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Toledo Naturopathic, Dr. Maleigha Watts

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Waterville, OH
Toledo Naturopathic, Dr. Maleigha Watts

Investigating the root cause of chronic health concerns and sharing lessons learned along the way! Dr. Watts has been serving NW Ohio for the past decade.

Toledo Naturopathic offers a spectrum of care: for those that are seeking preventative care, to those with more complex health histories that require more advanced holistic care. Dr. Watts believes in investigating and addressing the root cause(s) to health concerns, in empowering patients to be engaged in their health and healing, and advocating for her patients by serving as a bridge between the holistic and traditional models of medicine. Dr. Watts completed undergraduate studies locally at the University of Toledo and then moved to Tempe, Arizona for 5 years to train at Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine (1 of 6 nationally accredited, 4 year naturopathic medical programs in the US). She completed an internship with Dr. MaryK Geyer in Phoenix, Arizona thereafter with an emphasis in primary care medicine. Although the state of Ohio does not license Naturopathic Physicians at this time, Dr. Watts continues to maintain a license in Arizona which requires active involvement in Continuing Medical Education hours (30+) each year.

02/26/2026

Well, we had something unexpected happen...

A patient of ours was scheduling with their primary care and was basically given an ultimatum:

See the Naturopathic Doctor (ND) and you're fired here as a patient.

Stay here as a patient, you cannot see the ND.

😳Wait, come again?

Not only this the office doubled-down: a follow up conversation from the office manager thereafter to further bully them into submission with this policy. And a bold statement of "if you go elsewhere there is a website where we can see all health-transactions and we will know you are lying."

(Disclosure: This might be traceable to some extent with using health insurance but this is NOT the case in a cash-based practice. And HIPAA otherwise protects patients--if XYZ calls an office asking is patient John Doe a patient--we cannot disclose ANYTHING without patient consent).

This is not the first time that allopathic medicine has had prejudice against an ND. It also will not be the last. This is no skin off the back of our practice/business, it will go on.

It is, from what I can recall over the going on 15 years of practice, the first time an office has created a policy to penalize THEIR PATIENT (AND CUSTOMER) for having autonomy in their healthcare choices outside of that office.

Wild.

I still haven't fully put this altogether in my brain. I feel awful for this patient, having had this experience. I feel bad for the patients we have referred to this practice with confidence (as soon as last week), as we didn't know this was taking place behind the scenes. How does this enhance patient care? How does this improve outcomes? Is this in the best interest of the patient?

Healthcare is already intimidating and overwhelming for patients. They may already be afraid to ask questions, afraid to advocate for themselves, but now they have to worry about this dynamic, and what...NOT disclosing who else they see? Or lie about who they see/do not see so they can still receive care via insurance? Or having to argue over the legitimacy of an ND's background and training (which is not their job, it's easily researchable by anyone, as the patient already did).

I don't really have any advice here, I'm still processing for this poor patient and other patients that we know will face this conversation sooner or later when they go in. I hope none of you experience this, but I guess it is something to consider and look for as you are navigating your healthcare provider choices.

BTW the above is an office-specific policy, not a policy of an entire healthcare system. Edited to add: We also don't even know if this is was decided by a specific provider or by an administrator at the office.

02/24/2026

Ran out of yarn. Do you...do you think anyone will notice? 😂🤣

Math has never been my strong suit. Even more annoying: the yarn shop is over an hour away. 🤦🏻‍♀️

02/21/2026

If you plan on staying a patient with us long term, here are some office updates to pay attention to. As the practice has evolved our policies and the ways we handle the day-to-day have also need to shift with us.

1) If you want to remain a patient I require a visit at least once every 2 years. Because our patient population mostly involves the chronically ill, a LOT can happen in 2 years. Having a bigger gap than this makes it near impossible for me to see someone for a half hour follow up and to be expected to do a thorough job.

2) If your last visit is pretty close to that 2 year mark, I am going to request a 1 hour visit so we have enough time to catch up. 1 hour visits are also pretty hard to come by, so please plan ahead for this (and do not expect to be seen immediately).

3) Our new patient rates for 2026 stayed the same as 2025. Our follow up rates did increase for 2026. Everyone that schedules in 2026 will electronically receive our updated rates and policies AND we require a signature so we know you have read through them (please read through them...) There is always a little criticism when rates change. I also have criticism for office/lease fees going up 50% since last year but this is how business is.

4) At the end of every visit, I verbally tell the patient (and Sarah) when I would like a next follow up. I do my best to put this in writing on the typed recommendation sheet but sometimes my days be hectic and I miss it. It's the most time efficient to schedule your next visit before you leave.

5) Scheduling a visit before you leave the office is helpful because--an example of our current flow---if you call next week saying that Dr. Watts said you should be seen in February...well, the soonest we have is May. Waiting to the last minute ends up postponing your care.

6) Given how jam packed our schedule is, we have had to change our cancellation policy and fee. We require at LEAST 2 business days' notice of cancellation. If this is not provided, we charge 100% of the office visit. We implemented this fee with the hope we would never need it (that people appreciate their hard-earned money enough to not have it spent on a visit they did not have).

7) We need the above cancellation policy because our office is *that* busy. Sarah *always* has a cancellation list a mile long. When we are provided enough notice of a cancellation, we can move someone up and cross a name off that list. With last minute/no notice that time is wasted and there cancellation list sits. If you cannot keep an appointment, we understand. Please, please give us enough notice so that we can make use of our appointment times and cancellation list.

8: Lots of inquiries lately about becoming a New Patient. We are not accepting New Patients at this time. We do NOT have a waiting list for New Patients (only current ones). We don't expect to take more Newbies until early 2027 at the soonest. If you are in immediate need of care, please check our Referral List (in comments) for other providers that we know you can trust with care.

Not my most exciting post, but I sure appreciate those that read through this. 🙃 Thank you!

02/20/2026

Sarah has been pestering me for an office mascot/pet.

I got her a robot vacuum. 😂🤣

Meet Delilah, everyone!

02/20/2026

Overheard by a mentor [talking to a group of doctors]: You cannot ultimately control the rate of which a person heals.

*sigh*

By the time most patents walk through our front door, there is a lot of palpable pressure to get it "right." They have been jumping through hoops, test after test, doctor after doctor, needing answers, and needing hope. They are then paying out of pocket, growing somewhat impatient (can't blame them), and want results quickly. However, I can't ever answer the question of "How long will this take?" And I have *never* put a "guarantee" to results within a certain time limit because...this just cannot be predicted in the realm of chronic disease.

I have had chronically-ill moldies where it took 5 years to clear it and they still had a buffet of issues, whereas others maybe 1-2 years and they're cleared of care. I have had patients ask why their auto-immune disease didn't reverse after 2 months of hard work but we have to ask ourselves how long did it take for that autoimmune disease to develop--perhaps expectations are unrealistic. I have had patients change their diet and their world explodes open (in a good way) after just 1 month. Health is wild.

Despite our best efforts, doctors do not control the rate of which someone will heal. And despite their best efforts, patients do not fully control the rate of which their body will heal, either. Healing. It's unpredictable.

What is predictable, though?

Needing teamwork. Needing patience. Having follow-through on both ends. Having consistency. Having curiosity. Making the effort. It takes a provider willing to learn, maybe be proven wrong, be humbled, and get back to the drawing board. Constant learning. It takes a patient that's willing to learn, willing to do the work. Both have to be willing to pivot because if a plan is not working, something either needs to change or there is a puzzle piece missing.

I will often tell my chronically-ill patients--I hope you decently like me, as you will probably be seeing a lot of me over time. We awkwardly laugh. And then we get to work.

02/19/2026

There is this invisible line I am constantly hovering over, doing this job as a Naturopathic Doctor. I cannot do my full job as a physician (which would include in addition to the naturopathic stuff: the diagnosis, treatment, management of disease, and even prescription use where needed) here because Ohio doesn't license/regulate it. Simultaneously, that lack of licensure also means we are like the Wild Wild West because there's no educational requirement to use the term Naturopathic Doctor. That's right, you could put your shingle up and start work with zero training and just use the term because you want to. Scary?

The basics of medicine includes being able to take a good history, understand differential diagnoses (a list of "what could this be"), knowing the labs that need to be done to discern those differentials, to know what disease process you're working with. This generally also helps the provider understand--is this a "Me" thing or a "Referral" thing? And also to triage it--is this urgent, immediate, is a life at risk, or maybe chronic, not pressing.

MOST of the time patients already have had the above work-up by someone else by the time they come to see me. But this is part of why we created Onboarding with Sarah--to not just take a patient's word for it, but to have records requested and reviewed, to put the BIG picture together, to gather all the data. Because unfortunately there are plenty of times where the above is done...and it makes no sense. Or...it was really half-assed. Or (our hope) it was super duper thorough and then we can just jump into the naturopathic side of care. Because, if it's poorly done or half-assed, I see our role as being the safety net to re-direct and advocate that a patient gets an appropriate work-up. Can I do it? No. Can I give them an assist and facilitate a discussion with a provider? Yes.

Literally, this happened 3 times yesterday :
"This sounds like a textbook case of XYZ. Let's reconnect with urology and discuss this."

"...These labs are abnormal enough that you should have been referred to hematology. Let's get that referral happening."

"Wait, you have had XYZ symptoms your entire life and GYN didn't ever do imaging? Let's make sure this happens."

See the invisible line yet? To not be able to practice medicine and do the work directly, but to know what is right and what is wrong, to keep patients from falling through the cracks. (Or give them a boost if they are already sitting in said crack).

I guess for now, we keep hovering over that line. Hopefully someday we can actually play hop-scotch and bounce between both sides.

02/18/2026

I have been further pondering the topic of Shaming--the other day I was writing about how shaming patients does not belong in healthcare.

Back in my day (naturopathic medical school was 2006-2010 and internship was 2011), there was such a thing called "pimping" (pardon me, it's not a PC term, and I sure hope it has a new name by now). I can assure you that every doctor has experienced this, even we cuddly Naturopathic Doctors. This is basically bullying: attending physicians with power trips, hoping students will learn under pressure, being relentlessly grilled, name calling, belittling, embarrassing someone in front of others so they all fall in line. Usually there's a notorious handful of attendings known for seeking out weaklings to make them cry. As a student you're constantly wrong, you're constantly learning, and over time just kind of...learn to suck up the abuse and get through it, to get to the other side.

But what happens on the other side? Some learn from this behavior and rise above it, daring to be different when they have the chance, trying to break the cycle. Some are scarred from it, honestly some don't finish. Some stay quiet to it. Some mimick and recreate it, thus the indoctrination continues. I asked my good friend, who is a Nurse Practitioner, if she had this experience in nursing school/graduate school and she said no, never in nursing. But did she receive it from an MD? 100%. I guess we have to question if either kind of training changes the the final product of provider you have at the end, eh?

I'm sharing this for a few different reasons:

1) I can see how shaming in medicine could be passed along from being a trainee into practicing medicine, and thus patients then receive it. Obviously, this isn't appropriate but I can see that slippery slope.

2) Having been through this you would hope that physicians would be the most humble because they have certainly been wrong before, were proven different, and had to adapt.

3) We should have had better mental/emotional support going through school, not only for handling things in the moment, but helping with coming out the other side unscathed.

4) I hope my generation of providers (now that we are of "attending" age and stage of career) is breaking this toxic cycle. Learning under pressure is one thing, sacrificing your empathy and bits of humanity is a whole other.

02/17/2026

The 2 most bougie dogs on the planet.

Patiently waiting for their personal servant--ahem--chef to finish making their grass-fed, organic, finely minced, whole-food meal preparation for the week.

It is probably good we did not have kids, because this is pretty much all I have capacity for. 😂🤣

02/16/2026

Sarah is out today and my hubby has stepped in to help greet and answer phones this afternoon. My hero 😍😍😍

Thanks, Kirkal!

02/16/2026

Over the years I have had a decent amount of patients that come back to the office for a follow up and...

"I'm sorry, I did my best with taking supplements but I was confused on what to take and when. So...I stopped."

"I'm sorry, I did my best to follow the nutrition but I got overwhelmed on what to cook or what to eat."

"I'm sorry, the plan laid out was so good but my life is just not at a place that I can follow this right now."

They all kind of sheepishly look at me, waiting for me to...I don't now? Yell? Raise my voice? Shake my finger? Roll my eyes? Fire them as a patient?

Bless them. Shame has zero place in my office. Period.

With every plan I put together for a patient I take into consideration: the root causes taking place, the layers of their care we're going to need to unpeel over time, how to make their time and effort most efficient with me (as my care is out of pocket, I want them to get their money's worth), watchfulness of tools used and medications taken to avoid interactions/ensure timing of taking things as appropriate, mindfulness of what their daily life sounds like to not overwhelm (trying to not add more stress where stress is already so palpable), and taking into consideration the gas-tank of energy and effort they are starting with--sometimes that gas tank is empty so we cannot ask too much in starting.

With every plan, I always have a back up. "If XYZ doesn't work, we can pivot to ABC." Patients may not always know I come that prepared, but I do.

Sometimes we nail it. Sometimes...we don't.

All of this to say: Experiencing and feeling shame can be motivating for some. In my humble opinion, though, it has zero place in healthcare. Healthcare providers need to meet with their patients on a level playing field--to coach them, to work with them, to motivate them, to support them, to empathize, to have compassion, and to flow with the patient's needs in tandem. To pivot, when needed.

If a plan isn't working for you, I hope you have safe space to discuss it. There can be multiple paths to the same end.

❤️Zero shaming in healthcare. ❤️

02/14/2026

Earlier this week I dug out these Valentines. 🥰 They are from the 1940s when my Grandma Watts was about 11 or 12.

She kept everything in pristine condition and well organized. Honestly, so impressive that she held on to these! I put them around the house this time of year as a little decoration.

How I wish we still made things of this quality! The turtle and yam are my favorite 😍

02/12/2026

Why do we live in such a polarizing world? 😅 I had a post the other day humble-bragging on the hard works of patients, working hard to reverse their chronic disease. I also mentioned appreciating the body's ability to heal and healthcare's reliance of over-prescribing to manage symptoms. There's always a peanut gallery, though, of "Oh yeah? Well if medication is so bad, what would you do for a heart attack or a fracture?" ...Ma'am, I would go to the hospital, like anybody else.

As I have mentioned over the years, I'm going to reiterate: Naturopathic medicine is not a shunning of modern medicine. There is a time and place where surgeries, procedures, prescriptions, imaging, and work-ups are absolutely necessary. There is also a time and place where nutrition changes, lifestyle changes, evaluating our environment, reducing chronic stress, and using the least invasive tool of healing [perhaps herbs, supplements homeopathy] are absolutely necessary. BOTH get to exist and BOTH are needed. Patients deserve to have informed consent of the benefits and risks of both sides of this coin, as they have autonomy to make their own decisions with their body.

So if you don't mind, I'm going to show part of the OTHER side of that coin---where modern medicine can shine and be used integratively amidst a naturopathic practice.

✅A 41 year old female gets her quality of life and activity back by undergoing surgery to remove a fibroid-ridden uterus that was the size of a 6 month pregnancy. 🙋🏻‍♀️ That was me last year.
✅Referring Peri-menopausal and Menopausal women for Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement Therapy and finally: sleeping well at night, feeling like themselves, brain fog lifting, hot flashes melting away.
✅Low Dose Naltrexone in the chronically ill to: reduce histamine activity/stabilize mast cells, prevent chronic viral reactivations or viral complications, support gut motility, reduce inflammation and pain, and much more.
✅Use of Rifaximin antibiotic to successfully tackle Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) when herbs weren't touching it
✅Pursuing Motegrity (Prucalopride), a prescription to help chronic constipation when every other laxative and even natural aide cannot help 💩
✅Anti-histamine "cocktails" of prescriptions and/or over the counter medicines to reduce histamine burden in a recently found "moldie" patient
✅GLP1 use to reverse insulin resistance, regulate hormones, reduce chronic inflammation, to behave like a WD-40 for metabolism where all that hard work of macro counting and strength training finally pay off.

Well, I guess as it turns out, we really can have it all.

Address

13 S 3rd Street
Waterville, OH
43566

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 6pm
Wednesday	9am - 6pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

Website

https://toledonaturopathic.com/

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