If you are reading this article on any other site than What Everyone Needs To Know then you are reading a stolen article. It seems there are a lot of scrapers out there steeling posts and putting major excerpts on their fake sites for content.
Choosing a Naturopath
This is the third post in a series of how to find a alternitive health care practitioner. The first article was to help you in choosing an acupuncturists and I followed that up with choosing a chiropractor. Now I want to give some guidlines for choosing a Naturopathic physician.
First off, I’m a little biased against Naturopathic medicine. I attended Bastyr University for a year and found it very disappointing. What I seen more often than not was Naturopaths pushing supplements but having no real clue in how to really help solve your problem. In my honest opinion, I would recommend a good acupuncturist over a Naturopathic physician any day. With that said. . . if you really think you need this kind of doctor then maybe I can give some guidelines.
The Naturopathic community as a whole is rather fractioned. That’s why they still aren’t licensed in most states. Furthermore, there are really only three schools, Bastyr, National, and Southwest. National is the oldest and Southwest is the newest. Bastyr is touted as being “the Harvard of Naturopathic medicine,” which is a total load of carp! There are many ways to get a Naturopathic license. You don’t even need to attend school for the most part. Passing the board exams is enough and there are places that will help you do that. There are also places that will give you a ND degree through the mail.
Can you see why I don’t highly recommenced Naturopathic physicians?
Another slight against them is, they really use western medicine diagnostically but then try to treat everything with supplements, herbs, and changing the diet. The reality is, diet change has the least effect on health. Exercise will do more for you than any diet change. Also, herbs don’t treat anything. They can stimulate or suppress functions but they cannot cure anything, neither can pharmaceuticals. . . despite what the FDA says, and the supplements are usually synthetic and urinated out within a couple hours of digestion. All in all you end up with useless treatments and diagnostic techniques that can tell you a lot about what’s wrong and nothing about why.
Naturopaths are also trained in spinal manipulation however, my experience is that they are trained very poorly in this area. Therefore, I would recommend a good chiropractor instead.
At this point you should be asking yourself, what on earth do I need an ND for? That’s why I left Bastyr. The education isn’t that good. The community is fractured and overly “granola” in every way possible. They rely heavily on supplements and have no real diagnostics of their own any more. The “old time” Naturopaths were more similar to ancient acupuncturists and Chinese Medical practitioners than what they are now—very similar to wester medical doctors.
Now, if you really want an ND. . . I suggest looking for a graduate of National or someone who went to Bastyr pre 90s. I also recommend finding an ND who has studied acupuncture. The only other recommendation I have is if you have heard “miracle” stories about the person. There are always great practitioners in every field despite their background. These are the people that just understand how to heal people.
Sorry I can’t give you better clues on finding a good Naturopathic physician but I recommend saving your money for a good acupuncturist.
