What is Naturopathic Medicine?

Naturopathy stands distinct from conventional medicine in the philosophy upon which it is based. Most of today's modern pharmaceuticals are designed to control symptoms: blood pressure medication for hypertension, statins for high cholesterol. These medications are valuable, can save lives, and serve a very important purpose in today's health care arena. However, they stop short of providing true health because ultimately they do not address the underlying problem. While the blood pressure may be controlled with medication the cause of the high blood pressure has not been addressed and still exists. When symptoms are covered up with medication the disease still exists and, over time, this will cause other symptoms in other areas of the body to develop. Symptoms are the body's warning sign that something is not right. If you treat the symptom and not the cause you're ignoring your body's call for help. If you stop the drug and your symptom returns you have not addressed the cause.

It is the purpose of Naturopathic Medicine to take your health further than symptom management. However, we understand that symptoms are often uncomfortable and sometimes even life threatening and we will palliate symptoms in order to ensure that our patients are safe and comfortable on their journey to greater health. Our practitioners may use any of the following modalities to treat any number of health complaints: clinical nutrition, Chinese and western botanicals, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, body work, acupuncture, and lifestyle counseling.

The six principles of naturopathic medicine are First Do No Harm, Identify and Treat the Cause, Treat the Whole Person, The Body Has Inherent Wisdom to Heal, Doctor Means Teacher, and Prevention is Cure.