Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives Alternatives and ALCHEMISTS How to find your naturopath?

Hello,
I am looking around everywhere in Virginia for a naturopath who gets the non-starch thing and who could help me test for leaky gut and stomach parasites. I do not have any stomach pain, but since I have read a lot on the stomach-joint pain connection I would like to try to figure out whether that is what is going on.

How did you find a good doctor? Reading a lot of homepages, but it is hard to get the clues about where to start calling. Nobody declares to have the properties I am looking for.
Any insights from you?
Thanks,
Loha

the way I found my naturpath was to contact the compounding pharmacy in town and find who prescribed LDN, it was a naturpath.

then while there, i found fliers for another.

that's one route that worked for me.

I have a lot of mixed feelings on naturopaths. I put my complete faith in one a few years ago, only to have them "bleed" me dry for a two years with expensive supplements, and these special anti-inflammatory injections. All the while my AS was fusing right along.

So back at the time, I had finally gotten the AS diagnosis from a mean old lady GI doctor, and took the words "Ankylosing Spondylitis" to a naturopath that had published a booked on anti-inflammatory eating to treat crohns & colitis(which was also kinda bogus and generic) anyhow. I wasted a lot of money and time with that naturopath who never once paid attention to my diagnosis of AS, and didn't care to learn anything about it. Instead they spent $1000's of my money telling me I needed all these supplements an treatments to get my body out of "fight of flight mode". A year later, I finally had a super awesome chiropractor suggest the Low Starch Diet, and FINALLY got some major improvement in my life and pain levels. I only wish I had worked with him sooner, or someone that had a clue about AS.

Anyhow, watch out for some of the naturopaths out there (I have seen a few different ones over the years) and a lot of them will try and sell you more supplements that you know what to do with, rather than address the real problems in foods that might be triggering all of it. Like for me SOY might as well be a deadly poison. And of course I avoid wheat/dairy, but that was something I discovered w/o a doctor's help. But that specific naturopath I was seeing was a huge fan of soy, along with grains, etc. All stuff that I firmly believe should definitely be excluded for an anti-inflammatory diet, where I feel the paleo style diet is a great example of an anti-inflammatory diet.

That said, I know of friends that have great luck and found naturopath doctors they really like. So it is worth it to search one out. I just wish I had found a better one years ago, as I really believe I could have headed off the fusing in my back and prevented a lot of the damage that has occurred. As I am finally at a really good place now!

And I have become good friends with another naturopath who is super compassionate, and clued into AS and different healing diets. She and I co-teach classes together now too. She also suffers from a pretty serious autoimmune disease, so she is right there with me, side by side, in understanding what I am going through and super open and educated on current research and fringe ideas.

All you can do is book an appointment with a couple different ones, and if you don't have a good feeling after one appointment, just try out another one!

Thanks for the response!
It is just so confusing: things like leaky gut, candida, pasasites in the gut, I would like to test for all of that, but I do not even know what category of expert I am to turn to, general physician, chiropractor, naturopath, rheumy...
I do not know what to do.
Best,
Loha

A naturopath will be your best bet for running the different tests you listed. But even then, I never felt like the tests I took were ever that black and white. And I never found one doctor who has helped me as much as I have helped myself!

Most doctors out there are way behind the times, their text books did not include research on GMOs, food dyes, additives, MSG, etc. They are stuck in old school ways in a new world of diseases and leaky guts. They didn't learn about this in med school.

But of course you may find a super helpful naturopath, if you seek one out, who can help you get going on the right course. If you feel like you need some help to jump start the journey, then for sure see a naturopath. If you have insurance that covers it even better, I was paying out of pocket, and later realized after endless treatments and supplements I had only prolonged active treatment of my disease (through my current diet) and was much poorer for it financially and physically after all those doctor appointments.

I personally believe the easiest way to get to the root of of a leaky gut, and learn from others experiences, along with input from doctors and research, and save quite a bit of money, is to read: http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info/

If you read this book and join in on some of the SCD forums, you will be way ahead of the game of most naturopaths and doctors!

Wanted to add the buzz word lately from a lot of natuorpaths seems to be the SIBO diet, which again is based on the same principles of SCD diet, GAPS, Paleo, etc. Even similar to NSD.

I have a couple of friends right now who had naturopaths put them on the SIBO diet: http://www.siboinfo.com/diet.html

And this page is super informative too, showing the link between all these diets! http://www.siboinfo.com/

The naturpath I went to, did two very useful (for me) things:

blood tests for food allergens / sensitivities. Through this, we discovered my allergy to dairy. And this did pan out to be my food problem.

stool sample testing. found out I had no lactobacilli in my gut. and did have some bacilli pathogens. made me realize that the route of my problem probably is bad microbes in my gut, thus when it becomes more mainstream, I want to try fecal transplant pills. Based on these results, we started probiotics, that helped.

but like betty said, the naturpath kept pushing the supplements they sold in their office. Some made sense to me, those I started. Others didn't make sense, so I didn't try them.

I stopped going when I finally found a rheumy who mixes supplements and drugs. I'm currently on some of the supplements started at the naturpath (i.e. fish oil), but also on Humira.

So, someone who can help us take the holistic approach, I think is best.

If you PM me I can send you the name of my son's doctor. She is a rheumatologist and regionally well-respected Lyme doctor. The first thing she said when my son got a severe multiple joint reactive arthritis in 2010 was "it's probably a parasite."

She didn't say go completely starch-free, but the recommended heal-the-gut diet was fairly paleo, with some brown rice or quinoa.

She tested him for bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses-- and treated him for all of them.

He's in a sustained remission-- about 18 months now. It's incredible given my severe family history with 4 siblings with arthritis/ AS/ Crohn's/costochondritis.

My son had lower back pain and enthesitis in both ankles, hip flexors, both shoulders and painful costochondritis at the sternum.

It's all gone-- well, we call it remission. I'll take it.
She's in Northern Virginia.

Mary

Dear all,
Thank you so much for your responses! This is very valuable to me! I ordered a food sensitivity test online (ALCAT) I am yet to take, so that is how far I have gotten.
Mary, I will PM you.

Regards,
Loha

Mary - Did you get my PM? I have yet not heard from you. I really hope that you can provide me with this contact.
Thank you.
/Lotta