Services
What is Naturopathic medicine?
Naturopathic medicine is a philosophy of treating the whole person. The following principles are the foundational differences between an ND and an MD.
- First of all, to do no harm.
- To act in cooperation with the Healing Power of Nature.
- To address the fundamental causes of disease.
- To heal the whole person through individualized treatment.
- To teach the principles of healthy living and preventive medicine.
Naturopaths are trained in all the same sciences as an MD plus have extensive training in herbal medicine, homeopathy, nutrition, counseling, and physical medicine. We always start with the smallest impacting treatment, because we want to assist the bodies natural healing ability to get back in balance.
As an ND, I treat the whole person so people begin to see an improvement in the way they feel, their energy levels increase, sleep quality improves, and their overall outlook on life improves.
As ND’s we are able to treat all type’s of conditions, including but not limited to: peri and post menopause, weight concerns, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthma, autoimmune diseases, eczema, IBS, Crohn’s disease, allergies, fibromyalgia as well as doing sports physicals, and women’s and men’s annual exams.
What is Functional Medicine?
I am a member of the Arizona Personalized Healthcare Professionals where we believe our mission is “Functional healthcare professionals empowering patients and clients to overcome chronic disease.”
Functional medicine required additional training acquired after graduating from medical school. I trained with Dr. Weatherby, who has written many books on the topic of Functional Bloodwork that he based on studying thousands of labs. He learned that various patterns could be discovered and they were a road map to finding optimal health. In particular, a functional, optimal analysis is great for finding nutritional deficiencies and systemic concerns.
Functional medicine involves looking at lab work to find what is optimal, as it is a smaller reference range than that used by any other doctors. In addition, there are particular functional tests I perform as part of your comprehensive physical exam. These tests are to discover gastro-intestinal issues, hypo thyroid, varying degrees of adrenal fatigue, dental issues that may be impacting overall health and more.
I also have a number of questions I use to rule out or rule in particular concerns that arise from the results of these tests.
As a Naturopath I am already comprehensive in my approach to any of your concerns, however this provides even more science based information to allow us to not do guessing games.
Functional medicine, just like Naturopathic Medicine, is all about treating the underlying cause, not the symptoms. Both look at the whole person, in particular this is useful for chronic issues, however Functional Medicine provides further more in-depth information than even Naturopathy.
Research Confirms Efficacy of Functional Medicine
A research team including Daniel J. Kalish, founder of the Kalish Institute in Oakland, CA and Susanne M. Cutshall and Larry R. Bergstrom currently practicing at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN released a study around functional medicine. The study shows a variety of stress, fatigue, and quality of life measures can be improved through functional medicine, a growing field utilizing lab based supplement programs, including life style and nutritional counseling.
Natural Practitioner published June 2016
What is Myofascial Release?
As you change physically, you are changing internally as well as emotionally. You are releasing the emotional attachment to injury / pain or experience. Perhaps you want to free yourself to experience life more fully. You can release issues, emotions, limitations, anxieties, and fears that are locked in your soft tissues and muscles. You can remove fright/flight/freeze/fight from your immediate response mechanisms. You can move past the PTSD symptoms and trauma remnants so that you are able to live the life you want to live.
Whether the pain is visceral, fascial, neuro or radiucular this concept works. My goal is to not only increase your range of motion and pleasure but to alleviate your pain.
To do this, I focus on fascial tissue (fluid tissue that surrounds all muscles and organs allowing them to move without sticking) by also removing emotional attachments that we associate with that pain / discomfort / limited range of motion etc. I ‘coach’ both physically and verbally, you into releasing the issues and or the emotions thereby allowing you to release the adhesion’s (physically and emotionally) that limit them and displays itself as pain (acute and chronic), stiffness, inability to move, lack of energy, depression etc.
Most depression is caused by chronic inflammation in the body. The body can be depressed, the emotions can be, and the mind can be. I attempt to make the changes to the body to allow a release of depression and assist in finding healthy outlets you will actually participate in. We have located an amazing video that explains fascia and what it is exactly; The Fuzz.
**** Please be aware, this video uses cadavers to show the muscles, the fascia etc.”
It can hurt in this sense; IF there is pain in the body where we are working, pain will be released. To be released it is felt, and then it’s gone. When a person is already in pain they have a hard time seeing this, they think “Oh no more pain, I can’t do that.” It’s NOT more pain, its releasing the existing pain and then there is NO pain. It can be uncomfortable; people learn how to check into their bodies for how they ‘feel’.
People with emotional issues get to learn how to physically ‘feel’ their bodies, not just express descriptions they’ve heard. Anytime we hit an uncomfortable zone you know we’re making changes and exploring new avenues. Quite exciting to do and go through. It can be exhilarating for all the above reasons. A new found freedom of movement, of breathing, less pain or no pain, increased range of motion ..increased energy and stamina, a new outlook on day to day life etc.
I love what I do. I love how it always works. Don’t confuse this with all people get the same results, this is not cookie cutter work. I work with each person with what their bodies need. Need is based on client input, client history and client structural analyses.
Tired of being in pain yet? See me at least once before you opt for surgery. You have only pain to lose.