Naturopathic medicine includes various treatments, which can be used in harmony with your current health practices (including medications) to optimize your results. Learn more about individual modalities below.
Treatments
Nutritional Counselling
Nutrition is the cornerstone to health. What and how we eat sends information to the rest of our body, impacting everything from our hormone production to our immune function. Emphasis will always be around ensuring patients are getting enough nutritious “information”, while sometimes removing foods which we suspect are irritating the body. Triggering foods can lead to inflammation and damage in the gut, which may present as gastrointestinal disturbance, joint pain or brain fog. Nutritional recommendations are not meant to restrict diet, but to promote a balanced and nutritious intake of foods. A healthy and happy gut is a foundation of wellness.
Botanical Medicine
Botanical medicine is an incredible way to encourage your body’s natural ability to heal. Herbal formulations are individually made to custom fit a patients constitution and needs, and to ensure the herbs are working together harmoniously. Depending on the desired constituents from a plant, extractions can be in alcohol (tinctures), water (infusion or decoction) or oil (glycerites or salves). Various herbs can be used to support digestion, modulate stress levels, help with sleep, improve concentration, regulate hormones, support cardiovascular health and so much more.
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is based in the philosophy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, a medicine that has been around for thousands of years. Acupuncture uses very thin needles at various points around the body in order to communicate to the body’s systems. Depending on point selection acupuncture can help to relieve pain, manage anxiety, regulate menses, optimize fertility, improve sleep and much more. Points are selected based on a patients constitution and chief concerns.
Holistic Counselling
The way we perceive, process and react to our environment has arguably the biggest impact on our health. We will spend time reflecting on challenges a patient faces, and address narratives or beliefs that may not be serving you. We will reflect on how thought patterns manifest into behaviours, and the impact those behaviours have on one’s wellbeing. We will discuss goals and priorities, and develop strategies that honor those goals. This is often the messy work, and is central to creating meaningful and lasting change.
Physical Medicine
Movement is so integral to our health, however in our fast paced society it can be challenging to find the motivation and energy to make it a habit. While acknowledging personal goals and obstacles, we will come up with ways to incorporate movement into your life in an enjoyable and realistic way. Supportive therapies such as cupping, acupuncture, muscle scraping, stretching, trigger point release and hydrotherapy can be used to help with muscle recovery and pain, as well as to optimize athletic performance.
Supplementation
Supplements are often used to support the body and ensure it has the building blocks it needs in order to function optimally. Ideally, we would get our nutrients from our diet, but when we are dealing with malabsorption, poor bioavailability and various life circumstances, sometimes we need something more targeted. We typically don’t think of supplements as a long term solution, but as an adjunctive therapy that helps get our body on the right track while we work to optimize underlying pillars of health such as nutrition, movement and lifestyle.