Naturopathy is a health discipline that looks at you as a whole person, not just a breakdown of your parts!

The discipline draws upon various modalities (nutritional medicine, herbal medicine, integrative medicine, personalised medicine, biomedicine, physical & manual therapies, to name a few), to assess your physical, emotional, mental, spiritual & environmental wellbeing (amongst others).    It endeavours to identify and treat the cause of a disease, illness, acute or chronic condition, or performance barriers (if you’re into sport as I am).

Naturopathic care is founded on guiding principles, which are explained in my blog entry What is Naturopathy?. While all of the principles are important, at Nature’s Medicine, a significant contribution to achieving your health outcomes results from your education, coaching and managing your healthcare to a point where you are independent of care and you have sufficient knowledge and confidence to be able to continue to manage your own health, with minimal support (if any). Another key principle is prevention – this is largely managed through your ongoing education, goals and willingness to make positive lifestyle choices.

What is the aim of Naturopathic Care?

The primary aim of naturopathic care is to bring your body to a state of balance – to make sure all your ‘parts are working together and efficiently’; and the most powerful tool I have in helping you do this is education. Regardless of your chosen appointment type or education package, you will be given your own Personal Wellness Plan (PWP), so that you know what changes to make and practise before your next visit (if required), and keeps both of us accountable.

The Initial Consultation: what can you expect?

If you’ve never been to a naturopath, let alone, one who has an extensive array of skills, tools and experience to draw upon, you need to know what you’re up for! There is an enormous range of health issues and conditions that can be addressed using naturopathic care. The starting point is always good quality nutrition and understanding the enormous amount of information and choices available to you.

The Initial Consultation consists of:-

• Reviewing your comprehensive health history questionnaire,
• Reviewing your food diary,
• Understanding your health goals,
• Asking a lot of questions (sometimes very personal questions too!),
• Providing explanations for what may be happening, causing your symptoms or preventing you from feeling your best,
• Conducting some in-clinic indicative tests, including examination if appropriate,
• Baselining various biometric measurements (depending on your needs), and
• Providing explanations for solutions that you could adopt to achieve your health goals. You need all the parts to be working!

Everyone has different requirements and expectations, and in some cases, it may only be possible to address a single health goal at this initial visit as this may impact on achieving other goals. For example, subclinical hypothyroidism may impact your efforts to lose weight. Emphasis is placed on measurement (all of subjective/objective and qualitative/quantitative), as measurement is an important tool in tracking change. It’s objective, it’s consistent and it can assist to guide your health goals, choices and progress.

If you are serious about making positive changes to your health, Book an Appointment  now.

Follow-up Appointments: what can you expect?

Follow-up appointments help you keep track of new changes and are great for:

• Asking questions
• Achieving your health goals
• Continuing your education
• Deciphering the health and nutrition maze
• Tracking progress and satisfaction, and
• Accountability

Follow-up appointments (either 30, 45 or 60 minutes) can either be taken as sole visits or are available as ‘bundled education packages’ to help you save. Your health goals and initial symptoms will determine which level of recommendation best supports your health goals and Personal Wellness Plan.

You can find out more about the different appointment types here, or service fees by clicking here.

Still not sure or have some questions, please get in touch using the Contact page.