NATUROPATHIC DOCTOR

NATUROPATHIC PHILOSOPHY
Dr. Sundene takes pride in practicing a traditional “Nature Cure” philosophy modeled after Dr. John Bastyr, and takes pride in always looking for the root cause of disease and restoring health so that her patients end up on the least amount of prescription drugs possible. She provides a Functional Medicine approach to chronic disease management by addressing “Systems not Symptoms” and believes that we need to understand why the body is presenting the symptom to heal the symptom, rather than simply suppressing the symptom to try to make it go away. This is achieved through balancing the patient’s naturopathic systems such as digestive system, nervous system, or endocrine system.
Her mission is to provide a safe, private, personable, compassionate and educational environment for all patients challenged by chronic disease conditions. Dr. Sundene enjoys taking time to get to know each patient individually and is passionate about teaching patients prevention through healthy diet and lifestyle.
Dr. Sundene is committed to practicing “Evidence Based” or science based Naturopathic Medicine and continuously is researching medical literature and applying her findings to naturopathic healing philosophies. She also practices as a “Traditional Herbalist” using old fashioned “Nature Cure” herbal remedies. She takes a practical and conservative approach to Naturopathy and works diligently to keep her patients on the least amount of prescription medications possible. She enjoys teaching her patients to cook with fresh herbs and to make their own herbal medicines at home as found in her cookbook, “The PGE-2 Diet” designed to help with weight loss, pain and hormone imbalance by addressing inflammatory pathways that cause hormone imbalance and pain. Dr. Sundene combines her own chronic pain journey with years of nutritional and herbal medicine research to provide patients with a diet to help manage their chronic pain symptoms.

WOMEN’S HEALTH AND HORMONES
In 2007 she completed an Internship specializing in Naturopathic Gynecology and Urology and enjoys helping women with related complaints due to the efficacy of natural treatments for these conditions. She trained directly with Bastyr University’s top Gynecology instructors and Master Herbalists specializing in Women’s Health. In addition to her medical school training, in 1999 she began working for an Internist that specializes in Women’s Health, Hormone Replacement Therapy and Osteoporosis. For eight years Dr. Sundene worked for MD’s that were prescribing synthetic hormones and now prefers to only prescribe natural bio-identical hormones as the safer alternative.
Dr. Sundene believes after 20 years of experience in both synthetic and natural hormones that the safest approach to hormone replacement therapy is to use the least amount of bioidentical hormones needed to control symptoms while addressing the underlying causes of hormonal imbalance with herbs, nutrition and naturopathic principles to improve the patient’s quality and quantity of life. Many patients that are unable to take hormones are referred to Dr. Sundene to help provide Naturopathic alternatives to Bio-identical Hormones.


FAMILY MEDICINE AND DERMATOLOGY
Dr. Sundene worked for eight years at an award winning hospital for many MD’s in Family Medicine, Dermatology, ENT, Urology, Gastroenterology, OBgyn, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Urgent Care, Nursing Triage and many specialties. Her favorite health topics as a result of her past work experience are now Anemia, Hormones, Dermatology, Urology, Women’s Health and Gastroenterology. Dr. Sundene is proud to have many MD colleagues to confer and collaborate on challenging complex cases from her diverse work experience.
She combines her diverse experience from Eastern and Western medicine to offer her patients the most comprehensive treatment options from both conventional and holistic perspectives. She has vast experience safely combining natural medicines with prescription drugs as well as tapering patients off medications gradually when they prefer to use only natural medicines or can no longer tolerate prescription drugs

Naturopathic Doctor’s are licensed with or without the ability to prescribe medications. Naturopathic Medical Doctors are licensed to prescribe medicine and provide services similar to Family Doctors in addition to their training as a Naturopathic Doctor. Naturopathic Medical Doctors trained in Integrated Family medicine make ideal Hormone Care Physicians as their goal is to always prescribe medications judiciously and only use prescription medications when diet and natural medicine alone is not realistic, and also while the Naturopathic Doctor and patient are actively working to address the cause of disease. The Naturopathic Doctor will then taper the patient off prescription medications when they are no longer necessary. Naturopathic Medical Doctors undergo the same training, licensing and regulation requirements as Family Doctors and additionally are trained and licensed in Naturopathic Medicine, Bio-identical Hormones, Herbal Medicine and Nutrition.

NATUROPATHIC HEALING PRINCIPLES

-> First, Do No Harm
-> Treat the Cause
-> Treat the Whole Person
-> Trust in the Body's Innate Ability to Heal
-> Doctor as Teacher
->  Prevention