Your first visit

Your first visit starts with listening and recording your history and personal information. We will collect information about such things as the primary issue or health concern, emotional and mental health, bodily functions like digestion and elimination, family medical history, and food and beverage consumption. This information is the essential details that are used to understand and formulate the big picture of your unique situation.

In subsequent visits, we will monitor how your individual situation evolves and how herbal formulas are working. Information collected during follow-up visits are used to tweak formulas to adjust to your changing and evolving health.

What to expect from this process? The relationship we will establish is best described as a partnership. You are the expert on what is happening with you and your body. My role as an herbalist is to help you understand how the complexities of your experience are affecting your overall health and support you in your unique healing process. Food and herbs are the primary tools I use in my practice.

Note: I am not a medical doctor, nor is this process a substitute for seeing your healthcare professional.  No western medical diagnosis (i.e. diabetes, flu, irritable bowel syndrome, etc.) or advice concerning drugs or pharmaceuticals will be given.  The strategies that come from a consultation are designed specifically as a complement to work in conjunction with any western medical or pharmaceutical treatments you are using.  This approach, although distinctly different from western medical care in both philosophy and application, does not take the place of it in the management of disease and illness.

Specifics
The initial consultation is a two-stage process that lasts about 2-3 hours in total. The first phase of the initial visits involve a wholistic and detailed history that lasts between 1.5 -2 hours. Also, traditional Chinese tongue and pulse will be assessed during this time. The second phase of the initial consultation lasts 30 minutes - 1 hour and involves a presentation and discussion of recommendations for diet/food choices and lifestyle, as well as herbal formulas.

Recommendations are presented as a comprehensive strategy - involving herbs, nutrition, and lifestyle issues - that addresses how to help restore and maintain balance. Nutrition and dietary recommendations are an integral part of any strategy and focus on helping you to identify and understand food choices that facilitate maximum healing.

Follow-up
A very important part of the process of working with an herbalist is ongoing monitoring and support to allow for adjustments in herbal formulas, as well as to make and maintain food and lifestyle changes. Herbal formulas are adjusted as needed to respond to improvements and changes in health, as well as to address any new concerns that arise. Follow-up sessions last anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and involve a traditional Chinese assessment of tongue and pulse status. Everyone is scheduled with a follow-up appointment immediately following the initial consultation that takes place at anywhere from 2-4 weeks after initiating the herbal formulas.  The amount of time between follow-ups is determined by the individual situation.  It is possible that after this initial follow-up, you may only need to check-in to get more herbs and not return for a follow-up visit in several months.  This depends on the condition and the circumstances and is determined on an individual basis. 
 
For more chronic or serious issues, follow-up visits may happen once a month.  It is important to remember that follow-up visits can be an important resource and source of support in helping to make life changes.  Follow-up visits can help you monitor your health goals and how you are achieving them, as well as attend to other issues that may arise during this process. 
 
Even after the initial health goals have been achieved, many people continue to take their herbal formulas and continue to schedule follow-up visits on a regular basis.  For many of the people I see, this is a next step that is a health prevention strategy, as well as one that helps them continually to improve their sense of health and well being.  The potential for health and well being is a never ending process.  Each person has a constitutional herbal formula that can be uniquely tailored to them based on their constitutional type, health history, and lifestyle. These constitutional formulas are adjusted seasonally, as well as according to other physical and emotional health issues that arise.