Riverside Natural Health Center had its grand opening at the Star Mill Building in downtown Middlebury last Friday. The Center houses the offices of four health practitioners dedicated to using only natural remedies to help patients. Services include acupuncture, massage therapy, naturopathic medicine, and midwifery.
Three of the partners, massage therapist Stephanie Powers, acupuncturist Nieve Shere and midwife Chenoa Hamilton, had been working together under the same roof for the past year and a half above the Middlebury shop, Clementine. They were eager to find a bigger space and ended up at Star Mill with doctor of naturopathic medicine Matthew Perchemlides, who was also looking for a new space.
Powers is Riverside’s certified massage therapist. She has been doing massage for about 15 years and has adopted and developed numerous types of massage over the years.
“My work is primarily a combination of creations based on traditional Swedish, deep tissue, neuromuscular massage; I combine them all,” Powers said. She lived in Hawaii and incorporates elements of Hawaiian culture into her practice. Massage patients include people with anxiety who need relaxation, people with chronic neck and lower back problems, and pregnant women.
“I see a lot of the same occurrences in people,” Powers said.
Nieve Shere, another practitioner in the practice, is a licensed acupuncturist, meaning she has undergone more than 3,000 hours of hands-on training. Acupuncture can be used to help ease a large variety of different ailments. It can help treat disease, reduce pain, slow aging, enhance athletic performance, and increase general well-being. Acupuncture is a Chinese medicine that is thousands of years old and involves the insertion of hair-thin needles into the body to enhance the flow of qi, the body’s energy force.
The needles are inserted along the body’s meridian points, where qi is believed to flow. Different meridian points have direct connections to different organs, and when the qi is not flowing properly through the meridians, illness and pain can result. Acupuncture restores the smooth flow of qi. One should typically be able to feel relief from their pain or disease after just three to five sessions. Nieve is certified by the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM) and is licensed by New York and Vermont state. Initial consultations with Nieve normally last about 90 minutes and follow-up sessions last an hour. Acupuncture is covered by certain insurance plans as well.
Dr. Matthew Perchemlides, a naturopath, is another member of the Center. At the cornerstone of naturopathic care is the belief that the body is able to heal itself when given comprehensive and individualized care. Naturopathic care includes traditional and lifestyle recommendations, differing from traditional medicine by focusing on the body’s interconnected and interdependent system. Naturopathic medicine aims to treat the root of a patient’s issue rather than mask the symptoms. To become a naturopath, one must undergo a four year program at an accredited naturopathic medical school. Upon graduation, students must pass the Naturopathic Physicians Licensing Examination.
A first-time visit with Dr. Perchemlides usually lasts an hour, during which he performs a comprehensive examination to create a customized treatment plan for the patient. Follow-up visits are usually 30 minutes long.
“Naturopathic medical care involves more than just the identification of disease and the management of symptoms; it involves locating and targeting the source of an ailment through a comprehensive and evidence-based integrative approach so the patient has the best chance of making a full recovery without harmful and toxic treatments,” Dr. Perchemlides said. Before becoming a naturopath, Dr. Perchemlides was a registered nurse and worked in a traditional hospital setting. He felt that conventional medicine placed “too many limits on [his] ability to truly help [his] patients heal permanently” and decided to pursue alternative means of healing.
Chenoa Hamilton, Nieve’s twin sister, is a midwife who offers homebirth services through the Center. She has been practicing as a doula for about eight and a half years. Her approach accommodates those who wish to give birth with less intervention and in the comfort of their own homes.
The partners are excited to be working together. “The whole idea is that we’re trying to be everything under one roof, in-house care. One patient can see all of us and get everything they need in one place, that’s what we’re working toward,” Powers said.
