To schedule an appointment
please call (541) 706-9985
Bend Osteopathic Care, PC 147 SW Shevlin Hixon Drive Suite #204, Bend OR 97702
We accept most private insurances. Dr. Homertgen currently is not accepting Medicare at this time but we do offer a discounted fee for those on Medicare.
Health as a Reference Point
“Osteopathy is different than other healing arts. Osteopathy does not utilize disease as a reference point, but actively engages what is healthy and vital as the therapeutic organization for healing. Healing emerges from the health in the body not from the disease.”
Steve Paulus, DO
I provide Osteopathic Manual Medicine to help removal structural barriers to optimal health, Lifestyle Medicine to help prevent and reverse chronic disease and am now accepting a limited number of individuals and families for primary care if after meeting we mutually feel it is a good fit. To be accepted for primary care it is important that patients have a motivation to work towards optimal health or a strong desire to stay healthy and prevent chronic disease. If you are willing and ready to do the hard work of lifestyle change or sustain healthy behaviors to prevent disease formation. If you are open to possibly changing how you eat, how you move, manage stress and nurture relationships, then it would likely be a good fit if you are in need of a primary care physician.
I am a triple-boarded physician in Family Medicine and Osteopathic Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine & Lifestyle Medicine who looks for and addresses cause rather than merely treating symptoms. As a traditional osteopathic physician board certified in Osteopathic Manual Medicine, I first honor and look to your health. Rather than focus on what is not healthy, we look to your health and help augment what it is already trying to do rather than diving in to ‘fix what is wrong’. I use my hands to assess and treat.
I will look at what and how you are doing with your Forks, Feet, Fingers, Sleep, Stress & Love – Your 6 Life-Extending Habits and how those inputs may be contributing to your current state of health. We will look for safe and gentle lifestyle changes, habit change options to better support you on your path toward healing and optimal health. With a Lifestyle Medicine approach, I ask and support my patients to increase the good in their life. To increase the essential foods that help the body to heal: whole unprocessed plant foods: Vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, seeds and nuts. If we do not eventually address the food we consume will always be playing damage control and simply creating and ‘managing’ chronic disease. I didn’t go into medicine to just manage disease. The goal is to prevent and reverse. If I am only seeing you as a specialist, I would be happy to work with you primary care provider to safely help you rely less on pharmaceutical medications.
Applying the principles of Functional Medicine without relying on extraordinary out of pocket expensive laboratory tests, we can help you intervene through dietary modification, active and positive stress management interventions with at times intestinal support supplementation as needed to help address triggers and potential causes of your imbalances. This can sometimes require an initial strict adherence to the dietary plan but more so then not it is more gentle to go slow into changes with diet and other lifestyle inputs so as to minimize the risk of burn out or cause too many withdrawal symptoms. If you are interested in reading more on this type of approach my colleague, Michael Klaper, MD has an excellent summary article with links to the Paddison Program.
The Standard American Diet (SAD) subsisting of 60% processed foods, 30% animal products and a mere 10% vegetables, fruits and whole grains will eventually create chronic disease. It is in fact the number one cause of disease in the USA, yes the food we eat, including the chemicals used in farming, that we feed to our children. We all need to know that the chronic disease rate in the 1960’s in children was around 4-6%. Today it is early 50%. So yes, we need to look at the food and chemicals on the food.
There are many paths to healing as there are many causes of imbalance and disease processes. It can be an extraordinarily difficult yet an extraordinary and beautiful journey figuring this all out and implementing a gentle treatment plan. I know we need community, we need listeners. We need connection, inward to our deepest self, to our planet and to each other. We recognize the often causal role that previous trauma can play in our personal and communal health. The the survival based strongholds, vows and beliefs created to help us survive trauma and what now can be let go so as to help us get unstuck and progressing toward the health that you deserve. To the best of my ability I look to help my patients in their healing journey through the assistance of at times medication but also meditation, prayer and deep listening. I endeavor to help you get back into your body, feeling more of your wholeness, your deeper True Self rather than continuing to operate from these reactive and often unconscious survival based behaviors, to find a place of improved balance needed to continue to do the work necessary towards optimal health.
I would be honored to partner with you on your journey towards optimal health. I encourage you to visualize what your optimal health would look and feel like. I encourage you to journal, to start thinking about what may be the cause, what are your constant barriers to health promoting choices. What strongholds have you developed due to prior trauma that produced certain beliefs about yourself and the world around you that at one time were absolutely necessary for your survival but perhaps now are no longer necessary and in alignment with your soul’s purpose in this life. I honor you and respect that you are the expert of your own body and life. I welcome you where it feels practical and safe to make simple daily choices that reconnect you to nature. That bring you closer to your divine birthright of full embodiment, to be fully human in mind, body and the Spirit. Perhaps a few minutes a day observing your breath, a few moments barefoot on untreated grass or soil. A short walk where you practice observing nature and the sensations in your body. Time in nature in silence. When thoughts or emotions arise, where do you feel them in your body? Endeavor to get out of ‘the control tower’ of the mind, stuck in the past or worried about the future and into your body in the precious present moment. Can you remember back to a time where you felt whole and alive? What was different for you then? What happened to you that put you more on a survival path? Be in your body in everything you do. Practice the power of presence. Observe. Breathe. This is not easy work and especially if you are dealing with the effects of trauma, you deserve support. We can not do this alone. I tried myself do just that for over 20 years.
“An old abba was asked what was necessary to do to be saved. He was sitting making rope. Without glancing up, he said, “You’re looking at it.” Just as so many of the mystics have taught us, doing what you’re doing with presence and intention is prayer. As other spiritual teachers have taught in many forms, “When we walk, we walk; when we chop wood, we chop wood; when we sleep, we sleep.” As you know, this is much harder than it first seems.”
Richard Rohr, OFM
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine by thy food.”
Hippocrates
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
Our fulcrum is God: our lever, prayer; prayer which burns with love. With that we can lift the world!
St. Therese de Lisieux