Dr. Anouk Chaumont, ND, Grande Prairie/Dawson Creek
Dr. Anouk Chaumont ND graduated from the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine in 2005. She is a member of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS), as well as board member of the Lyme Disease Association of Alberta (LDAA). Dr. Chaumont, ND is licensed in Alberta and British Columbia and practices in both provinces.
“In high school, I wanted to become a conventional medical doctor. I ended up going into psychology instead and worked as a parole officer for two years while doing my master’s in criminology. I soon realized that criminology wasn’t for me. During this time, my mother (a registered nurse) started studying homeopathy. Through this, I was exposed to a whole new way of doing medicine and went back to my initial passion (medicine) except with a more natural approach.”
“Initially, my clinical area of focus was naturopathic oncology (cancer support). However, my area of special interest over the last 5 years has been chronic infections, specifically Lyme disease and co-infections. I began focusing on this because my husband went fishing in Northern Alberta one day and came home with Lyme disease. I needed to learn how to treat it so that I could help him. All of a sudden, after this incident, a lot of patients started showing up at my clinic with strange symptoms. The one thing they all had in common was undiagnosed chronic Lyme disease. So, I shifted my clinical focus to mold toxicity, Lyme disease and co-infections. Unfortunately, very few naturopathic doctors know how to properly treat Lyme disease. This condition is much more prevalent than people think. A lot of patients are misdiagnosed.”
Rather than a strict separation between conventional and naturopathic treatment, Dr. Chaumont, ND finds that “the best treatment results come from a combination of antibiotics and botanical medicine with other additional tools from Naturopathic Medicine.” As naturopathic doctors do not have prescription rights in Alberta (and legislation varies by province), Dr. Chaumont, ND decided to obtain dual licensure in Alberta and BC in order to provide full care to her patients. “I would consider the process of getting my dual licensure one of my biggest challenges, but also greatest accomplishments.”
“It is a huge frustration to not have prescription rights in Alberta. This means having to separate my practice among two different provinces. My main office is in Alberta and I travel to my BC office every second Friday. When an Albertan patient needs complementary antibiotic therapy, they have to travel all the way to my BC office, so that I can address that portion of the treatment there. It is a real challenge for the patient.”
A typical day in the life of Dr. Anouk Chaumont, ND looks as follows: “I enjoy my morning coffee with puppy snuggles before leaving my house, then I typically see about 10-15 patients/day usually beginning with blood draws in the morning. I stay about 1-2 hours afterwards to finish any paperwork. Sometimes I stop by the gym for a training session after work and go for walks with my three dogs. My personal project currently is to get back into competitive shooting. I am redoing my certifications and like to take part in competitions through the IPSC (International Practical Shooting Confederation). It is highly tactical, a social activity that I like to do with friends, and it is a good stress release.”
