Personalized Naturopathic Care in Cranbrook

Chris practices as a bridge between conventional and complementary medicine. His interest is in helping patients pull apart complex or stalled health concerns more carefully than a short primary-care visit allows — and then work out, together, which conventional or complementary options fit that patient’s biology, goals, and stage of life. He is not here to replace anyone’s family doctor or specialist; he is here to add time, testing, and a second lens so people can make better-informed decisions about their own care.

Chris’s connection to the Kootenays goes back a long way. From 1992 to 1995 he worked as a wildland firefighter on the Valhalla Unit Crew out of Nelson — four seasons on the fireline in some of the most demanding terrain in the province, the last two of them worked between the first years of naturopathic school. Those summers set the tone for how he practices now: hard physical work, long days with a tight team, and a lasting respect for the mountains and the people who work in them.

Chris knows endurance sport from the inside. He rowed for the UVic Vikes and went on to represent Canada at the 1991 Pan American Games as a member of the national rowing team — an experience that shaped his lifelong interest in how the body adapts to training, recovers, and holds up over a long competitive career. That perspective became the foundation of his first practice: after graduating from the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine in 1998 (following a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Victoria), he practised in Victoria at Tsawwassen Natural Health Centre and then at Victoria Spine and Sports Medicine, working with many of the region’s top-level cyclists, triathletes, runners, and mountain bikers on training-load management, recovery, injury care, and performance nutrition. He also lectured at the Victoria Running Symposium and PacificSport National Training Centre during those years.

The competitive life didn’t stop when he moved into practice. Chris trained and raced out of Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre in the North Okanagan for many years — one of Canada’s premier cross-country venues — and served on the Sovereign Lake Nordic Club board as Director of Membership Services and Athlete Development. In 2019 he completed the Birkebeinerrennet, the 54-kilometre classic ski race from Rena to Lillehammer, and travelled on to Beitostølen that same season to race the Masters World Cup cross-country ski championships — a fair test of the same training-and-recovery principles he now brings to his patients.

He then completed a three-year post-doctoral fellowship in Environmental Medicine at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine in Phoenix, where he stayed on as clinical faculty and Assistant Professor and served as a naturopathic doctor at the Phoenix Fire Department Medical Centre — this time on the other side of the fireline, caring for career firefighters through occupational exposures, injury, and recovery. He returned to British Columbia and has practised in the Okanagan for close to two decades — most recently at his own clinic, Entheomed Chronic Pain Care in Kelowna — before joining Dr. Trent Brereton at Kootenay Health Centre in 2026.

Areas of practice focus:

•     Longer functional-medicine consults for complex or stalled cases — fatigue, unexplained symptoms, and layered chronic concerns that need real time to work through.

•     Performance and functional blood chemistry, using the Functional Sports Medicine performance blood testing framework and the OptimalDX functional blood-chemistry approach. Standard bloodwork is read against evidence-informed optimal ranges as well as standard ranges, so patterns of dysfunction can be identified and tracked before they become disease. Especially useful for endurance athletes, masters athletes, and active adults working to keep training and recovery in balance.

•     Gut health and inflammatory bowel disease. Chris has taught full-day intensives on Functional Gastrointestinal Ecology across Canada, presented on Managing Inflammatory Bowel Disease for the Ontario Association of Naturopathic Doctors, and consulted with Nestle Health Sciences on clinical education in this area.

•     Integrative oncology support. He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the Society for Integrative Oncology, and the Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians, and contributed to the Ottawa Hospital’s POISE integrative surgical care trial.

•     Women’s health, hormone replacement, and hormonal imbalances — perimenopause, menopause, PMS, and cycle-related concerns — approached with the same bridge-the-gap philosophy: work through the data, review the options, and match the plan to the person.

•     Regenerative injection therapy (prolotherapy and PRP) as one tool inside a larger musculoskeletal care plan, and always alongside Dr. Brereton’s ultrasound-guided injection practice. Cases needing ultrasound-guided assessment or injection stay with Trent.

Chris holds prescriptive authority in British Columbia and is certified in advanced injection therapy, intravenous therapy, acupuncture, and chelation.

Alongside clinical practice, Chris has taught and lectured widely — adjunct faculty at UBC Okanagan (2009–2015), chapter author for Foundations of Naturopathic Medicine, and a peer-reviewed contributor on regenerative injection therapy, PRP, blood biomarkers, cannabinoid medicine, and integrative surgical care. He served as Vice-Chair of the College of Naturopathic Physicians of BC and chaired its Finance Committee for over a decade.

Away from the clinic, Chris is usually on cross-country skis, a mountain bike, in a canoe, or in the water — a lifelong rower and swimmer, and part of what drew him and his family to the Kootenays.

New patients are welcome. Booking is through the KHC online scheduler or by calling the clinic.

Trent graduated from the National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, OR, in 1997, when he moved to Cranbrook to start his practice focusing on holistic health. In 2008, he joined his practice with Kootenay Chiropractic and Kootenay Massage to form the Kootenay Health Centre, emphasizing integrative medicine. In 2009, he married Liza, and in 2010, they welcomed their daughter Ella. Coco, the family Cockapoo, arrived in 2021. Trent is active outdoors, enjoying hiking, snowmobiling, wakesurfing, and traveling.

His practice focuses on treating pain in the spine and periphery using naturopathic treatments such as ultrasound-guided prolotherapy, PRP, prolozone, hyaluronic acid, cortisone, neural therapy, and peri-neural therapy. Trent also utilizes a variety of intravenous therapies to address conditions like cancer, heart disease, fatigue, heavy metals, and a range of other chronic diseases. He has prescribing authority in BC, allowing him to prescribe various pharmaceutical agents, including hormones and antibiotics. His experience demonstrates that combining the best of pharmaceutical medicine with holistic natural medicine yields the best outcomes.

In addition to his clinical practice, Trent also teaches. He is  part-owner and instructor for West Coast Injection Training, a group that educates NDs, MDs, PAs, and NPs in palpation-based and ultrasound-guided injection therapies for the peripheral joints and spine.  He is also a Lead Instructor for Sport Medicine Ultrasound Canada, a training group that teaches GPs, ER docs, specialists, and NDs how to perform ultrasound-guided PRP, hyaluronic acid, cortisone, and prolotherapy.