First, I have worked with different clients on the same medical diagnoses (provided by medical doctors as I don’t diagnose). As much as I would like to apply a quickie protocol to each client with the same diagnosis, I have found it next to impossible to achieve. Each person is so different and their steps to healing are so different, that even if I have worked on a specific diagnosis before, it’s really about whether I’ve worked with YOU before. So the question I would love to hear is ‘Do you customize your health suggestions for each individual?’ If so, I’d proudly answer, ‘Heck yea!’

Secondly, I wish I got asked about my perspective on healing rather than if I have experience with a diagnosis. I believe that diagnoses just describe the symptoms of the problem, but not the root of the problem. So I would prefer to be asked if I have experience with the immune system acting incorrectly (e.g. autoimmune disorders) rather than the question of whether I’ve worked with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). Or, I would prefer to be asked if I thought there was hope to reverse chronic illnesses or chronic kidney disease. I would love someone to call and ask ‘Are you focused on identifying the root cause of the illness rather than just focusing on the symptom?’ To that question, I’d answer a gleeful ‘Bring it!’

Fundamentally, I’d like to be asked if I have familiarity or success working on how the body is manifesting its imbalance, because I believe the diagnosis is informative but not indicative of what needs to be done to support each individual body and enable healing.

On last thing about diagnoses, I find them kind of depressing. It gives me the feeling of an ending place rather than a starting place of curiosity. When asked if I have experience on a diagnosis for which I’ve never had a client, I simply answer no but would prefer, for me, that it not be a screening question and the end of the conversation but the start of one.

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1. Offer support for clients that want to stop taking prescriptions

The majority of my clients are ultimately wanting to stop taking, or get lower dosages, of their medications. Unfortunately, it is difficult to go off some medications cold turkey (e.g. heartburn medications), but as I’ve heard from my clients, frequently many medications create new symptoms over time.

There are numerous practitioners that can help you start taking medications, but very few that support clients that want to cease taking them. To support these clients, the first step is addressing the original root cause that created the symptom which is being medication and then offering support if clients elect to discontinue the medication.

2. We really want to hear your whole story – and dedicate time to it

I want to hear every client’s story. Our stories and histories are so important and I believe we rarely have an audience that wants to hear it word-for-word and even asks for more detail. I love this part of my 2-hour initial consultation as it really gives me a better understanding of my client and her perspective. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-c-senelick-md/patient-care_b_1410115.html

I’ve even noticed an interesting trend in my practice in which a key piece of information comes out at the 1 ½ hour mark. I get things like ‘oh, I had open heart surgery’ come up an hour and a half into our initial consultation which suggests to me that our own ‘normal’ gets sometimes gets minimized unless someone is curious and encouraging it.

3. We benefit from hearing your whole story

The benefit of hearing your whole story is that it frequently can answer some outstanding questions of what is going on and why. I love to draw myself a timeline during the story and when clients say ‘I haven’t felt good for 10 years’, I get to ask what significant life events happened 10 years ago. Sometimes, the client hears themselves say ‘I started or stopped a certain medication’, ‘I got a divorce’, or a milder symptom had already started. http://epiphany-health.com/holistic-health-appointment/

4. We do ‘pre-diseaseonal’

I know pre-diseaseonal is not a word, but a friend of mine who is a nurse came up with it to describe why she thinks naturopathy has an important place. Naturopaths and some holistic health practitioners look at the iris of the eye, whites of the eye, tongue, face, hair, nails and do muscle response testing among other assessments. These tools can help to identify weakness / issues in the body before they become a disease state. Typically in conventional medicine, a condition must progress to a disease state in order to be identified. I would rather stop its progression before it ever gets there.

5. Programs are customized to the individual

As a holistic health practitioner, I don’t have any standard protocols that I can give to everyone with the same symptoms or diagnosis. Everyone is an individual with unique genes, blood type, life experiences, tendencies and beliefs. Therefore each program is customized to the individual and I can confirm that no program is alike (just as no 2 people are alike).

6. I’ll meet you where you are

I tend to be a pragmatist and don’t always eat right and exercise. Similarly I have clients that don’t want to change one thing about their diet, or stop smoking, or lose weight, or any number of other habits that we each have for so many reasonable reasons.

I am happy to meet each client where they are and am pretty good at the give and take program development in order to help them meet their goals within their parameters. I once had a client mention an item from a 12-step program which states that ‘you’re only as sick as your secrets’. I am not even close to perfect, and am carrying extra weight and have a weakness for potato chips, so I’m happy to meet my clients where they are and just want them to be authentic and honest as I have no room to judge.

7. You get to keep your clothes on

I don’t know about you but stripping down into a hospital gown is pretty intimidating and just makes me feel flustered. I am especially uncomfortable when asked to change even before I’ve talked to the doctor (especially a new one).

As a holistic health practitioner, I will certainly ask to see your bare feet, any tattoos or scars, or varicose / spider veins but my clients get to keep their clothes on – which works for both of us.

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As a Traditional Naturopath, I get to work with clients on their health issues with a focus on identification of the root cause in order to make health improvement suggestions using natural remedies. In this role I have the responsibility of listener, herbalist, homeopath, iridologist, advocate, optimist, researcher, ‘dot connector’ and problem-solver. http://www.prevention.com/health/why-you-should-see-a-naturopath

My training as a Traditional Naturopath includes everything from food, minerals, herbs, homeopathics, and essential oils to reflexology, parasites, heavy metal toxicity, magnets, and sound and color therapy. It’s a very extensive 4-year program of study providing a broad base of numerous healing modalities http://naturopathicinstitute.info/nite/academics/programs/natural-health-naturopathic-classes/.

Keep in mind that clients rarely engage me at the beginning of a health crisis – I don’t get a lot of calls for support with the basics. I am typically engaged usually after a lot of other attempts have been tried or by the time clients are on so many medications that the conventional medical paradigm just doesn’t work for them anymore. Frankly, this is exactly why I found my first natural health practitioner too http://epiphany-health.com/about/.

Since I’m engaged later in a health crisis, it can take more effort to understand what started the illness trajectory. This requires listening to the whole story as typically it developed over time, researching medication side effects and the associated nutritional deficiencies, having conversations about food, emotions, and lifestyle and identifying the best natural remedy program in order to peel back that proverbial onion. When clients find me they’ve already tried lots of approaches for healing so we frequently have to undo previous work to get to the root cause together. This work can be slow but with patience clients can get farther.

So, why we each need a Naturopath is that they play a unique role in working with individuals on their health issues. Naturopaths go way beyond just identifying which supplement to address a symptom, as the value in engaging a Naturopath is taking a larger view of your health issue, identification of the root cause, and developing a comprehensive program and vision to help you feel good again.

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Across many institutions we see the benefits of teams with members that have different backgrounds, ethnicity, and life experiences. Studies show these teams are better at solving complex, non-routine problems. One key ingredient, according to Scientific America article by Katherine Phillips, October, 2014 (www.scientificamerica.com), is that these teams of people with different backgrounds bring new information, but most importantly, ‘simply interacting with individuals who are different forces group members to prepare better, to anticipate alternative viewpoints and to expect that reaching consensus will take effort’. As a former project manager in which I led teams of cross-functional staff, frequently with different goals and perspectives, I can attest that facilitating these team members is not easy, but consistently their decisions are always more informed, insightful, and result in a longer-term positive results.

I want this same innovation and alternative viewpoints on my own personal health care team so that I know I’m getting the optimal intervention tailored to me and my health issues. It’s my dream that if ever I had significant health care need that my team would come together with mutual respect and facilitate a discussion on developing a customized program with the end goal in sight.

I believe my team of health care experts might be better suited than other homogeneous teams, to think through all the pros and cons and options for handling an acute situation while considering long-term outcomes and issues. I believe this team might be better at identifying less-invasive steps to remedy a situation before more invasive steps (start with a change in diet or lifestyle or herbal intervention, before medications with side effects or surgery). Lastly, but most importantly, I want my team striving to find the root cause of illness rather than focused on symptom management.

If a client of mine is in a car accident, I would suggest a call to 911 or conventional medical practitioners before calling me, for sure. However, when discussing interventions that may have long-term implications, I think more perspectives at the table are better for the long-term.

In my mind’s eye, my health care team dream sequence has me waking up in my hospital bed and seeing a team that maybe looks something like the Village People band from the 1970s staring back at me http://www.officialvillagepeople.com/ . I would then know I was in good hands.

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