What to expect at your naturopathic appointment
Your first office visit is about 60 minutes and consists of a complete health history, medication, supplement and diet review and pertinent physical exam. Then, together you and the doctor create a treatment plan for you based on their expertise and your health goals. Some patients choose to go full steam ahead, others make slow changes that add up over time. To gather all the information they need to get to the root cause of your symptoms, the doctor will almost always run conventional labs and often an "alternative" lab. Those "alternative" labs could include: hormone testing, food allergy panels, mineral and heavy metal hair analysis or a stool analysis. The alternative labs are often not covered by insurance plans. Your treatment plan will always be tailored specifically to you and will most likely consist of: dietary recommendations, herbal and/or nutritional supplements and lifestyle modifications.
Follow up visits are about 30 minutes long. The first follow up visit takes place about 4-6 weeks after your initial visit. At this time the doctor will go over lab results, check in to see how you're improving, add to and/or tweak your treatment plan if need be. After that second visit, the frequency with which the doctors see each patient differs greatly. Some patients want lots of support during their health journey and prefer to come in for a visit about every 6 weeks. Others are good to coast on their own, refilling supplements as they go and only need a few check-ins a year. Dr. Manning considers herself your partner in your journey back to health and strives for open communication so that you get the support you need.