Tag: Naturopathic medicine

Hormones at sea  – Part 1: peri-menopause, heavy bleeding and fibroids

Perimenopause heavy bleeding

As an ND who focuses on women’s health in my practice, it is not uncommon for me to see patients in their late 30s or early 40s complaining of heavy, frequent periods. Often these are accompanied by other frustrating symptoms such as painful cramping, breast tenderness, headaches, insomnia, and irritability. As annoying as these symptoms are, however, heavy bleeding is the one most likely to cause serious problems with anemia or blood loss, and potentially lead to recommendations for uterine ablation or hysterectomy. In the meantime, women may be prescribed hormone replacement therapies such as hormone based IUDs, the ‘pill’ or HRT, which can themselves cause other adverse effects.

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Natural Prevention Urgently Required

Prevention, chronic disease, and naturopathic medicine

Last Friday I was honoured to speak at Queen’s University as a panelist at a Preventive Healthcare conference. I encouraged delegates to more deeply consider the value of complementary and “traditional” approaches in preventing disease because, without it, our precious but over-stressed Canadian public care system won’t survive.

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Why Environmentally-Responsible Choices are Also Healthy Choices

Healthy Lifestyle and Environment

“Climate change is the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.” World Health Organization

Many of us know that healthy lifestyle choices are also environmentally responsible choices. We know, for example, that biking to work rather than driving, is healthy. We know that reducing our exposure to synthetic chemicals by using natural household cleaners and eating organic food is also correlated to better health. But have you stopped to consider why this relationship exists?

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Anxiety: It’s not all “in your head”

I’m concerned by the sudden rise of debilitating anxiety in the patients who walk through my door. These people are feeling deeply unstable, ungrounded, and unsafe. Anxiety is harming their relationships with people, with food, and their environment. They’re confused by the cause of their anxiety and are hoping that I have a pill to take it away. Though I often suggest a pill to help, the real value in our work comes from identifying and treating the underlying source of anxiety. For those of you struggling with anxiety currently, I’m sharing some of the common contributing physical causes that are often overlooked. (In other words, it’s not “all in your head” and we can do something about it.)

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Did Climate Change Cause Lyme Disease?

Where did this Lyme epidemic come from? “Tick-checks” weren’t a thing when we were kids. Now, ticks not only swarm our conservation areas, but also our gardens and children’s playgrounds. More than 1/3 of them in our area are infected with Borrelia, the bacteria believed to cause Lyme Disease, and an unknown number are infected with Lyme “co-infections” such as Bartonella and Anaplasma. Our instinctual response to this threat is to kill tick populations as quickly as possible… But history, ecological principles, integrative medicine and current research all teach us that this approach doesn’t work. A more sophisticated approach, one that acknowledges underlying causes of this epidemic, is urgently required.

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Garden Now, Live Longer

I need to start this article with sharing my person bias: I love gardening. This hasn’t always been the case but a few years ago we started our own vegetable garden. Now I have the gardening “bug”. I have been delighted to find just how much peace and calm digging in the dirt gives me, not to mention the loads of fresh, healthy produce. I think you should start a garden too…

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Resolving Insomnia

Apparently, the world record for the longest time staying awake, achieved by a teenager in in the 1960s, is 11 consecutive days. Can you imagine how awful he must have felt? How irritable, illogical, and accident-prone, he must’ve been? Even chronic, small bits of sleep deprivation are associated with development and progression of chronic illness, and about twice the risk of a car accident. And yet,

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The Hype About Probiotics

Are you familiar with the term “echo chamber”? Amongst other things, it’s a media concept that describes how the internet works. Instead of expanding our awareness and experience of the world, it can limit it. The belief systems or “lens” we inadvertently apply in our social media engagements and google browsing, is amplified and reflected back to us. We only see what we already believe to be true. As the internet giants adapt to keep us engaged, our society becomes more polarized, with more extreme political views, and violence. Healthcare is not immune to this effect.

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We respectfully acknowledge that Kingston Integrated Healthcare is situated on ancestral Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee Territory. Since time immemorial they have cared for these lands and waters, and we are grateful. We recognize that a healthy environment is essential to the wellbeing of all people and all life.


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