The Passion Of Her Life (Part 2)

Naturopathic medicine is based upon these philosophical tenets:

1. There is a healing power of nature, wisdom in the body that leads it to health, and can return it to health and maintain it in the health as its natural state of being.

2. Identify and Treat the Cause—When obstacles to the healing power of nature are identified and removed, then the body can use its wisdom with support from naturopathic medicine to heal, both mentally, physically, and emotionally.

3. First, Do No Harm—Naturopathic physicians always strive to use modalities of treatment that do not suppress the healing ability of the body, but instead work with it. Although suppression is necessary at times, the key focus is not to suppress symptoms of an imbalance through medications but uncover them, remove them, and thus allow the body to heal.

4. Doctor as Teacher— Educating, motivating, and supporting patients is the key! Spending time with patients to help uncover the etiologies of their ill health, and then explaining test results, setting up comprehensive treatment modalities, making it clear, so patients understand all the connections, this is how naturopathic medicine works. Dr. Morstein’s first office visit is 90 minutes with the patient; her second treatment visit, when the comprehensive protocol is instituted, is another hour; and follow-up visits are 30 minutes. These appointments are much longer than patients get in working with conventional care practitioners. Patients are finally able to tell their stories, ask their questions, ensure they understand and receive the support they need.

5. Treat the Whole Person— Through listening to patients, performing appropriate testing, both standard labs and imaging, and specialty testing such as diet diaries, food-sensitivity testing, stool analysis, small intestine bacterial overgrowth, depression analysis, environmental toxins analysis (mold, heavy metals, chemicals), and so forth, Dr.Morstein can uncover all the reasons a person is out of balance. It may be the unhappy relationship she is in, or a food reaction, or a bacteria overgrowth in her intestines, or exposure to mold in her apartment. With the time, experience, and open-minded-ness of thought, Dr. Morstein usually finds the reason. She then has the experience and knowledge to safely and effectively treat all the differ-ent imbalances to help the patient recover.

6. Prevention—In actuality, the vast majority of patients, if not nearly everyone, comes to Dr. Morstein already with some health concerns. It is the very rare patient, one in a decade, who comes to her health and wishes to learn how to maintain his/her health. Obviously, most people who visit Dr. Morstein have some complaints they wish to get rid of. The key to prevention is teaching patients what made them ill—the food they react to, the antibiotics that caused gut damage, the lack of a certain nutrient in their diet, so that when they recover their health, they now know how to keep it healthy in the future.