Dr. Lisa has been in practice since 2008 with a practice focus on women’s health and hormone balance. She is especially passionate about eliminating the gender bias in health care, and supporting women to achieve their ideal state of abundant, balanced health.
As a Naturopathic Doctor, Dr. Lisa is known for digging deep – for helping her patients identify imbalances and obstacles that are preventing them from manifesting their optimal health. She is a keen strategist, seeking to find the most direct, and least invasive way, of supporting the women in her practice to unlock their health.
As a doctor of Naturopathy, and a enthusiastic practitioner of functional medicine, Dr. Lisa is interested in getting to the root of your symptoms.
“Symptoms are our bodies way of communicating with us, of getting our attention. We can learn a lot by listening to our body’s cries for help, and getting to the root of those symptoms, rather than just ignoring or suppressing them” – Dr. Lisa
Fusing the art and science of naturopathic and functional medicine, Dr. Lisa draws from all the different strategies that are available, with the sole purpose of helping her patients achieve their goals for balanced and vibrant health.
We are what we eat – isn’t that what our grandmothers taught us? Clinic nutrition looks at the relationship between health and diet. The health of each and every single cell in our body is a reflection of the health of our diet. There are few conditions that cannot be improved, or prevented, through optimization of the diet.
I want every single person I work with to eat an abundantly healthy diet. Some people are closer to the ideal than others – and there is no one ideal diet for everyone. We need to look at your patterns, wants, and needs, as well as clinical research on diets that may benefit your symptoms or imbalances. We also look for symptoms of nutrient deficiencies, and use laboratory testing to confirm deficiencies of those vitamins and minerals that are necessary for abundant health.
As a plant-based practitioner, with over 30 years of eating a vegetarian diet, my personal experience has given me a great wealth of knowledge into this diet. However, I can support and educate people on the benefits and drawbacks of most any diet – Paleo, keto, gluten free, FODMAP, dairy free, low allergen, anti-inflammatory, and more.
Nutritional supplementation is a cornerstone of my treatments. Using nutrients that the body recognizes, and is able to use and eliminate with ease, are some of the most powerful natural interventions known to men. Abundant research exists on how each nutrient functions in the body, giving us a confidence that we are supporting our body in the hard work of achieving and sustaining health.
Botanical, or herbal, medicine is the use of plants for healing, and is hands down the oldest form of medicine. Plants are the source of many modern drugs – it has been estimated that the average Medical Doctor prescribes up to eight medications per day that are based on plants!
The World Health Organization estimates that 75% of the world still uses herbs as their primary medicine. Botanical medicine offers advantages over pharmaceuticals due to their nutritional value (many are rich sources of vitamins, minerals and other health-promoting compounds) and gentle healing properties.
Dr. Lisa uses botanical medicine extensively in her work with women’s health and hormone balance. From minimizing PMS symptoms, to improving anxiety and depression, to headaches, digestive issues, irritable bowel, stress, perimenopause and menopause, there are a plethora of herbs that have been well researched in the realm of women’s health.
Botanical medicines are usually used for a short term to help support the body into a balanced state and then discontinued once the body achieves and can sustain balance on its own.
One of the most important aspects of Naturopathic Medicine, and one of the ones Dr. Lisa is most passionate about, lifestyle counseling gives us a chance to take a step back and look at the daily habits, exercise routines, environmental exposures, thought and belief patterns, self talk, and stressors that may be impacting your health – for good or for bad.
Through lifestyle counseling we discuss ways to incorporate healthy behaviours into your daily routine, nourishing your physical body, your mind, your spirit and your community. Dr. Lisa reads extensively on habit formation, and seeks to help each woman understand herself deeply so that she can succeed in ways she may never have thought possible before.
Bio-identical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) is gaining traction among women seeking more options for managing the hormonal imbalances that occur in our 30s, 40s and 50s. However, there is a lot of controversy and lack of reliable information available to those women. Dr. Lisa is working hard to provide answers and empower women with the knowledge to choose what treatments best suit their needs.
Bio-identical hormones are compounds that have the exact same structure as the hormones our body makes itself. While the bio-identical hormones may be made in a lab (progesterone is made from wild yams!), their identical structure allows them to bind to hormone receptors in our body and precisely mimic the actions of our own hormones.
Bio-identical hormones may never be embraced by conventional medicine, because there is no profit to be made from them. As naturally occurring compounds, bio-identical hormones cannot be patented by pharmaceutical companies and marketed to doctors and patients. The only benefit to be gained from bio-identical hormones is improved quality of life for the people using them.
Bio-identical hormones are often used for women with infertility, PMS and PMDD, perimenopause, perimenopausal or menopausal sleep issues, and women in menopause with issues of mood changes, vaginal dryness, and hot flashes or night sweats.
One of the most common hormone imbalances, hypothyroidism impacts up to one in five people, with some experts suggesting it may be even more common than that. For many women (and men) with hypothyroidism, their symptoms do not significantly improve with standard Synthroid or levothyroxine treatment.
Desiccated thyroid hormone, one of the oldest forms of hormone replacement therapy, has been found in clinical studies to improve symptoms, including weight loss, in patients with hypothyroidism. Many studies have also found that patients prefer how they feel on desiccated thyroid better than on synthetic levothyroxine.
Available in Ontario as a prescription medication, Dr. Lisa has extensive experience in prescribing and monitoring the use of desiccated thyroid. As a Naturopathic Doctor she has prescribing rights for both desiccated thyroid and bioidentical hormones, and uses both in her practice to optimize patient outcomes.
Dr. Lisa also works extensively with autoimmune thyroid conditions, such as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and Graves’ disease and works with nutritional supplementation, dietary interventions, and botanical medicines to improve the quality of life in her patients with these conditions.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is a system of medicine that has been used to prevent diagnose and treat disease for over 5000 years. It is based on the Eastern philosophy of “Qi” (life energy). Traditional Chinese Medicine seeks to balance the flow of Qi in the body in order to maintain health, treat illness and relieve pain.
Acupuncture is the use of very fine, sterile acupuncture needles inserted into specific points in the body to control the flow of Qi. Acupuncture has been proven to be beneficial in the treatment of many conditions including digestive difficulties, menstrual irregularities, depression, insomnia, migraine and many others.
Dr. Lisa uses TCM and acupuncture for a variety of conditions in her practice, most notably fertility enhancement, IUI and IVF cycle support, female and male hormone balancing, menstrual irregularities, menopause symptoms (hot flashes, night sweats), anxiety, depression, insomnia, headaches and digestive complaints (diarrhea, constipation, heartburn). It is also highly safe and effective during pregnancy for nausea, carpal tunnel syndrome, aches and pains and for labour induction.
Intravenous Micronutrient Therapy (IVMT) is the administration of vitamins and minerals directly into the bloodstream. This treatment is used when patients are unable to ingest or absorb the right nutrients for their optimal health. In patients with inflammation in the digestive tract, inadequate enzyme or acid production or those with disease states that have high requirements for specific nutrients, IVMT can restore the body to balance in ways that oral nutrient supplementation never could.
There are a number of conditions that respond very well to IVMT. The infusions can be customized to meet the needs of a wide variety of imbalances. The conditions that have been found to be most responsive to IVMT include adrenal fatigue, depression, anxiety, chronic stress, migraine headaches, tension headaches, cluster headaches, the common cold, influenza, and acute or chronic pain.
Dr. Lisa maintains an additional certification to perform IVMT in Ontario and maintains rigorous continuing education and emergency medicine training to be able to offer this service to patients in her downtown clinic location.