Naturopathy Sydney Treatments- What You Can Expect
If you’re looking to gain the support of a naturopath it’s probably because you’ve been struggling with your health for a while now. Maybe even been diagnosed with a chronic health condition.
Naturopaths are very much working with a preventative medicine lens and beyond this we have multiple tools to help with various chronic health issues. But more on the tools a little later, let’s look at where to start.
What to bring to your first consultation with a naturopath?
Once you’ve made that initial appointment you want to start collating all of your recent health results and reports, including your most recent blood tests. If you don’t have copies it’s often easy enough to email reception at your medical centre and ask them to kindly send through your results.
What if you haven’t had testing? No need to rush out to have it done now, it’s likely that after our first session together we will have a clear list of markers that need to be checked, so I can either write the referral myself or write a letter to your GP, requesting investigations be done.
What to expect from your first session with a naturopath?
Initial consultations with me generally take 60 minutes and involve a lot of questions so that I can get a clear idea of the following:
Curent main concern
Medical history
Family medical history
Current diet and lifestyle habits
Medications/ supplements you’re taking
Past or present viral or bacterial infections
I will generally go through major body systems and ask you key questions to assess the health of each system and try and get a better idea of which systems might need supporting. Many patients come in to see me with hormonal issues but once we go through the systems it becomes apparent that there are issues with their gut or other areas of their health which is driving the hormonal symptoms.
During this first session I will also take an initial look at any information you’ve brought in with you.
Naturopathic Treatment- What To Expect?
The tools that we use to start making shifts in your health are varied. However the main ones you might encounter with a naturopath are:
Custom herbal extracts
Nutraceuticals- Which include specific vitamins, minerals, amino acids etc.
Dietary prescriptions- This will include both eliminating certain foods and including certain foods.
Lifestyle prescriptions- This is so varied and wide, it may include diaphragmatic breathing, relaxing forms of exercise, pelvic floor exercises.
Guided visualisations to help you connect to a certain part of your body so that you can develop more awareness.
Flower Essences which work beautifully on your emotional and energetic state.
The list goes on. A holistic health approach means that we are looking to bring about your body’s own healing capacity.
So we work as a team to get you to where you want to go.
Whether that be fewer hot flushes, a better libido, or having a healthy baby.
As a naturopath I don’t believe in a one size fits all approach, you aren’t your disease and so getting to the bottom of your own unique health picture and then designing a customised and sound health plan is key to how I work.
Do naturopaths in Sydney write referrals for testing?
This is a very common question…
Yes as a naturopath I can write you referrals for a whole host of tests, including all of the ones you’ve had done previously with your GP. Like lipid panels, iron, B12 etc.
However with your testing if I write the referral it is not covered by Medicare. In most cases I like to work in collaboration with your GP, so that we can all work to get your health to a better place.
It’s been my experience that the best outcomes are achieved when we take a collaborative approach.
Beyond the standard pathology testing conducted through Medicare, naturopaths also commonly refer for functional pathology testing…
Depending on your symptoms and condition we can test a myriad of things through private labs like:
Complete gut mapping- to get a clearer idea of what’s happening with your gut health.
Gene testing- Looking at over 90 genes and over 100 snips. Very insightful for chronic health and preventative medicine, very useful if you’re wanting to assess your longer term risks of developing different diseases in older age.
In-depth Hormone testing- Including the DUTCH test you can check out more on it here.
Food sensitivity testing- Helpful for those who have chronic inflammation, especially in the gut.
Hair mineral analysis- Looking at heavy metal toxicity and healthy mineral levels in your body to see if this is a potential concern.
Vaginal microbiome test- This is very helpful in chronic thrush, BV, re-currant miscarriage and many other female health issues.
Full thyroid panel and iodine levels- Very useful if you’re showing all of the symptoms associated with hypothyroidism. Standard pathology checks TSH levels only and often misses potential thyroid issues.
Helicobacter pylori screen- and other pathogen screening as well.
This list goes on as you can see with the development of technology there is no end to the types of tests that you can have done. The biggest limitation is often budgets as functional testing varies in cost from some of the above costing $165 and others costing $480.
Please don’t be put off if you are on a tight budget, I often start supporting you with treatment and changes right from the first session, and we can get some early changes and shifts without needing to spend large amounts of money on testing.
How many sessions and how often will I need to be with a naturopath?
This really is dependant on each individual person, I would say that in most chronic health instances we will be together for at least 4-5 sessions. These are spread out over several months.
Your first follow-up is generally two weeks after your first, and then we push our sessions back to every four weeks so that I can check in and see how you’re travelling. Slowly tweaking things at each visit.
I do have patients who have been with me for several years and some of them check in once a month others check in once a year. There are no hard or fast rules when it comes to working with a naturopath.
Getting the most out of your naturopathic treatments:
Be open and honest with your naturopath.
Like any good relationship, it’s all about the open communication- without this it’s very hard for me to help you and get you to where you’d like to be with your health.
Sometimes life happens and we need to pivot and change focus if you are clear with your naturopath they can work with you.
2. Be prepared to do a little bit of homework.
Where it’s taking a yucky herb mix or cutting out refined sugar at some point your naturopath is likely to ask you to do a little bit of homework to assess the impact it has on your health.
There is no such thing as a ‘magic bullet’ naturopathic medicine does take time and a little bit of effort but if you’re struggling with your health it’s well worth it to get the results.
3. Try and keep an open mind.
If you’ve never been exposed to naturopathic medicine it can take a minute to adjust to the approach, you will be an active participant in your healing journey and we do like to use lots of traditional tools that have been used for many years that might seem a little strange; like castor oil packs or pessaries.
As a naturopath I always do my best to explain the why behind everything that I’m asking you to do with your health, so that we can make sure we’re on the same page.
If you have any questions about working with me or about your own unique health concerns please feel free to book yourself in for a complimentary call down below.