Emerald City Clinic

I started going to Emerald City Clinic in Spring of 2015. I was at my wit’s ends with my health, having worked really hard on taking great care of myself and making tons of lifestyle changes for over 5 years. I had then gotten sick for over 6 weeks — to the point I was completely stuck in bed besides going to the bathroom for 3 of those weeks. I couldn’t work, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t breathe — then it turned into a sinus infection, then an eye and ear infection. It was awful, and especially awful because I had been taking incredible care of myself and my immune system should not have been that stressed. I basically cried my entire first appointment with Dr. Jenna, who was incredibly understanding, comforting, and just gave me so much hope and relief. She totally got what I was going through, and agreed with how well I take care of myself that I shouldn’t be experiencing any of what I was experiencing — and living with chronic fatigue, anxiety and depression. She told me I had been trying really hard to manage my health and now it was her turn. This was an incredible relief to me, as any and all other doctors I saw basically said «well, we can run some tests» and then not given me any answers, to the point that I gave up on traditional medicinal doctors.
In order to figure out what exactly was going she needed to do blood work. I had a traumatic, blood-​squirting-​six-​feet-​out-​of-​my-​arm-​at-​a-​med-​tent-​at-​a-​festival IV experience that had rendered me terrified of blood draws and IVs for nearly ten years — to the point no one could touch that point on my arm, and even talking about it sent me into panic. I was really scared and anxious to get my bloodwork done with Dr. Jenna but she reassured me, gave me a heat pack to start, let me bring my sister who held my hand and read me a book, and just nailed it. Afterwards she made me a smoothie. It was so easy, and I honestly have never trusted a medical professional more. I had to get more blood work done just yesterday (6 months later) and I was so much calmer, even though we had to give it 3 tries because my veins wouldn’t cooperate. I can not say enough about how calming and easy to trust everyone is. I have met and sat in on Dr. Erin at work as well, and she is also fantastic.
My sister, brother, and husband all go here as well and all of us have nothing but praise for everyone. The front desk is awesome and recognize me when I walk in.
I actually go in every week for manual therapy now, and I honestly can’t imagine a better doctor experience. I’m never even slightly anxious to go in. Ever. For the first time in my entire life I feel completely comfortable and respected by my healthcare provider, which is so rare.
If you would have told me a year ago I would be swallowing 12 horse size pills a day and getting blood draws every 6 months I would have laughed at you. I have overcome incredible, and yes irrational, fears with Dr. Jenna and I am so thankful for this clinic.

Wholistic Health
I’ve been going for about a month and like it so far. I think the doctors do a great job treating you as a whole person and not just the one problem area. My friend had been going for years so I thought that was a good enough recommendation.
I also enjoy the sauna treatments and have seen Dr. Jenna and Dr. Chad for those. They are both really thoughtful and sweet. I’ll be sad when they both leave since they are residents.
The front desk person, Kimberly has a bit of a condescending tone in her voice when she speaks to people, which I don’t get. It is offset by Chelsea’s über cheerfulness, which I very much appreciate.
The herbs do add up and I wish my insurance would cover them. I find everything is a bit slower there but try not to go when I’m in a time crunch.

I love this clinic. I hesitate to write a review because well, I don’t want everyone else crowding up the place!
I stumbled on it by luck when I was looking for a new PCP under my new insurance, and hoping for something close to my office for my own convenience. I was a little skeptical at first: when I think of naturopathic I mostly think of some hippy dippy granola docs that shun modern medicine. Not the case.
I’ve had a great experience with care here — first with Dr. Erikson and then with Dr. Borys after I was in a car accident. They’re responsive and really take time with their patients. It has been vastly different from the 15 minutes squeezed in slots I’ve been accustomed to in the past. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the effectiveness of homeopathic treatments recommended, especially the «Kick Ass Cough Tincture» Dr. Borys made for me when I had the flu. Everything they do is very comprehensive and holistic, they don’t just treat symptoms, they look for underlying causes. A+

Molly Linton ruined my daughter’s life, and in the process, my life and that of my husband. I believe she is a dangerously incompetent doctor to be avoided.
At 17, our daughter, our only child, went to Israel on an arts fellowship and returned feeling VERY ill. She had heart palpitations, EXHAUSTION, headaches and many other symptoms. She also had telltale (if you were a doctor who knew what she was looking for) bullseye welts all over her body. The possibility of Lyme Disease came up, but Molly did not even examine our daughter’s body, and for some reason she never tested our daughter for Lyme. Unfortunately, because Lyme was only one of many possible diagnoses, our family did no research on it. We assumed the bullseyes were an allergic reaction to the insects in Israel.
EIGHT MONTHS went by, we saw Molly regularly, and all she did during those months was sell us literally thousands of dollars’ worth of supplements, suggest psychotherapy for our anxiety and depression, and tell us time and time again that «we [were] NEVER going to get a diagnosis.» She did not say that she didn’t know what was wrong with our daughter, so we ought to get a second opinion. In her arrogance, she said that NO ONE would be able to figure out what was wrong with our daughter. She also had the audacity to tell our daughter that she «[had] a difficult situation and a difficult mother» when I took issue with some treatment plan or another while we were working together. But in spite of that comment and because she had been our family doctor for years, I accepted her rudeness, we believed in her and trusted her, and we did not seek a second opinion. As I said above, eight months went by, critical months, as it turns out with this disease, months during which the Lyme corkscrew-​shaped organisms drilled and embedded their way deeper into our daughter’s tissues, and we lost (we found out later) the initial, important time during which antibiotics would have eradicated the disease completely, while it was still just in her bloodstream. Then Molly went on sick leave and we switched doctors.
By the time we had switched doctors, our daughter’s welts, the bullseyes that advertise Lyme Disease, were long gone, and doctors we saw subsequently were stymied, having no big hints as to what might be wrong. Our daughter was too tired to continue her education, so she took off two years between high school and college. She found interesting things to do with the five or so hours per day that she could function reasonably well, had little social life, and tried (and continues to try) not to sink into despair.
Eighteen months after Molly went on sick leave, we finally found a doctor who figured out what was wrong with our daughter. By then, though, Lyme Disease had pretty much taken over her life.
Now our daughter is utterly exhausted all the time. She drags herself to UW, which she attends part-​time, lives at home, has few friends, and the future is uncertain. Lyme is transmitted to babies in utero, so she probably will not have children. She is too tired to date, anyway, and scientific studies regarding sexual transmission of Lyme are inconclusive, so she doesn’t even think she should kiss anyone. We don’t know what to tell her about it. Her hair is falling out, and she is very self-​conscious. She has a third the energy at 20 that I have at 55, and we see little relief on the horizon.
We are getting medical care, but even with everything our current physician has tried and is still doing, she can offer only limited hope.
We have one child. She will not marry unless she finds an absolute angel willing to accept her limitations (she can’t travel, she may be contagious, she is afraid to have children, she has very limited energy, she can’t stay up late, she needs 10 hours of sleep a day), she will finish college at about age 25, and we do not know whether she will be able to apply herself to a full-​time job EVER. I battle the panic rising in my throat every hour of my life. We have limited contact with our friends, because most have daughters our daughter’s age, and hearing that their kids are going to Europe on their junior years abroad, dating and moving along with their lives, is all very painful. Every day is excruciatingly painful, nearly unbearably so. The only thing that keeps me going is knowing how desperately our daughter needs our continuing daily support. We face the prospect of having a permanently disabled child living with us at home until we die someday, and then how will she take care of herself?
Molly could have prevented this unbelievably nightmarish situation, but she did not have the knowledge to do so. We put our trust in this doctor for EIGHT CRITICAL MONTHS, and she destroyed our lives. Molly can go home at night and forget about what happened, but we must live with it every single, excruciatingly painful, truly awful day of our lives.
Consider yourself warned.

Health care at Emerald City has changed my life for the better, forever.
I can’t say enough good things about Drs Laura Walton and Molly Linton.
Because of them, I have a greater level of health than I could have ever imagined prior to seeing them for the first time in 2007.
They are combination scientists, healers, teachers and altruists. I leave there with a comprehensive understanding not only of what is happening with my body and a treatment plan, but *why* it is happening and *how* the steps I take will affect the symptom or system.
It will be a long first appointment, like 2 hours. And prepare to wait, because everyone runs late. Even with that, it’s the best, most caring and real medical care I’ve ever gotten.