Consult any health book, website or health food store and you will be told take supplement x, y and z to fix your current health issue. Sometimes this approach can be helpful and sometimes not. The fact remains that supplements work best when you give your body what it NEEDS. Treating the cause is a primary objective in Naturopathic Medicine but often the true cause of any problem is quite tricky to figure out.
There exists an innate intelligence to the body that we can tap into to help determine what the body needs. Just like putting on a comfortable shirt the body also knows what kind of supplements are “comfortable” within the body chemistry. It also reacts to things that are not comfortable as well. This allows us to expose the body to various stimuli to help gain clues as to what your body needs.
How do we do this?
There are three primary ways (aside from lab testing and physical exam) to determine how to best balance the body.
1) Acugraph testing- This type of testing determines the present state of acupuncture meridian balance. The pattern that shows up in your meridian provides helpful information as to what kind of acupuncture protocol and herbal formulas best support your return to wellness.
2) Asyra-Asyra- An electrodermal device that essentially measure stress responses in the body somewhat like a lie detector test. Vibrations of various homeopathic, herbal and nutritional remedies are introduced to the body and stress responses are measured. Remedies that provoke a relaxation response give us clues as to what kind of imbalances are present in your body and how to best address them.
3) Functional Bio-Analysis – Functional Bio-Analysis “FBA” is a comprehensive system of nutritional analysis using muscle testing and acupuncture reflex points to determine nutritional needs. Muscles demonstrate changes in tone when the body is exposed to stressors. This biofeedback can be a great asset to finding out what the body wants at the time to address underlying causes of illness. Supplementation becomes much more custom tailored to the patient allowing for much better results. For more info on FBA email me for a pdf copy of the book “Hope For Health” by Dr Scott Monk.