Naturopathic medicine is a system that uses natural remedies to help the body heal itself. It embraces many therapies, including herbs, massage, acupuncture, exercise, and nutritional counseling.
Afterwards, they will typically discuss your personal health plan. Naturopathic medicine focuses on education and prevention, so your doctor may give you diet, exercise, or stress management tips.
They might use complementary medicine – like homeopathy, herbal medicine, and acupuncture – in addition to naturopathic treatments. They may also use touch, such as massage and pressure, to create balance in your body. This is called naturopathic manipulative therapy.
Naturopathy uses a series of principles and beliefs to create individual treatment plans.
These principles and beliefs are:
- Self-healing: Identifying and removing obstacles to recovery, allows for natural healing;
- Underlying symptoms: Rather than stopping symptoms, a naturopathic doctor can resolve underlying physical or mental issues by treating the body, mind, and spirit;
- Harmless treatment: Treatment plans should not have harmful side effects or control symptoms negatively;
- Holistic treatment: A naturopathic doctor must recognize individuality to treat all aspects of a person’s health effectively;
- Education in treatment: Naturopathic doctors teach self-care to help empower people against ill health;
- Prevention: It is good to remove toxic substances from a lifestyle to prevent problems from arising.
Amani El Sawaf
Amani El Sawaf is our licensed naturopathic doctor, board-certified from the College of Naturopaths in Ontario and passed the Naturopathic Physicians Licensing Examinations (NPLEX) for North America.
El Sawaf completed conventional medical school training in Egypt. She graduated from medical school with an honours degree and joined the rheumatology residency program at Cairo University, Egypt.
She is specialist in diagnosis and management of autoimmune diseases and arthritis using chemotherapy, biological treatment and rehabilitation care. Amani went on to obtain her master’s and a doctorate degree in rheumatology. She was promoted to a professor of rheumatology before leaving Cairo University.