We seek to determine how and why your illness has occured, and to restore your health by addressing the root causes of your condition or dis-ease.

The functional medicine model, embraced by Naturopaths is an individualised, patient-centred, science-based approach, that empowers you as the patient, and me as the practitioner to work together to address your underlying causes, and to promote your optimal wellness and vitality.

By addressing root cause, rather than symptoms, Naturopaths become oriented to identifying the complexity of dis-ease. As described under “Work with Me”, we may find one condition has many different causes, and likewise, one cause may result in many different conditions. Being patient-centred, our treatment targets the unique manifestations of your individual case.

Well sure, I am totally biased but probably everyone can benefit from seeing a Naturopath. Our current “Health-care” system could arguably be called “Disease-care” as very few people go, until they get sick. So whether you have a condition currently that you would like to treat from the source, instead of only masking the symptoms - or whether you’re keen to see how you can establish positive healthy habits to see you liver younger, longer … then I’d love to meet you, and see how we could team up to work on your best you!

Nutritional medicine considers the relationship of foods to the health of your body. Each essential nutrient has a specific role to play in your body. All nutrients need to be supplied to your body to maintain optimal health.

Your diet could be contributing to your illness, or lack of vitality. In addition, stress, pollution, environmental toxins and other lifestyle factors may increase your need for nutrients.

Nutritional Medicine is based on the belief that subclinical vitamin or mineral deficiencies, or the ability to digest and absorb your foods, can reduce your body’s ability to function at its optimum level. Some health conditions may also be caused by allergies or intolerance to various foods.

We will consider any nutritional imbalances, and provide advice on how to change your diet, and include nutritional supplements as necessary, to improve your health, increase your physical and mental well being, as well as your resistance to dis-ease.

First of all, I will really listen to YOUR STORY - you are so much more than a collection of symptoms. I’ll help you understand your current challenges, and how your diet, lifestyle, stress, relationships and environment have contributed to where you have ended up.

We will work as a team (because you are the CEO of your own health, and after all you are the one that has to do the work on yourself ♡), to set simple, achievable goals to work towards your health goals. You will get coaching and support along the way.

We can use specialised functional testing to help uncover the underlying issues, as well as world-class practitioner-only supplements and herbal medicines. We will always aim for a “food as medicine” approach first. Whether you chose to invest in tests and natural medicines is entirely up to you and your budget.

You can learn about working one-to-one under “Clinic Services”. You may like to start with a free 15-minute discovery call (don’t worry I won’t cut you off at 15!) You can also email me if you have something specific in mind (for instance for a Small Group session, or a Presentation). You’ll find me here: hello@happyhealthycaro.nz

This is very individual, and it depends how complex your situation is, and how long you’ve been unwell. As a rough guide, it usually takes a month of treatment for every year you’ve been out of balance. We do want to start with addressing your symptoms though, so most patients start to notice improvements from 4-6 weeks of starting on their Wellness Plan. Remember, we are working on root causes - not giving out magic pills - and so it will also depend on your rate of making changes. Slow is absolutely fine, and often best in chronic cases - I will support you for as long as you need.

You can get a better idea also by reading/viewing content on the ‘One cause - many conditions and one condition - many causes’ and the ‘Naturopathic Tree of Health’ under “Work with Me”.

Let’s take for example, recurring headaches. The root cause for yours may be quite different to your fellow sufferers.

What you perhaps do currently is: get a headache → take a painkiller → headache goes away. Whilst this is symptomatic treatment, it is not addressing the cause.

It could be a myriad of things that need addressing, such as below. Treating the cause takes longer, and more commitment than taking the painkiller, but you will be rewarded by addressing that underlying issue, and helping your body to get back into balance, with the associated renewed health and vitality.

• neck or shoulder pain due to a trauma or bad posture

• hormone imbalances

• dehydration

• poor sleep

• stress

• constipation

• sinusitis

• eyesight challenges

• allergies

• a magnesium insufficiency

• a virus or other infection

Naturopaths have training in pharmacology, and it’s vital you advise of any and all medications you are taking, along with any current supplementation. Contraindications, nutrient-drug, and herb-drug interactions will always be checked, to ensure no safety issues, or no prescriptions of products that may make your medications less effective. We always advise you keep an open dialogue with your primary health provider also, advising them of anything you start on. I’m very happy to work in a coordinated, integrative, holistic way with your GP and anyone else in your health team.

Sometimes, we need more information about what is happening inside you, and allopathic testing (through your GP) and functional pathology testing are tools we can use, to help determine what is going on.

Functional pathology (and allopathic testing) help to understand what functional, biochemical, nutritional, digestive, immune, hormonal changes (and more!), may be influencing or affecting your health. This information is then used to inform me, when developing your Wellness Plan.

In actual fact, your body is detox’ing constantly to process and eliminate toxins – it does this via the lungs, liver, bowel, kidneys and skin, being our major eliminative organs, as well as the blood and lymphatic system.

However the world that we live in today, is very different from that of our ancestors (even as recently as our grandparents), and the lifestyles that we lead are totally different as well.

It is increasingly obvious that there is a greater need for more awareness generally, but also a need for us to assist our bodies as they constantly work to repair damage, and protect us as best they can from all that we are exposed to – pollution in the air we breathe; impure or treated water; chemicals we are exposed to - we put on or in our bodies, or use in the household and garden; food exposed to modern farming methods and storage, and more.