East meets West at Rejuve, a new medspa in the Village that blends the best of both medical and philosophical disciplines.
"We're a holistic, comprehensive clinic," said Matt Hom, owner of the new center at 737 Pearl St., Suite 201. "We bring both beauty and health, for people to live longer and healthier and improve their energy and decrease their cancer, cardiac and stroke risks. I focus on treating the organ systems from the inside out."
Hom added skin is the largest, and most visible, organ in the human body.
Acupuncturist Yuan Wang works alongside Hom at Rejuve and believes mixing Eastern and Western methods can be very complementary. "It's very good for the patients," Wang said. "Lots of times you need a Western doctor to make sure everything is safe. But in those situations where the patient has chronic pain and has not benefited from Western medicine, they can be treated with acupuncture and herbs and have very good results."
Tricia Sterling is Hom's aesthetician. She praised his philosophy of embracing health as a whole. "It's a really unique experience for somebody to have a doctor who's also respectful of acupuncture and massage," she said. "He is very unique in this field of beauty and living well."
A physician with an internal medicine and hospital background, Hom became frustrated with the way medicine was traditionally being practiced. "My experience has taught me how fragmented American medicine is," he said. "What I'm trying to do is raise it to another level, put all the different specialities and professionals under one roof."
Working in hospitals, Hom saw too much of medical problems in their advanced stages. "One of the things I became really interested in was reaching (patients) earlier," he said, "helping them do prevention through lifestyle changes."
Hom's medical approach is geared toward customized treatment. "We personalize it for every individual," he said. "We're not treating a disease. We're treating a person, and each individual is different."
So far, melding traditional and alternative medicine has proved a successful combination. Heather Kane, a 36-year-old client of Rejuve, went into the clinic for a facial and had all her questions about proper skin care answered. "It was very personalized, thorough and professional," Kane said of her chemical peel. "After one treatment my skin just looked fresher. I'm going back for a photofacial. That will probably have even more dramatic results."
Kane, who admitted she has some sun damage to her skin, got lots of sound advice from Rejuve on how best to take care of skin, what makeup to wear, what skin-care options and procedures are available. "The staff was very personable," she added. "It felt like I was hanging out with friends, not just going to the doctor."
Rejuve MedSpa & Wellness has a menu of services that offers facials, numerous peels, body treatments, waxing, massages, anti-wrinkle injectables like Botox and Restylane, laser hair removal, IPL skin photorejuvenation, vein treatments, dietician services, physical therapy and acupuncture/herbal medicine.
A typical client at Rejuve is age 30 and up. But Hom said people are becoming more aware of skin damage from things like sun exposure, and coming in earlier in their lives for preventative treatment. Skin-care treatments have also become more affordable. Said Hom: "It's starting to reach the general population. Before, it was only for people who could afford it, the upper social class. Now, with a more knowledgeable public and neat technological advances, anybody can benefit."
Sterling feels she's short-changing clients if she treats them superficially without addressing the real cause of the problem. "A 55-year-old woman who is feeling the ailing process, she can come in here and I can do six peels on her," said Sterling, "but we're doing her a disservice if we don't talk with her about her home care. We don't want to be spending all our energy dealing with the surface of her skin, when the real problem is she's dehydrated. We ask her if she's drinking enough water, get her to talk to a nutritionist to work with her diet, or a physical therapist to give her a massage. The idea is for her to physically feel better as well."
Sterling added Rejuve's programs are performance-driven. She said: "Our programs are about results. We're also about education and accountability. When someone fails when it comes to weight management or being healthy, we break it down for them, put them on a program they can follow, work with their lifestyle. That way they have the best results."
Setting up shop in La Jolla was really an easy decision for Hom. "La Jolla is really an ideal place," he said. "This is a very well area, where people from all over the world come to be well, to rest and relax. Part of that is trying to be well-looking, beautiful, having gorgeous skin. We're here to help out."
For more information call Rejuve at (858) 456-0008, e-mail LaJollaHealth@yahoo.com or visit www.Rejuve-LaJolla.com.
Dave Schwab Dave Schwab is a reporter with the La Jolla Light. Contact Dave at (858) 875-5951 or daves@lajollalight.com.
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