A local naturopathic physician is a medical professional who is focused on getting to the root cause of a patient’s health issue, not solely the symptoms. A local naturopathic physician uses a variety of techniques to treat patients, including acupuncture, nutritional medicine and holistic medicine. From managing a chronic condition such as arthritis, breast cancer or low testosterone to improving your immune system, a local naturopathic doctor can help you manage your health. If your local family physician feels that you can benefit from seeing a local naturopathic physician, they can refer you. Or, you can make your own appointment. 

Acupuncture is also another great treatment option expecting mothers can use to help alleviate some of their symptoms. In addition to treating nausea and vomiting, it can be used to help manage stress levels as well as treat heartburn and other gastrointestinal disorders.

Endometriosis is when the normal uterine lining known as the endometrium is found in locations outside of the uterus, most commonly in the ovaries and the fallopian tubes.

With time, this tissue can then grow into benign growths or lesions, and these lesions then respond to changes in hormones during the normal menstrual cycle causing women extreme pain and inflammation. The cause of endometriosis isn’t fully understood, but there is a strong belief that there is a genetic predisposition to it.

It’s also common in women who have increased exposure of estrogen in their bodies. So that maybe from starting your period a little bit earlier in life, having later menopause, not having children or just being generally exposed to estrogen for a prolonged period of time.

When a woman comes to see her naturopathic doctor about these symptoms, we’ll go through a thorough history as well as do a physical exam. The only way to confirm a diagnosis of endometriosis is through a laparoscopic procedure which involves inserting a camera into the abdominal cavity to determine the size, severity and location of the endometriosis.

Additionally, ultrasound or biopsy may be done, but the best way to diagnose is through laparoscopic procedures. The key thing when helping women with endometriosis is to help them manage their pain. This can be done through pharmaceutical or natural anti-inflammatories.

Additionally, there are a lot of diet and lifestyle changes women can make to help reduce their symptoms. Some of these include cutting out alcohol, sugar and red meats from your diet as they can increase inflammation as well as increasing exercise. Supporting the liver is really important as it helps metabolize estrogen. So finding ways to do this would be great using supplements and botanical herbs.

Laparoscopic surgery is an option for women with severe endometriosis. However, there is a chance that your condition may reoccur. If you have any further questions or concerns, feel free to contact your local naturopathic physician. Naturopathic doctors do see a variety of patients coming into their offices with chronic pain, whether it be fibromyalgia patients, patients with complex regional pain syndrome post-accident, perhaps patients with injuries that have never fully healed properly.  We see a lot of patients coming in with muscle pain, with myofascial trigger points that we can assess and treat. This is usually the easier type of chronic pain. But we do see patients with many different types of chronic pain.  

Naturopathic doctors treat chronic pain slightly differently than other professionals would. We will look at the whole person. So, we’ll look at your digestion. We’ll look at your sleep. We’ll look at your stress levels. We’ll try to identify barriers to treatment. If you’re not seeing results with your current treatment regimen and you’re getting to a point where you’re frustrated because you’re not seeing these improvements, there could be something else going on. It’s really important to understand why your body is suffering from inflammation, right?  

And this is a buzz word, but I think it’s important to remember that the basis of most disease is inflammation of different tissues within the body. So, we want to really work with soft tissue and to support the body’s ability to heal. So on top of normal rehabilitation exercises, perhaps acupuncture and dry needling for myofascial trigger points, looking at food sensitivities that could be contributing to fibromyalgia-like symptoms, we’ll basically look at your entire lifestyle and try to help you understand why you’re plateauing in treatment and help you kind of push through that.  

There are a variety of treatment modalities that naturopathic doctors will utilize with patients such as intravenous therapies to improve soft tissue healing, dry needling and acupuncture, orthomolecular dosing of micronutrients to, again, help shift that balance within the body towards healing. We really want to give those tissues what they need to heal. So, rehab sometimes isn’t enough in this case. And we really want to give our body the best chance we can to get past this injury and to really recover.  

If you’re suffering from chronic pain and really aren’t seeing the results that you thought you would after months of treatment, it might be a very wise idea to speak to your local naturopathic physician about treatment options.