Dr. Mark VanOtterloo, DAOM

Dr. VanOtterloo, Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, strives to practice the best natural medicine. He does this by empowering his patients to take initiative and to be proactive about their health. He provides strategies to enhance and to increase the longevity of treatments. Lastly, he looks at the imbalances of the body in order to find the root of the issue, not to just mitigate symptoms.

Get To Know Dr. Mark

I have had personal experience with a chronic condition that affected multiple systems, similar to many of the patients that I treat. In my case, my body hurt everywhere. Even though I didn’t have a name for my condition at the time, I felt like my vitality had been stolen from me and I constantly wondered if it would ever return. This led me to eventually focus on chronic disease, in addition to women’s health in an integrative medical model for my doctorate work. I decided that this was the best way to help patients who – like myself – have a chronic condition, feel stuck, and are in need of pragmatic, helpful solutions.

I find that most of my patients are in very similar circumstances. They do not often have a good grasp on why so many things feel wrong with them, and tend to have multiple signs of distress in just about every part of their body. Many initial evaluation discussions involve comments such as “it feels like I’m falling apart everywhere”. New patients may have also already seen their share of different credentialed providers, given handfuls of supplements, and never given a big picture understanding of what the supplements are actually supposed to be helping.

My Doctorate in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (DAOM) focused on both chronic disease and women’s health. In terms of chronic disease, I have found that good medicine is so much more than just proficiency in one therapy. For patients, I evaluate their case from a functional medicine and ancestral health perspective. When it comes to evaluating chronic disease, I find it most effective to take a serious look at how humans lived for thousands of years without chronic disease, including a deep dive into the pathology and driving factors behind the condition. This allows me to generate a healing framework around diet, lifestyle, supplements, and therapies, with the overall goal of getting the patient back to their best health.

My own personal struggle with chronic disease forced me to go searching for help. After working with practitioners from both a traditional and functional medical perspective, I was able to finally “get my life back”, and it fueled a desire to learn more about functional medicine and ancestral health. Studying acupuncture and oriental medicine gave me an understanding of the value of ancestral healthcare. The functional medicine portion of my training adds a modern perspective to working with patients suffering from chronic disease and women’s health issues.

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