One of the greatest difficulties in life is when your doctor tells you that you have a chronic condition. A chronic condition can be diagnosed at any time but most often it is the result of years of:
- bad eating habits
- on and off exercise programs
- stress
Our bodies also start to degenerate rather quickly by the time we hit 35 years of age. Chronic conditions include:
- Inflammatory disorders like arthritis
- Heart disease – Atherosclerosis
- Diabetes
- Cancer
- PCOS
- Allergies
- Upper respiratory conditions
This list of conditions is not exhaustive and each one is well known by all Australians. We might not be able to cure these conditions but treatment will reduce symptoms, improve life style and even extend life. White Swan Naturopathy aims to treat the cause holistically, so that there is some cessation or resolution of symptoms.
What is a Chronic Condition?
The word “chronic” means that a group of symptoms have been causing discomfort, demonstrating a pattern of symptoms in a patient for more than 3 months.
The opposite to chronic is “acute” or a group of symptoms that have been affecting a patient for roughly 24 hours. The time between acute and chronic can be termed “becoming chronic” or “chronic” simply because it has been persistent for longer than 24 hours.
For many people; they have had a condition that has been slowly developing for years.
How does Naturopathy help people with Chronic Conditions?
Jen Alder at White Swan Naturopathy takes a holistic approach to all chronic conditions. This means the whole person is considered and includes physical, emotional, social and and spiritual well-being. So a holistic approach focuses on a person’s wellness and not just their condition.
Treatments will include different combinations of:
- lifestyle,
- exercise,
- nutrition/diet,
- herbal extracts,
- supplements,
- meditation,
- sleep hygiene.
Each person requires a different approach to treatment for any condition because each body produces different symptoms from different sources for the same condition.
For example,someone with diabetes will have the typical thirst, weight loss, thick syrupy sweet urine, and frequent urination. This person may need insulin injections frequently and blood sugar measurements regularly. Another diabetic person may have low blood sugar levels before eating and after exercise but few other symptoms. This person may only need to have dietary interventions and tablets to regulate blood sugar. Both people have difficulty producing insulin and both people have difficulty regulating blood glucose levels. They do differ in the level of insulin in the blood and they differ in their ability to regulate blood sugar levels. These differences make it impossible to give the same treatment to both forms of diabetes.
How does a Naturopath Assess Clients?
The holistic approach addresses such differences in lifestyle, diet/nutrition and individual chemical make-up as presented by the individual.
The presentation of each individuals’ symptoms are observed by the practitioner while the patient is in the clinic.
Observations include:
- how they look (their skin colouration if pale or grey etc),
- how they act (are they fidgety, slow to answer, forgetful),
- signs of fatigue (dark rings under the eyes, slow blinking, slow pupil response),
- how they smell (is there a smell of acetone around them or an acidic smell).
These observations give very solid evidence of what is happening inside the body. There will also be clues in what the person says, such as, “I have been urinating a lot but it has a funny smell,” or, “I have lost a lot of weight but I don’t know why because I haven’t changed what I eat.”
As each individual comes into focus, changes in lifestyle become obvious and adjustments in diet can be made. Where necessary herbal extracts are needed to bring the body back to homeostasis (balance) and supplements are used where deficiencies are likely, for instance, where there is stress and inflammation.
In conditions such as diabetes the patient has already been diagnosed by a General Practitioner (GP) or a specialist (endocrinologist). The patient will already be on diabetic treatment from their practitioner so the role of the naturopath in this scenario is to complement the existing medication, make the patient’s symptoms less pronounced and help the GP’s or specialists medications more successful, within acceptable limits.
It is not the place of any naturopath to decide if or when a patient should come off medication supplied by the GP or specialist as this can often be life threatening or impose severe side effects.
Treatment for a chronic condition can often take months or even years. When you consider how long it took for the condition to surface, now it will take at least part of that time for that condition to be brought under control and be tolerable at least, if not disappear entirely. The naturopathic holistic approach is usually gentle but can be forceful where necessary to bring about homeostasis (balance) and comfort for the patient.
