Becoming an ND

After graduating university, I landed a job with a pharmaceutical company as formulator and product development chemist. I was eager to begin using my double major degree in Biology and Chemistry in a health related field. I always knew I wanted to be in the health field, and I found comfort in knowing I was helping others. Interestingly, life, the universe or whatever you want to call it was about to deliver a message, “Health is not what you think it is buddy!”.

At the time, my belief of health was that you are either healthy or you are sick (with symptoms), very much the way most people view health. Simply put, a doctor diagnoses and treats disease. Under this model, it is assumed that disease is distinct and separate from the person therefore allowing for it to be labeled (i.e. asthma, cancer, heart disease…etc) and it can be removed from the person (treatment with pharmaceuticals, surgery, radiation). I mean after all, I was in the business, so it had to be true.

After several years, life began to teach me a thing or two. I began to develop breathing problems and severe seasonal allergies and I was also beginning to learn “the business of health” in my work place.

Every spring starting in 2000, I would spend six solid weeks with severe itchy red eyes, watery nose that was a faucet day and night, headaches that would never go away and a sore throat that was red and raw making eating and drinking really unpleasant. I was always tired, despite sleeping 14-16 hours; it felt more like 4 hours. On top of that, playing ice hockey in the summer would trigger asthma attacks. This was all new to me, and I didn’t like it at all. My first visit to the medical doctor was 5 minutes, I ended up with antihistamines and a new bronchodilator that just came out on the market. This treatment allowed me to barely get through a working day. I went through the day like a walking zombie.

The next spring, I was armed with my antihistamines and bronchodilator, determined not to let it “get out of hand”; I took them at the first sign of trouble. Unfortunately, everything was much worse that spring despite treating it. My second trip to the medical doctor involved another visit lasting 5 minutes that included an adrenaline shot, which worked great…for 12 hours. Then the symptoms came right back.

As for the business side of health, unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, it can be summed up by a “joke” that the director of research told us during one of our meeting breaks. “Why do we (pharmaceutical companies) never make cures?” He paused and giggled before delivering the punch line, “because we don’t make money off of cures”. My heart sank, it was a defining moment in my life. This is not to say pharmaceutical therapy doesn’t have a place in our health system, we just have to recognize most of the time they primarily palliate symptoms without addressing the cause of the illness. And sometimes this is necessary to sustain life.

These experiences led me to consider a new career and it also happened to be a time in which I was searching for better answers to my health issues. At the time, I knew nothing about naturopathic medicine but this soon changed, while registering for courses to pursue other career options. I had unexpectedly met up with a colleague of mine who I hadn’t seen since graduation. She told me she was training to be a naturopathic doctor. I didn’t know it yet, but the universe just gave me the answers that I was seeking.

After following her suggestion to see a naturopathic doctor, my concept of health completely changed. The naturopathic doctor taught me that the conditions of illness relates to the conditions of the terrain of the body. He explained to me that our bodies are essentially a garden. If you never feed it, water it or nourish it properly, that environment will allow the garden (our body) to wilt and weeds (disease) to thrive.

In my case, he explained during our initial (90 minute) visit that my diet was the cause of my severe debilitating allergies and the asthma was a deeper symptom of those allergies, not two different separate diseases to be treated differently. After being educated on how my body actually worked and that I need to support it with a better diet, I finally realized an empowered view of health. I discovered health is a process in which I needed to take ownership. I’m not simply entitled to excellent health unless I earn it by respecting and supporting my body. To this day, I am still symptom free!

In 2007, I graduated from the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine with a profoundly changed idea of what health was really about from my own experiences. I would like to leave you with these final thoughts…

Disease is not a state, nor is a person’s health. Both are fluid, dynamic flow of fluctuations that are influenced every day and illness becomes noticeable only when symptoms appear. Health or disease will occur where the conditions for health or disease exist. The aim of naturopathic medicine is to restore health through the removal of the disturbances by supporting the greatest healing tool known to man, the body itself. Without this, a long and happy life would be difficult to achieve.

Whether your challenges are for more energy, better concentration, past injuries or more serious illnesses, it boils down to this: It is your choice how to live your life, and it starts with your values and at the most basic level, your health. The naturopathic doctor offers a choice: therapies which focus on restoring health in order for your body to overcome the underlying cause of illness rather than doing battle with a set of symptoms (disease)!

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men (woman) are afraid of the light.” – Plato –

Dr. Derek Cook, Naturopathic Doctor