About
HummingBird Health
Located off the
beautiful shores of Little Traverse Bay in Northern Michigan, HummingBird Health
is dedicated to helping those who wish to take an active role in their health,
achieve their health goals. We offer a variety of alternative and complimentary
healing modalities as well as classes in natural health options. The office is
fully "handi-abled" accessible and has some excellent lodging and eating
establishments nearby.
Dr. Bridget 'Bird'
Houston, ND NHE is the driving force behind HummingBird Health. She has a Doctor of Naturopathy from Trinity College of Natural
Medicine and a degree in
Natural Health Education from the Naturopathic Institute of Therapies and
Education.
She has additional training and certification in Homotoxicology, color therapy, sound therapy,
environmental toxins, and
holistic fertility, conception and childbirth.
June Houston, CN has a remarkable passion for animals. She started rescuing and
healing sick and injured horses at the tender age of 13. She completed
high school early and is a graduate of HINT, attaining her Holistic Health Education degree at just age 17. With plenty
of hands-on experience from working with her own animals, she loves seeing
people and their pets and teaching them all about the holistic health options
for themselves as well as their dogs, cats, birds and horses. She is also a Neuro-Acoustic Therapist and offers this remarkable therapy in our offices.
Dale Houston is our
General Manager and Chief Financial Officer. After many years of managing a number of companies, he
does his best to keep our overhead low, so we can offer services and products as
inexpensively as possible.
More About Bridget and How HummingBird
Health Came to Be
In
the fall of 1997,
I was diagnosed with idiopathic systemic necrotizing vasculitis. A
fancy medical way of saying that for unknown reasons my capillaries
and veins were exploding . . and I was dying. The Allopathic model called
for chemotherapy and steroids. However, I was already on steroids on a regular basis
for controlling a chronic case of asthma and they were doing nothing to control
the vasculitis. The outlook was pretty grim. At best, maybe six months. I had
watched my mom suffer through chemo for breast cancer just a few years before and had no desire
to die that way. I decided that if I was dying anyway, I had nothing to lose by
trying the so-called 'alternative' route. I'm glad I did! I'm still
here!! I no longer have a vasculitis and the asthma that once
required multiple inhalers, regular nebulizer treatments and rounds of steroids
has been gone for nearly 20 years as well. The sinus and allergy problems have also
been corrected. I still have a ways to go. It took me thirty years to destroy my
body to the point it almost killed me, if it takes me thirty years to fix it,
that's okay. At least now, I know how.
I
made some mistakes along my road to recovery. One of the first people I saw was
a Master Herbalist who decided that since vasculitis was heart related, I should
take lots of red clover, which I was told was good for the heart. A day later I
was bleeding worse than ever and called the herbalist back in a panic. I was
told if it wasn't working for me, just stop taking it. I found this shocking,
frustrating and mostly frightening. Still unwilling to surrender to chemo and
death, I started researching herbs for myself. The herbalist was right about the correlation between red clover and SOME types of heart problems.
There was
plenty of information out there touting the benefits of red clover for people with heart issues, but very little
explanation of how it worked. Then I learned it was loaded with coumarins, as in
the drug coumadin... it's an effective blood thinner. Great for those heart
folks that need thinner blood, but not so great for a vasculitis person that is
already bleeding! And so began a quest to learn HOW things worked. I was
completely fascinated, not only by herbalism but the whole realm of naturopathy
from acupressure to sound therapy. As I became healthier and stronger, others
with serious illnesses began knocking my
door asking for my help. I knew plenty about dealing with vasculitis and my many other health problems,
but little about other serious ailments. With plenty of encouragement from my
wonderful husband, school followed and HummingBird Health Consultants, llc was born.
A health food store and a school of our own to teach
others, eventually followed.
Education
continues to be a large part of my life. The more I learn, the more I realize is
out there. I will no doubt be a life-long student of natural healing. I have
been blessed to learn from some of the best in their fields. They have my
deepest appreciation for sharing knowledge that one would likely never find in a book.
I also thank my mother, an RN for over 40 years who, despite
her training, was willing to take a brave leap off the Allopathic merry-go-round
with me. She is now a 30-year cancer survivor!
I
look forward to sharing my knowledge and experience with you, either as a client
or as student or an attendee of one of our natural health lectures. For
class and lecture schedules, see Classes. To make an appointment, please
see our home page for contact information.
Yours
in health and hope,
Bridget
