Category: Naturopathy

If you’ve ever had a bee sting or a sprained ankle, you’ve experienced inflammation. Allergies? Another form of inflammation. Sunburn? Splinter? Frostbite? More inflammation. Arthritis? Appendicitis? Tonsillitis? Dermatitis? Colitis? All those “itis” words are also just a fancy way of saying “inflammation,” too.

Inflammation is your body’s reaction to an injury, infection or irritation, and despite how uncomfortable all the examples above sound, it’s a critically important process in the body.

Naturopathic doctors may see inflammation differently than what you’re used to. For a naturopath, inflammation isn’t bad, per se. It feels bad, and it can cause harm, but it’s also there for a reason.

Next time you find yourself facing an “itis” or some other inflammation, you might find it helpful to look at it as a naturopath might. Here are a few key principles to keep in mind.

• It’s a normal response.  Acute inflammation is a normal, healthy response. It’s the body’s first response to harm, and acts as a marker to rally your immune troops to the scene of the crime and protect you from further injury. Without it, your body wouldn’t be able to fight infection and rebuild damaged tissues.
• Not all inflammation is bad. Once inflammation starts, your body has a corresponding process to shut it down again. Sometimes, though, we get out of balance, and we end up with chronic inflammation. Conditions like colitis and asthma are the result of chronic inflammation. Inflammation is not the enemy until it gets out of balance.
• Treating minor inflammation can have drawbacks. When you have a sore knee, for example, and you take Advil and go out for your run anyway, you may be removing the signal your body is sending you saying, “Hey. I need a break from running.” There’s nothing inherently wrong with treating inflammation, but just remember that you may be turning off the communication network that lets you know how you’re doing.
• Root cause is important. While a naturopath may well treat your symptoms, we’re always concerned with why you have them in the first place. In the case of inflammation, naturopathic doctors ask, “Why is the inflammatory response out of balance?”  Chronic inflammation can be caused by many things, such as food intolerances, toxicity, an imbalance in your gut flora, or nutrient deficiencies. Looking at the whole person and understanding the root cause of the inflammation gives us the option of getting it back into balance.

Want to know how your naturopathic doctor sees another symptom or condition? Let us know in the comments!

Every week people arrive at the clinic wondering if their thyroid is working properly.

Often, these patients have had a conventional thyroid test and have been told by their medical doctor that everything is fine. They arrive at our office unconvinced, however, because when they look up the list of symptoms of low thyroid function, they seem to have them all.

When we test further, we often find that the thyroid really isn’t working optimally. Why is that? Why does the story differ from your MD’s office to ours?

The discrepancy arises because of the difference in what is tested, and when.

• Conventional medicine measures one thing: TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone). Your medical doctor uses that number as a way of assessing how well the thyroid is doing it’s job. If that test is normal, your MD won’t test any further. You’ll be told your thyroid is not the problem. End of story.
• Naturopathic doctors measure more initially. Like your MD, we test TSH, but we also look at T4 (the inactive form of thyroid hormone), T3 (the active form) and TPO (a thyroid antibody).

Why? Because some people can have normal TSH levels, but still have thyroid issues which are only revealed by looking at the other numbers. Those people get the “all clear” on the first test, and their MD doesn’t look any further.

Why the difference in testing? It’s a difference in philosophy. Your MD is really trying to determine if your thyroid is diseased. As ND’s, we want to know if it’s working optimally, and those are not the same thing.

Curious about your thyroid? You can book an appointment online, or call the clinic at 705-444-5331.

New research in the British Medical Journal, reported up to a 24% increased risk of heart attack in post-menopausal women taking calcium supplements.  As most of my 50+ female patients are being told to take between 1200-1800mg of calcium a day by their MD’s, I know this research will result in a lot of questions.

The medical community is questioning the validity of the study, which is to be expected. It’s a long-accepted truth in conventional medicine that women need calcium in very high doses to build bone, and paradigm shifts happen very slowly in medicine.

Understanding Calcium

As a naturopathic doctor, this tentative finding isn’t as surprising. When you have an understanding of how the body works at a biochemical level, the possible calcium-heart attack connection may make some sense.

Calcium has many important functions in the body, but it doesn’t work alone. It actually works in concert with, or in balance with, other nutrients.  When you put calcium in the body in much higher amounts than normal, the other nutrients may not be present in high enough amounts to either support or balance what the calcium is doing.

Calcium is a contractor of muscles. All muscles, including, of course, the heart. Magnesium, calcium’s more chilled-out brother, is the relaxer of muscles.  These two nutrients work in concert to effectively contract and then subsequently relax our muscles.  With this relationship in mind, it might not be a stretch to consider that if you supplement calcium by itself at very high doses, there may not be enough magnesium around to balance it out and help our muscles to relax.

Want to read more about the study? http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-calcium-heart-20110420,0,4042620.story

Questions about your current calcium supplements? Just contact the office at 705-444-5331 or [email protected].

-Tara