I’m often asked why I chose to become a natural health doctor. Patients see me as an example of great health and often wonder how I can truly relate to what they’re going through with their health issues. How could I – I’m so healthy myself. Well, this wasn’t always the case. You see, when I was 9 years old I awoke one night in excruciating pain. This pain was in every joint of my body. I couldn’t get out of bed, I couldn’t even roll over because the pain in my shoulders was so excruciating. My father had to carry me into the hospital because I couldn’t put weight on my feet to walk in on my own. I was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, a debilitating, crippling and painful autoimmune disease that often leaves young adults facing hip replacements, knee replacements, and crippling joint pain.

For several years, until I was in high school, we made some dietary changes and went from doctor to doctor trying to find out how to help alleviate and deal with the disease. At the age of 12, one rheumatologist bluntly told me after examining my painfully swollen elbow that wouldn’t straighten, that this is what my life was going to be like… I would have this forever and it would never get better. She then prescribed me horse-pill sized corticosteroids. When it came time to take those pills, I chose otherwise.

At that point, my mother made a critical change in the type of doctors she would take me to see. Her little girl wanted answers, not negativity or harsh chemicals. We began to see a Naturopath and a Chiropractor. Under their guidance and instruction, I dramatically changed my diet and supplemented my diet with vital nutrients to improve my health. To help with my immune system, I received adjustments as well.

It is now 29 years after the fact and I have never been on medication! Since age 18 I have been in remission and have never needed surgery. When it came time to go off to college and decide what I wanted to do with my life, I knew that I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to practice the kind of doctoring that truly helped me gain control of my life and helped me be the vibrant, healthy person that I continue to be today. It was a no-brainer for me to gravitate towards natural health.

It’s not that I didn’t believe in medication or ‘modern’ medicine. I simply didn’t feel that the solutions I had been presented aligned with what I felt I needed. Even as a young girl, I knew that the treatments suggested by those doctors were not truly getting to the root of my issues. They didn’t know why was my immune system suddenly attacking me, nor did they know how to really fix the problem.

Today, in practice, I am rewarded as much as my patients are every time I find out WHY a person is sick, and thus HOW to help them get back to great health. People transform right before my eyes. It’s amazing to be able to help people come back to health naturally, just as I had been helped many years ago. It is my way of ‘paying it forward’.

To your continued health,

Dr. Stephanie Chaney