introduced to Neural Therapy, which uses local anesthetics injections to target areas of prior trauma, infection or other tissue injury. This led to a profound insight about these lesions, which are called interference fields. These hidden lesions, where connective tissue and sensitised nerves generate tension, stress and inflammation, can affect the body as a whole in unexpected ways. While they are recognized by many of the healing systems of the world, they remain completely unknown to medicine. In 2024, he was elected as the President of the North American Academy of Neural Therapy (NAANT).
Dr. Nahas uses a whole-person approach to deliver targeted, personalized interventional treatment to treat nerves and fascia, body and mind.
His unique palpation skills allow him to precisely target connective tissue lesions that cause peripheral nerve entrapment in long chains of fascia. He uses dextrose and local anaesthetic injections in combination with The Seekers Method, an assisted stretching technique that combines movement and touch, breath and awareness, to find and release these restrictions in tissue, which he refers to as blockages.
His professional mission is to accelerate the transition to blockage-based care as a historic advance in medicine.
He is developing workshops and videos to help patients and providers learn to use his approach to improve outcomes.
His elective experiences were guided by an interest in global health that continues to this day. This included clinical rotations in the trauma unit of the Johannesburg General Hospital in South Africa, research on child mortality in the neurosurgery department of the Abu El Reesh paediatric hospital in Cairo, Egypt, and a public health in Jerusalem, Israel, a medical partnership for peace between the Hadassah Medical Center and Al Quds University. He has contributed to research projects and mission trips in Panama, Honduras and Costa Rica.
These principles continue to guide his career, which includes his clinical practice in interventional pain and regenerative medicine with his work as the founder of the Seekers Wellness Group, which is developing and managing a portfolio of products and services to support people and providers who identify as Seekers. These include a waterfall wellness property in Costa Rica, a mobile platform for crowdsourcing evidence at the point of care, and other tools that contribute to this mission.
Research and Advocacy
Dr. Nahas created an undergraduate curriculum for medical students at the University of Ottawa, published journal articles and textbook chapters, and contributed to the 2013 Canadian Diabetes Guidelines and the NIH-funded multinational TACT trial. He has been invited to speak at international conferences about how integrative medicine can improve healthcare.
The BEAM Project
There is an overall lack of evidence supporting Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). While many natural treatments have been used for centuries and many have been shown effective in clinical trials, these are typically not large or rigorous enough for doctors to consider them ‘proven’. Problems with lack of funding, study design, standardizing treatments and appropriate placebos make it unlikely that this will ever change. Observational data, which is evidence from real-world use of a treatment, has the potential to help solve this global problem. With the growing use of mobile technology, it has become possible to collect data on CAM use from both patients and providers at the point of care.
BEAM (Bringing Evidence to Alternative Medicine) is a project that enables documenting treatments and patient’s progress through the development and use of a mobile app. This will allow for the crowdsourcing of clinical outcomes data at the point of care to help patients better navigate CAM treatment options more safely and effectively. Aggregate data collected through the BEAM project will serve as a resource to global healthcare.
With the BEAM project, the Seekers Centre is developing these tools and evaluating their potential to gather outcomes data and improve care.
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Rational Prescribing – Melatonin for Better Sleep and Brain Wellness
If you suffer from insomnia, and are looking for a safe natural remedy, you should consider melatonin. It has been well-studied in clinical trials in many conditions, and its low cost and demonstrated safety make melatonin a sensible therapy to try out and see if it helps your symptoms. This is called rational prescribing, and you can do it on your own, or with your doctor or wellness provider.
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Rational Prescribing – Magnesium for Managing Pain and Cramps
If you suffer from pain in your muscles, joints or other tissues, or if you experience cramps, twitching, tremors or muscle spasms, you should consider magnesium.
While clinical trials have not yet confirmed its effectiveness, its low cost and low risk make magnesium a sensible therapy to try and see if it helps your symptoms. This is called rational prescribing, and you can do it on your own, or with your doctor or wellness provider.
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5-HTP for Depression – A rational Prescribing Approach
Depression has become one of the most common chronic diseases in the world. It affects more than 10% of the world’s population, and prescription drug treatment is inadequate in more than half of cases. While the stress of the pandemic has made mental illness a higher priority than ever, many people still struggle with the stigma attached to these disorders. That is unfortunate, because there are many other treatment options that address the brain, mind and body. The specialized fields of neurology and psychiatry are still worlds apart, making an integrative perspective of brain health more important than ever.
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Does Acupuncture Work? Rational Prescribing Meets Evidence-Based Medicine
As a medical doctor who treats chronic pain, I do a lot of acupuncture. If you are a doctor, a researcher or a layperson guided by science, your first question might be “what is the evidence for that?” While this may seem like a valid question, it is a bit misguided, and the answer is not as important as you might think. To find out whether acupuncture or any other therapy might help you, a rational prescribing approach makes more sense.
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Ozone Therapy – A Rational Prescribing Approach
Ozone therapy is not very well-known, but it should be. Ozone generators are simple devices that can turn oxygen into ozone, which can be used in many different ways to promote tissue healing and repair. Published studies support its potential role in treating painful disorders of the joints, tendons and ligaments, in addition to wounds, skin disorders and a wide range of other conditions. If you are considering this therapy, a structured trial is the best way to find out if it is right for you. This is called rational prescribing, an evidence-based approach to integrative medicine.
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Dr Nahas has a private practice in New York City, US and Ottawa, CAN.
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