Q: What will your first visit be like?We begin most patient evaluations with a 1 to 1 1/2 hour physician consultation.While every visit is unique, the primary purpose of your first visit is to determine the current state of your health and how to best care for you. Typically, the visit lasts one to one and a half hours, during which an extensive history is taken. Past medical history, family history, and all current medications and supplements are reviewed. Information is gathered about lifestyle, relationships, stress levels, current coping abilities, diet, and exercise habits. A brief physical is included. Comprehensive diagnostic testing is sometimes recommended to evaluate underlying conditions and metabolic disorders. We openly welcome your questions and ideas during your visit!

Guided by our patients needs, interests, and what is medically appropriate,we then create an integrated individualized treatment program. Follow-up visits are used to track and measure progress, and refinements to treatment plans are made until improved health outcomes are accomplished.

Q: What should I bring/do during my first visit?During your first visit, please be sure to complete and bring the patient intake’forms with you. In addition, be sure to bring any medical results from other facilities you may already have if they are relevant to your condition. Bring also with you a list of all current medication and/or supplements you take.

Q: How do I pay for my visit?In order to provide you with the best care available at a minimum cost, we require payment at the time of service.We accept Visa and MasterCard, cash and checks.

Q: Do you treat (name your disease)?We treat people. Everyone has their own individual response to their environment and their disease. Let’s say we had 10 patients come to the office concerned about their depression. Each would leave with a different treatment plan. We acknowledge the depression as a symptom and we work to uncover the underlying cause. We apply the consistent principles of Naturopathic Medicine to each person, and base our therapies upon these for every individual case.

Each Body is Different.

Each person is unique and requires individualized care. In developing a treatment plan to address the cause of any condition, we take into account not only a person’s specific physical symptoms, but also the person who has the symptoms. Disease affects the entire person, not just a specific organ or system. Thoughts, feelings, lifestyle, family history, environmental stresses, nutritional status and general physical state are all carefully evaluated.

Q: What conditions do you treat?From the common cold to cancer, Naturopathic Medicine addresses all acute and chronic conditions.

Click here for a list of some of the many conditions that could benefit from our treatments and therapies.

This list is not exclusive. Naturopathic Medicine has something to offer everyone, even if you don’t see your particular health concern on this list.Feel free to call the Center with questions at (831) 475-6666

Q: Why Naturopathic Medicine?These are some of the reasons that bring patients to our clinic:

• • You want a healthy lifestyle and a doctor who will spend time with you, getting to know you and your specific health concerns.
• • You are taking a lot of supplements, but you aren’t sure if they are right for you.
• • You want to make an informed decision about your health and receive advice from a specialist who is well-trained in natural therapies.
• • You want your own Personal Treatment Plan designed especially for you.
• • You are confused by contradictory health claims and information you receive from the media.
• • You have vague complaints and don’t want to see a conventional medical doctor or take drugs.
• • You are concerned about the long-term side effects of drugs you may be taking and the side-effects are worse than the original problem.
• • You want to be treated by a licensed professional who is medically trained in both pharmacology and alternative medicine. Naturopathic Doctors are the only health care professionals with this unique training.
• • You have an uncommon health problem which has many specialists baffled.
• • You want more energy, less pain, better sleep, better digestion, and better sex!
• • Finally, you want to look better, feel better, lose weight, feel great about yourself, and BE IN CHARGE OF THE WAY YOU FEEL AND THE WAY YOU HEAL!

Q: Is The Type of Care You Provide Available Elsewhere?Our specialized care is not readily available. We take pride in a level of training, knowledge and experience rarely matched. We are truly unique.

What are some of your services?

• • Individualized primary medical care
• • Personal assessment and treatment
• • Physical exams
• • Women’s medicine including PMS and menstrual changes
• • Hormone balancing including menopause complaints and infertility
• • Mens health
• • Chronic disease treatment and prevention
• . Auto-Immune Disease treatment
• • Detoxification
• • Nutritional counseling including weight loss and food allergies
• • Pain management
• • Adjunctive cancer care
• • Read more about Our Services

Q: Do I need to give up my conventional medical doctor in order to be seen by a Naturopathic Doctor?Absolutely not. Your Naturopathic Doctor will work in conjunction with your conventional medical doctor. Furthermore, please do not stop taking any of your conventional medications in preparation for your visit. We are trained to understand interactions between nutrients and pharmaceuticals and will guide you towards proper treatment.

Q: What’s the difference between naturopathy and homeopathy?Homeopathy is a system of preparing and selecting medicines based on the work of a German physician named Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843). Medicines are selected which in large doses will provide symptoms similar to the disease, but instead are prepared in minute quantities. Homeopathy fits the philosophical tenets of Naturopathic Medicine. The medicines work by stimulating what the homeopaths call the vital force or in naturopathic terms the vis medicatrix naturae, the healing power of nature. Homeopathic remedies, because they are so dilute, are a relatively safe method of treatment, again fitting the naturopathic tenet of Primo non nocere, First off, don’t hurt em (commonly translated as do no harm).
Naturopathy is a licensed medical profession which for philosophical reasons uses various natural therapies, one of which may be homeopathy.

Naturopathic medicine has its roots in the European health movement called Nature Cure of the late 1700’s. Emphasizing simple cures from nature: sunlight, water, food, and simple living, Nature Cure was brought to the United States at the end of the 1800’s by a young German practitioner named Benedict Lust. Once in this country, Lust trained as an osteopath, herbalist and homeopath and then opened his own school of medicine. Formalized into a full training program of eclectic studies, nature cure became naturopathy. The profession evolved through the 1900’s incorporating modern medical diagnostic techniques and practices if they fit into naturopathy’s original philosophical tenets. This blend of traditional nature cure and modern science is what we now call naturopathic medicine.

In California, a differentiation needs to be made between Naturopathy and Naturopathic Medicine. The later, practiced in our clinic, is a licensed medical profession. Practitioners are graduates from one of the 5 medical schools in North America that teach Naturopathic Medicine, while the term Naturopath is open to the general public and ANYBODY, independently of degree of training or lack of, can be called a naturopath.
If your question has gone unanswered, please contact us.