Docere

I think this is my absolute favourite part of my profession. Doctor as teacher. It just sounds great, right?

What does it mean? It means that after learning about your health, your concerns, your background and of course your poop, we actually sit and have the conversation about what might be happening. Whether it is that you have undergone a stressful life and your adrenals need some loving, or your gut needs to heal and your acne will clear up. There are so many different paths of healing and as mentioned, it’s different for every single one of you.

Education is SO important when it comes to our health. After being in post-secondary school for eight years, I can vouch that education is a big portion to this profession. We not only provide a treatment that is treating the root of your problem, but we explain WHY we are doing it. Maybe those headaches and sluggish bowels are a magnesium deficiency. Because a magnesium deficiency is common in North America as our soils are depleted in this important mineral. When we replenish it, it helps move our bowels and helps reduce the inflammation that might be causing our headaches. Maybe the food you’ve been putting into your body for the past 20 years, has decided to cause inflammation in your gut. And this is causing your skin to break out as if you were a teenager again! Yes, we are known to tell someone to eliminate some foods, but it doesn’t mean forever. It’s a matter of detoxing the gut for a few weeks, so it can decrease inflammation and be able to digest your favourite foods again.

There is SO much to Naturopathic Medicine and the education about your health. Sometimes something as simple as having one extra glass of water, or even a glass of red wine a night (because it is actually recommended with a Mediterranean diet), or just increasing your healthy fats – can make a world of difference to your energy!

We aren’t here to totally turn your life upside down because you can’t have ice cream anymore. We are here to prevent the decline in your quality of life. To catch the root cause, so that once it’s treated you feel good, and you feel good for the rest of your life.

So, why wait any longer? Book an appointment with a Naturopathic Doctor and learn about this alternative medicine and how it can benefit you. Nothing to lose, right? Because remember, our first principle is To Do No Harm.

Tolle Totum

Naturopathic Doctors treat the whole body, and the whole person. As mentioned, we take a full, extensive health history, including mental health, emotional health and physical health. You may be coming to us with one concern, but we want to see what else is happening in your body and where we can help augment that healing process.

We don’t treat one symptom. We treat the whole body. You may come in with a headache concern, but leave learning that your digestion is also not working well. And maybe this is causing your headaches, for example. We help make those connections with you. We help facilitate that mind body connection by treating the whole body and not an individual symptom. Our mind is as important a piece to the puzzle as our physical health.

As an ND, I help work with you to find an individualized treatment plan for you. Everyone is unique, so treatment should be unique too, right? Maybe that headache is caused by your bowels being sluggish. Someone else may come in with a headache, but bowels are working well, and we decide their course of treatment through further exploration. I think educating you on this is important. Understanding that we don’t do the same thing for everyone, and that each person that walks through these doors has a different story and we listen to that story and learn who you are and what is going to help you on your healing path. Sometimes just being asked how your mood is, or where your stress levels are is enough to make you feel heard and to trust this process. We are hear to listen about every single one of your problems and help work through them together and at your own pace.

Come find out what we can do for you, and where your treatment plan will take you!

Tolle Causum

This principle is probably one of the more important of the five for Naturopathic Medicine. This is what we do. We find the ROOT CAUSE of your disease. We don’t find a medication to suppress and just make it disappear, we take the time to do the research and figure out what is really truly causing your concern. When we figure this out, we treat it from within. Yes, sometimes antacids seem to help your heartburn, but did you know heartburn can actually be caused by too little stomach acid as opposed to too much? So, an antacid might be doing more harm than good. Remember, First Do No Harm. This is where we come in and we figure that out for you. That is just one example!

As an ND we view your symptoms as the body’s natural attempt to heal. Sometimes your symptoms could be caused by something in your environment, a food you’re eating, your daily lifestyle, your posture and so many other factors.

How do we figure it out? We take the time. We get to know you and your lifestyle, we ask every question that you could imagine. We ask about your poop, we ask about the stress in your life and your daily energy or mood. We go through a dietary history and help pinpoint certain foods that might be causing the issue. We take the time to go through your bloodwork and find any inconsistencies. We do our homework, and we help heal your body from the inside out. We treat the root and help you grow!

Interested in growing your health? Book an appointment with me and I’ll help you get to the top of your tree!

Vix Medicatrix Naturae

The healing power of nature is a key component of Naturopathic Medicine. Our body was made to heal itself. We get sick because of what the world presents us with. We are all born with a blank slate, but we are introduced to different toxins, bacterias, and infections but also introduced to the good things too! We need to be exposed to some of these so our immune system can strengthen itself. But, how we treat it is where the problems start to arise. We medicate or suppress the symptoms rather than understanding where they are coming from and how our body might actually be able to help the healing process without any outside help.

Naturopathic Doctors try to restore the healing power of the body. You would be surprised how powerful the healing power of our bodies truly is. As a Naturopathic Doctor, we work towards removing obstacles to cure and work to facilitate and augment the healing power of the body. By providing natural remedies, we treat the whole body naturally, rather than putting in more harmful products. Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely a time and place for medications and they are necessary to have in the world. But if we stop and think and assess the situation, sometimes we can find alternative routes to therapy that won’t have the harmful side effects on our body.

Connecting with nature may seem a little voodoo to a lot of you, but sometimes this just means connecting your mind and your body and facilitating the nature within you. Whether this means trying out meditation, going for a walk to solely listen to the birds, starting a gratitude journal, practicing your breathing – it can be anything. Something that brings your awareness back to your body. Being aware of what is happening within our body is one of the biggest challenges for a lot of us! So my homework for you is to find something that makes you reconnect your mind and body. I’m a big supporter of meditation so if it’s something you’re not quite sure about, try out one of these apps on your phone.

1. Insight timer: allows you to see others around you who are meditating, choose from a huge variety of meditations.
2. Calm: allows you to choose a type of meditation (I often recommend starting with a body scan), and the length of time – you can start with 3 minutes!
3. If you don’t have a phone, or aren’t quite tech savvy, just go on YouTube and type in “guided body scan meditation for beginners” and find a short 3-5 minute video and give it a try!

What is your way to connect your body with your mind?

Happy Naturopathic Medicine Week! It is amazing to be able to be a part of this profession and be recognized for it for an entire week. I hope you are able to learn a little bit about what Naturopathic Medicine is, and how it might be the right choice for you. Keep an eye out for posts this week about different aspects of Naturopathic Medicine!

Today’s Topic: Introduction to Naturopathic Medicine

Naturopathic medicine uses a natural approach to prevent diseases from occurring, and doing this with the least invasive medicine possible. We want to identify what the root cause of your concern is and then treat this root cause, rather than suppressing that one symptom. While doing this, we work with you and educate you on WHY we are doing this, and what benefits you are going to get from treatment.

When I first heard about Naturopathic Medicine, it sounded perfect. It incorporated a healthy lifestyle, with a counselling aspect, a physical medicine aspect, as well as a medical aspect. Going through the 4 years of school it required was not perfect. But it was worth it. As a practicing ND, I have had the opportunity to lead patients in the right direction of a better life. Yes, sometimes Naturopathic Medicine can be costly, but why shouldn’t we invest in our health? Our health is the most important part of life, if we don’t have our health, we don’t have quality of life.

Medically Trained:

Naturopathic Doctors are medical healthcare providers. We are trained professionals who are able to clinically treat patients but with a natural approach! As an ND, we need to complete a 4-year undergraduate degree followed by completing the four years of Naturopathic medicine school at an approved school! There are only two in Canada, in Vancouver and in Toronto. Aside from the 4 years of school, we also have to endure two very intense exams, NPLEXI and NPLEXII.
The first two years of Naturopathic Medicine school includes learning your basic sciences, and the medical side of health, and learning about pharmacology as well. Mixed in are our Naturopathic Modalities, such as Botanical Medicine, Asian Medicine, Homeopathic Medicine and Naturopathic Foundations to name a few. So, in all, we learn the medical side of things but we focus on the natural approach to treatment, and how both are used and how they interact.
NDs are trained to diagnose! We are able to do annual checkups, review or order lab tests, refer to other practitioners the needed and prescribe the appropriate supplements, or refer for pharmaceuticals when needed. We allow for the best of both worlds, where these worlds should be complementary!

Naturally Focused:

We are medical professionals with a natural approach! Naturopathic Medicine actually dates back to 2,400 years ago, to Hippocrates who used nature to stimulate the body’s natural healing power. In todays world, we blend the scientific knowledge with traditional and natural medicine!

So those are the facts about us, but here is some more personal information about this profession and what exactly we do!

Many people come to an appointment, thinking we are just going to discuss their main concern, and then get a prescription for a supplement. What many don’t realize, is that the first appointment is a full hour (or more), talking about every detail of your life! We talk about your main concern, we ask about your digestion (we love talking about poop), your sleep, your energy levels, your diet, your family and personal medical history, your mood, stress levels and so much more. We want to get to know YOU, not your symptoms. This is my absolute favourite part of my job, is learning about my patients and understanding who they are and what their passions and goals are for life and their health. We also do physical exams with you. Sometimes solely related to your concerns, but also sometimes a full screening physical exam.

When it comes to treatment, yes there are supplements. And yes, supplements are necessary sometimes. But that is not all that we offer. Naturopathic Doctors are well versed in health psychology (we take it for all 4 years of school), and with myself having a psychology background from my undergrad, mental health is one of the most important pieces to my treatment plans. You can almost always guess that I’m going to tell you to meditate, or maybe journal, or at least find one hobby or interest that makes you happy – and tell you to start doing this. We live in a society where we are constantly thinking about yesterday and worrying about tomorrow. When do we live in the now? Finding something that allows you to be present, and focus on that one thing can be so powerful for our mental health. It connects our mind and body and we can learn so much about ourselves from it.

Naturopathic Doctors can also offer acupuncture for many different concerns. Used for physical ailments, but also used for digestion, stress, anxiety, smoking cessation, infertility, period problems, hormonal imbalances and more! We help figure out what is going on in your body and how we can increase the energy of the acupuncture meridians to guide to healing. Cupping is another use for this as well. Cupping can help treat migraines, muscle pain, stress, anxiety, headaches, help detoxify and more. These are just a few different treatments we might use! You can explore here about some other options available.

I think when it all boils down, Naturopathic Medicine is truly about treating the whole person and not just a symptom. It’s not about telling you to eliminate every food you love, or spend all of your savings on supplements. It’s about working with you and finding your path to a better, healthier life. So that you can have quality of life for the rest of your life, and not just for the time being. The body knows how to heal itself, it just needs a little help along the way! And that’s why we are here, we want to be that extra support to HEAL your body. Love your body, and start investing in your health!

Believe it or not, our gut is one of the most important organs in our body. Our immune system develops in our gut throughout childhood, and continues to grow throughout the body over the course of our lifetime. When our gut is unhealthy, or not working properly, so many issues can arise. I’m going to touch on a few of these issues and educate you on how to heal the gut. Healing our body from the inside out is the most important part of your health! Continue reading “Gut Health: Healing from the Inside Out” →

Are you familiar with the saying “burn out”? If you are, chances are your adrenals have taken a pretty hard hit over the years. If you aren’t sure what this is, keep on reading and find out if it might be something you have suffered from in the past or are currently dealing with.

What are Adrenal Glands?
Let’s start with learning about our adrenal glands. These guys are so important to our overall health. The adrenals are in charge of secreting cortisol and other hormones during times of high stress. They allow for the proper release of these hormones so our body is able to adapt to whatever stressful event or environment it is in. When we start to expose our bodies to a constant, high stress environment our body starts to put itself into overdrive and we get stuck in the “Fight or Flight stage”. Continue reading “Adrenal Fatigue: Why stress is hurting us more than we realize.” →

Have you heard the news? Magnesium is one of the go-to minerals for SO many health concerns!

Trouble sleeping? Constipated? Sore muscles? Anxiety? Headaches?

Magnesium is an important mineral for several functions in our body. In the typical North American diet, we often see a lot of magnesium deficiencies and we are not really getting enough to reach the recommended dose. Why? Because, unfortunately, our soils are depleted in this beautiful mineral and our food just is not quite cutting it. It can often be a very quick fix for many symptoms and it is often overlooked with bloodwork and when it comes to treatment. Continue reading “Magnesium: The Multi-Tasker” →