The 5 Guiding Principles of Naturopathic Medicine

Introduction to Natural Medicine Principles 0:00

We don't really treat problems. We treat people because a problem could be a combination of factors for that individual. We had a couple of cases a number of years ago where I was doing some metabolic testing on a husband and wife, and the husband, after I did the testing and gave them their treatment plan, was upset because they both had different health issues, but I had given them a similar treatment plan. Well, they had different genetics. Husband and wife, different genetics and they had different health problems, but the same causes.

This is doctor talks, real talk from real doctors on the issues that matter to you. Most. Hello, I'm Doctor David Wickenheiser and in today's episode of the Natural Facts podcast, I want to discuss the five guiding principles of natural medicine. Every concept of medicine have

First Do No Harm 1:00

has a set of guiding principles and natural ethic. Medicine is no different. The five guiding principles are. First, do no harm act in cooperation with the healing power of nature to address the fundamental causes of disease, to treat the whole person through individualized treatment, and to teach the principles of healthy living and preventative medicine. First off, of course, let's do first do no harm. First, do no harm means to use assessment and treatments that minimize the risk to the patient.

This is a different concept from so-called allopathic medicine telepathic medicine. That name was coined in the 1840s in the United States, and that has to do with drugs and surgery. Certainly there's a place for hospital based drugs and surgical procedures. That's heroic medicine. If you're in a car crash, perfect. Get to the hospital yet assessed by the experts there. But within every one of those calculations, there are awareness of risks and benefits. There are obvious risks with things like surgery.

There are anesthetic reactions. There are reactions to many of the different procedures that are done. Whenever you cut into the body, there's going to be certain risks. Now that's acceptable in certain circumstances. Same thing with drugs. There's always a risk when you've got drugs. Now is that a big risk? A small risk that's up to the prescribing physician to figure out what is best for you as an individual. And they do a great job with that. Now natural medicine has a different approach. We want to minimize that risk.

So if there's a way of dealing with a health problem that is inherently lower risk, we need to go with that. We need to be aware of minimizing risk to the patient. That's just better care. And there's a lot of different choices that people can go through. What is the easiest way to go? And that perhaps in my practice, I've been in practice now for 30 years. Perhaps that means doing less where people want to come in and do a lot. Well, I want to do less. I want to watch and see how you respond to simple things.

When people come through the door, I'm always asking whether out loud or just to myself, are you broken or just out of gas? Because poor nutrition is extremely common today. People are not getting enough of what they need

Working With the Healing Power of Nature 3:30

to support their bodies normal function, much less regeneration. So how do we handle that? Well, of course, that's first do no harm. We want to take the lowest risk course of assessment testing and treatment possible. The second one to act in cooperation with the healing power of nature. What the heck does that mean? Well, there is a healing power of nature. One of the examples that I think about, beyond acupuncture and other basic traditional medicines that have been around for thousands of years, are your medicine and others.

They want to work with the inherent ability of the body to heal. We want to support that medicine from the standpoint of pharmaceutical drugs. Sometimes wants to rush ahead and force the body to have certain actions. Now that's a challenge from our side, because that may do no more harm than good to the person. And this is a bit of a joke when you watch television and you see the drug commercials and they're talking about the wonderful results that could come from use of a pharmaceutical, and then they have a long list of disclaimer items of all of the problems that we're seeing during research with that drug, all of the different health complications that could result from that.

So we want to first do no harm. Follow the simplest way you can do it. Act in cooperation. The healing power of nature. Recognize that your body does have an ability to heal. Another example is in surgery. Some surgeons famously quoted as saying, the steel that heals, that's the scalpel by cutting out diseased, damaged, infected, traumatized perhaps tumors in a person's body by cutting out problematic tissue will allow the balance of the body to heal and recover. So it was the steel that heals, but it's not really the steel that healed the body of the person.

Every person's body has an innate ability to actually heal, regenerate tissue and get back to normal. As long as we remove the cause of the disease. Now is that poor nutrition? Is that infection? Is that toxic load? Many other discussions. We need to look at all of them to figure out what is best for the individual. I mean, until you've addressed where the real problem problem came from, you won't have good success. Another concept you talk about is booms and echos. The echo being a symptom, the boom being the fundamental problem.

So if someone's allergic to wheat and that's causing problems to their body, or they've got an autoimmune reaction, that may be a result maybe of a deep infection. Well, until you solve the deep infection, that reactivity will still be in the person's body. So we need to go after and have an awareness, certainly, of all of those possibilities, and go through the list to eliminate

Finding the Fundamental Causes of Disease 6:30

problems, heal the for the whole person through individualized training. What does that mean? Kind of simple. No two people are always alike. Now there's similarities. There's family history. There's different people exposed to similar problems, like toxic load. We'll have similar reactions, but it's always an individual approach, and it's not even the same approach for the same person. So people will call and want to know, just what would you do? And I talk to people on the phone not often, but I do.

And they'll say, well, what would you do for this problem? Well, we don't really treat problems. We treat people because a problem could be a combination of factors for that individual. We had a couple of cases a number of years ago where I was doing some metabolic testing on a husband and wife, and the husband, after I did the testing and gave them their treatment plan, was upset because they both had different health issues, but I had given them a similar treatment plan. Well, they had different genetics, husband and wife, different genetics, and they had different health problems but the same causes.

So we got we must treat the underlying cause. So they're eating the same diet in the same environmental load, same home. And they needed to solve those problems because they came out in different ways for each of them. So the husband didn't understand that he was upset with me. He said, why we have such different problems? Why would we have the same treatment plan? Because after I had finished measuring their metabolism, I knew that they had the same level of dysfunction. It just comes out in different ways in each of them.

So we need to individualize the treatment, of course, and it's not even the same. Over time, people come back with a sore knee that I treated five years ago. Now that knee's fine, but the other one isn't. We need to talk about what's happened in their life. What's their nutritional status? How's that affecting the knee? Are they eating too many of the wrong foods? Perhaps tomatoes are irritating their knees. What about underlying infections? What about overuse patterns? Maybe the knee is an echo, not a boom.

It might be a problem with the hip or the ankle. Full assessment. This is what we need. The last principle is to teach the principles of healthy living and preventative medicine.

Individualized Treatment for the Whole Person 9:00

It's always easier to handle a problem before it manifests. Symptoms are the last to come on the first to leave. It could be a lifetime of abuse of a person's body. Were finally they develop symptoms of a disease. So again, looking at the underlying causes, maybe they need to stop insulting their body in certain ways. Maybe. But teach principles. Okay. Eat enough good food. I mean, are people actually doing that today? Well maybe not. There's a lot of statistics relating to foods handed through to customers through a drive thru window.

Now, I'm not saying Drive-Thru food is always bad, but I'm saying that you need to eat a majority of your meals at home where you fully control what went into them. Good nutrition starts in the grocery store or in the farmer's market, or from your own backyard. Growing your own food. Good food starts with being aware of where it came from, who produced it, what went into it. There's a ironic discussion about wheat. People in North America who are allergic to wheat. Many people are not everyone, but a lot of people.

And the question is, if wheat is fed to a cow in a feedlot. So if I'm allergic to wheat, will I be allergic to beef that's been fed wheat? Well, there is a risk and there's also an awareness that people that we have from Europe, they're originally from Europe, go home in the fall, eat all the wrong foods with all of their problematic foods that they would never eat here. And they're fine. And when they get back, they go back on their restricted diet and they're not good. So we have to be aware of where the foods coming from.

Are there different genetically modified foods and treatments like glyphosate, which is a major problem, also known as roundup. It's been documented to cause health problems. So being aware of where the problems are coming from in a person's life gives them control over where their health is going in the future. Kind of important. Again, the best way to handle any problem is to avoid it, to prevent it. To take steps ahead of time, to minimize and not have to face it in your life. Kind of rational.

Healthy Living and Preventative Medicine 11:30

So natural panic medicine is not really a surprise to anybody. When we talk to our patients and explain where we're coming from, our concerns for their individual health, it's usually not that big of a surprise. Most people kind of know. And so to map way through the testing, the treatment, the follow up giving people hope and understanding of where their problems really came from, that's natural path medicine. Not just giving them a prescription, chasing them out the door, not just waiting for surgery.

A surgical intervention, yes. Of course, drugs and surgery have their place, but we want to be healthy to the point that we use that as a last resort, not as a first resort. Last resort. So they work with the body to get the results that we want to enable you as a patient to have more hope, more control and more positive outcomes is critical. So again, guiding principles for natural path medicine. First, do no harm, minimize risk to act in cooperation with the healing power of nature. Recognize that there is a healing power of nature and that we want to harness it, not work against it.

To address the fundamental causes of disease. No kidding. Treat the booms, not the echo. Go after the real problem. First to heal the whole person through individualized treatment. We all want individualized treatment. Let's just make sure that we get it in our own health care and to teach the principles of healthy living and permanent preventative medicine. Of course, avoid problems. Don't just handle them when they pop up. I'm doctor David Wickenheiser, I'm a natural physician, and I enjoy helping people to map out the best way for them to regain and maintain their good health.

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