What Happens During Naturopathic Consultations?
Your initial consultation is structured to help your naturopath understand your health in as much detail as possible. Making sure that we have a comprehensive picture of your current health and an accurate diagnosis are the essential first steps in helping you toward better health. To ensure you get the most from your consultation a questionnaire is sent to you prior to your first appointment, allowing you to provide a detailed history of your health, including medications, supplements and herbal preparations that you are currently taking, a summary of your eating habits, your health goals, and the reason for consultation. Being specific about your main concerns will help us track down the causes of your problem quickly. Even symptoms that you feel are unrelated can often provide very useful information to a naturopathic practitioner, who has spent years studying the way each system in the body affects every other system.
During the initial consultation your naturopath will also perform clinical examinations, including blood pressure measurement, live blood screening, urine analysis, pH and zinc tests to help better understand your current overall health. You may also be referred for functional pathology testing, such as food sensitivity testing, complete digestive stool analysis, amino acid profile, salivary hormones or liver detoxification profile to gain a clear picture of how the individual body systems are performing and working together. Your naturopath will then discuss your health history and presenting condition with you in depth.
Following your first appointment your naturopath will review and evaluate your health history and design a comprehensive treatment plan, including specific dietary and lifestyle recommendations and naturopathic medicine prescription. At your follow up appointment you will receive a written, goal-orientated treatment plan and any assessment results, along with your naturopathic prescription and detailed dietary and lifestyle recommendations.
At follow up appointments your naturopath will also discuss your progress, review your naturopathic prescription, identify road blocks to treatment success and perform a live blood screening to monitor change. The focus is always on addressing the underlying cause of your condition and promoting wellness for the longer term.
The appointment schedule is more regular in the initial stages of treatment (every 2 to 3 weeks) in order to affect positive change and stabilise your health. Once your condition has stabilised and your health is improving appointments are conducted on a less frequent basis as required.
