I get asked this question a lot, and I want to try to do my best to answer it. To me this question is also tied to another… ‘what is my value?’ To answer both I want to look at what service I, as a Naturopath (ND), provide.
There are a few categories of people who become a Naturopath. I fall into the group who have experienced a significant amount of health problems but received little to no help. I decided I was going to go and figure out what was wrong with me and then get better. Health is so often placed on a moral pedestal in our society that there’s an assumption that if you have not achieved it or are not generally healthy then there must be something wrong with you. It can create a lot of shame and guilt. I was there, and I now help people move past this place with compassion.
You might ask, ‘but couldn’t I find out all of this information on the internet, Instagram or Reddit?’ The answer is maybe, however we may have passed the saturation point, where for every idea, tip, or education piece you find, you will find just as much information to support the opposite. This will likely leave you confused, frozen and spending way too much money on things that don’t actually help.
The beautiful part of seeing a Naturopath (in my opinion) is that we will help you understand WHY what you’re experiencing is happening. It’s the “how you got here” piece that is so essential, but is often left out in traditional medical conversations. I find this is where a lot of health anxiety comes from, not fully understanding the biology and physiology behind it and therefore making the same mistakes over and over again. I like to believe that if you understand what is happening and how you got here then you end up having choices on how to move forward. So often health is over simplified, with wellness influencers proposing one thing to “fix” it all. A lot of the time that involves management of whatever is going on. However, if you stop whatever the “fix” is, your problems come back. This isn’t to say I don’t believe in supplements but you need to know what they’re doing so you know how long your body needs to take them or understand what gap they’re filling.
I have had six different types of acne, three different types of hair loss, multiple issues with my period, and too many digestive problems to count and the list could go on. The interesting part is these didn’t all happen at the same time. But before I knew better, I would try to fix each “problem” with the thing that worked last time, only to not see improvement and end up feeling defeated and lost. I held a belief that there was just one thing that I needed: a diagnosis. A diagnosis would tell me exactly what to do, the medication, supplement, or diet I should use, and then things would once and for all get better. So I searched for answers. Unfortunately, after a lot of time, sadness, grief, and trial I learned this is not how the body works, it’s not one-size fits all.
Now I approach things differently; I look at the body as a whole interconnected being. With my patients I talk about all the “buckets” of health, we start with the area in which you are struggling the most and we run tests when we don’t know. By taking this approach we can answer the question ‘why is this happening?’, we adjust expectations, knowing that the answer is probably not going to be just one “fix”, and we are patient with the process as it might require a series of steps.
Eventually, the magic happens and you start feeling better, but you also feel more empowered to take care of your body with your new knowledge and understanding. We cover what health should look and feel like in all body systems so you can identify when things are off. This way when something comes up in the future or with your child, partner, sister, or friend you can see more quickly that something is abnormal and where additional help and support might be needed.
So, why should you see a Naturopath? To stop wasting your time on a one-size fits all “fix”, to really understand how your body and health work, to find your ‘normal’ so you can take corrective action more quickly when things start to feel off, and to look at the whole picture of your health rather than just putting a bandaid on a symptom. Your body is your home and you deserve to feel good in it.
