Dr. Lena Suhaila ND, FABNO
Dr. Lena Suhaila ND, FABNO
My interest in natural medicine started long before medical school – I was 13 when I found a book that changed how I thought about the body, and not long after I was planting an herb garden in my family’s backyard in the Bay Area. That curiosity never left. But it took on a new weight when someone I loved deeply was diagnosed with cancer while I was still in medical school. I felt helpless – I knew nothing yet of how to help. So when residency came, I chose to focus in oncology. Partly to learn everything I could for that person. But also because I discovered something unexpected: I loved how real people become when they are faced with a life-threatening illness. The pretense falls away. What matters becomes clear. I wanted to be present for that- and useful in it. That experience shapes everything about how I practice.
I work with a metabolic terrain-oriented approach – meaning I work with your body to understand how and why illness occurs, not just what to do about it. Think of your body’s terrain as the soil in which cancer may, unfortunately, grow. You are the gardener. Everything you put into, onto, or surround yourself with – foods, medicines, relationships, beliefs – shapes that terrain.
Cancer is not a single event. It is a process resulting from an imbalance in the body. Removing the tumor through surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation alone does not remove the process that produced it. To truly heal, we have to restore the conditions that allow the body to return to balance.
When we look at illness as a process within our lives rather than an external force to fight, something shifts. We discover that we have real agency. Treatment of the whole person – not merely the cancer – becomes the priority.
Through in-depth lab analysis, epigenetic assessment, deep nutrition, and lifestyle modification, I help patients understand their unique terrain and build individualized treatment plans. We address the physical – reducing treatment side effects, supporting immunity, microbiome, and nutritional status, and improving the outcomes of conventional care. But we don’t stop there.
We also explore the emotional roots of illness. To balance the science, I use somatic psychotherapeutic techniques including Compassionate Inquiry (developed by Gabor Maté) and Internal Family Systems Therapy – approaches that reveal what lies beneath the surface, the patterns and coping mechanisms that shape our health as much as anything physical.
I also hold certifications from MAPS and The Institute of Integrative Psychiatry in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, and offer this work on a limited basis at a farm in the Algarve region of Portugal – for those who feel ready for that depth of transformation.
I am here for people who are willing to look inward as well as outward. Who want to understand their illness, not just treat it.
Together, we restore the terrain.