What is a naturopathic doctor?

A naturopathic doctor is a healthcare practitioner who addresses the root cause of your symptoms with natural therapies. Naturopathic medicine, an established and government-regulated form of healthcare in the USA and Canada, draws insights from both modern research and traditional healing systems. North American naturopathic doctors complete eight years of full-time University education, including a pre-medical science degree and a post-graduate medical program in natural modalities. With their rigorous training, naturopaths collaborate efficiently with other healthcare practitioners and deliver quality complementary care to those wishing to take an active role in their health.

Sigrid Grobys, your naturopathic doctor, is your personal health coach. We carefully listen to your needs, recommend a variety of measures tailored to your particular health goals, and assist you in implementing them every step of the way. Since everyone is unique, our interventions are highly individualized and may include the prescription of herbs, nutritional supplements or homeopathic remedies. We also support you in making positive lifestyle and dietary changes. All recommendations provided are gentle, safe and free of side effects, promoting wellness by encouraging the body to restore its health.

How is a naturopathic doctor different from a homeopath or a nutritionist?

In the USA and Canada, naturopathic doctors have a well-defined scope of practice which includes in-depth working knowledge of different modalities. Those include nutritional counseling, homeopathy, botanical medicine and counselling. This allows a full 360 view of your health and many different tools through which one can create a highly customized treatment plan to address your own individual health issues. Because no two people are alike, a person with a particular diagnosis may be treated with homeopathy and counselling, while another with a similar diagnosis may need nutritional interventions and supplements. Your naturopathic doctor is able to see how individual your presenting concerns are and elaborate the treatment plan that suits “the story of you”. Sigrid listens to the story of your health journey, obstacles and goals in order to ensure that the treatment plan is targeted at the whole of you, and not just only your blood test results or a diagnostic label.

How many naturopathic consultations will I need?

Because every client is provided with a highly customized treatment plan, it is difficult to say how many sessions will be needed. Generally, only a few sessions are needed (2-5) for children, those with purely functional health issues that have not been a problem for long (less than a year) and individuals who have not had regular prescription medication for their health issues. Follow-ups are typically spaced out by 4-6 weeks. For more entrenched health problems, where medication has been necessary and where the health issues has gone on for more than a year, one may need to plan more sessions.

Why is your Naturopathic Doctor also a Holistic Psychotherapist?

Sigrid Grobys practiced naturopathic medicine for almost a decade before realizing that a number of chronic health issues cannot be fully resolved through naturopathic medicine alone. Many entrenched conditions improve by 70-80% with naturopathic medicine and the last 20-30% improvements occur once psycho-emotional causes of illness are addressed. The mind and body function as a unit and there is often a striking and surprising parallel between what goes on in the physical body and on the mental-emotional plane. Holistic psychotherapy is a way of entering this other plane, and understand the “hidden” language of the body. For more about holistic psychotherapy, click here.

Why hasn’t my GP recommended any natural interventions to me?

General practitioners are trained to prescribe life-saving medications when necessary. Their area of expertise is not dietary or lifestyle counseling or natural medicine – in fact, they receive only very few hours of training in these areas. As such, they are often unaware of the power of natural interventions and dietary/lifestyle changes to improve many health conditions.