Ditching and Switching

Mike Adams, the Health Ranger and consumer health advocate for News Target wrote an article back in 2004 that I keep wanting to rehash. I think it's newsworthy for both advocates of naturopathy (people actively using complementary and alternative medicine) and people who are still not sure, to read his words about naturopathic physicians.

His words have no expiration date, yet, sadly.

In these times of expensive and often unreliable health insurance, the cult of treating symptoms and not root causes, scary side effects, and poor bedside manner in conventional medicine, it's critical to understand why YOU should start using, or continue to use you alternatives to health as the frontline.

Put it this way, you take yourself in for annual physical doctor visits, but you fail to understand that health and prevention extend beyond an annual visit.

Health depends on your mindset, your health support network and your body's overall comfort.

Basically he says he frequently recommends that people switch from conventionally-trained medical doctors, to naturopathic physicians because western doctors are primarily experts in disease, whereas naturopathic physicians are experts in health and wellness. So, if you want to go to someone who knows about disease and symptoms, visit a conventionally-trained medical doctor.

But, if you are interested in knowing how to be healthy overall, and avoid disease, and you want to be shown how to become healthy, using your own efforts, you need someone who understands the causes of health BUT ALSO has options to correct disorders, overcome diseases and dysfunctions - a naturopathic doctor.

This is where lifestyle, diet, relationships, past history are all examined and where you are ultimately in charge of your own healing.

A naturopathic physician can put the puzzle pieces together to form the "big picture" plan of your overall good health, so you can navigate it. And incorporate that as your first line of health, adding conventional on an as-needed basis.