Nutrition is our body’s fuel. It’s the building block for all the cells, hormones, energy…everything! This makes diet a foundational aspect of health. Fortunately, nutrition is something we have some control over. However, our modern diets include many inflammatory foods, and modern agriculture practices make it hard to get all the nutrients we need without lots of effort. Pesticides, hidden sugar, and other detriments to health are common in foods, making dietary education and support necessary.

Having a healthy, functioning brain and solid mental health is essential for overall health but it also directly impacts our physical health. Signs of poor brain health include procrastination, trouble focusing, poor organizational skills, anxiety, difficulty making decisions, difficulty keeping a schedule, low motivation, and depression. Moreover, if our body is showing signs of inflammation, our brain is probably inflamed as well. Lowering brain inflammation and supporting brain health is crucial for more mental clarity, increased focus and productivity, mental peace, and better mood.

Our bodies heal while we sleep. They thrive on routine. They are synchronized with sunlight and the seasons. But what if you aren’t sleeping well, or you’re too tired to exercise, or you haven’t found a routine that works for you? This is where holistic wellness support comes in, by addressing foundational aspects of wellness. A healthy lifestyle is important so that healing can happen.

Did you know your body is talking to you—constantly? Did you know you can learn to tune in? Learning to interpret your body’s cues can reduce pain and promote an awareness of your own health and internal emotional processes. When you form a positive relationship with your physical body, you are better able to work with it like an old friend, feel thankful for all that it does for you, and give it what it needs. This perspective shift actually influences your immune system and promotes healing.

Have you been given a diagnosis or treatment plan but you just don’t understand what it all means? I’m happy to help explain and make sure you understand your health picture. Once you understand your condition, why you’re taking what you’re taking, and what effects your medication has on you (keeps you awake, makes you sleepy, causes stomach pain if not taken with food, etc.) then it’s often easier to follow your doctor’s treatment plan. We can come up with an individual “compliance” plan so you get the maximum benefit out of your current treatment!

A holistic care team is absolutely essential to healing. But it’s tricky to know how to find the right people you really need. It’s also essential to learn what happens behind the scenes so you can better self-advocate. You must understand how your body works on a functional level, know what tests are needed to fully evaluate your health picture, and know what all your treatment options are (conventional and non-conventional) to feel prepared to advocate for what’s best for you. As both a chronic illness patient and a practitioner, I am in a unique place to teach you how to be your own best advocate!

Movement is essential. Our body needs movement to initiate metabolic processes and move waste out of tissues. But depending on our health conditions and our goals, certain types of movement/exercise are helpful and others can actually be harmful. It’s important that we’re getting the right type and the right amount of movement.

Pain can be distracting at best and all-consuming at its worst. Pain is a difficult symptom to live with. Fortunately, there are many holistic options for lowering pain. This includes lifestyle, supplements, diet, pharmaceuticals (both conventional and more alternative options), movement modification, alternative joint injections, and more. When we get pain under control, we can finally think clearly again and our healing increases exponentially.

Our nervous system gets stuck in fight-or-flight when we’re facing stress or fighting chronic symptoms. It’s important to learn how the nervous system works, how to shift it back to a balanced and healing state, and gain tools to cope with future stressors. One aspect of this approach is sometimes called “brain rewiring” or “rewiring the limbic system.”

A relaxed nervous system is necessary for optimal brain function, immune system function and healing. We can achieve this state through mindfulness, meditation, and breathwork. Mindfulness simply means full presence and awareness in the current moment. Meditation can shift your brain wave activity and boost immune function in as little as 30 seconds. Your breath is uniquely powerful because signaling from your lungs goes two ways: your brain automatically controls your breathing rate, but you are also able to consciously control your breathing rate, which affects your brain!

Were you told your autoimmune condition was going to permanently hamper your life? Is your chronic fatigue syndrome keeping you out from work because you’ve been told there’s no fix? Were you told a medication with heavy side effects was your only option? Many people have been told their symptoms must be all in their head. They were dismissed for feeling that something was wrong in their body despite their labs being normal. A new perspective can bring hope, new options, and new opportunities!

“Detox” gets a bad rap, but it doesn’t mean crazy juice cleanses or fad diets. It really means supporting your body’s own natural biotransformation and elimination processes. Having fewer waste products in your bloodstream means more mental clarity, more energy, and fewer inflammatory symptoms. We can help our bodies out by identifying and limiting carcinogens and chemicals that slow our liver and kidney function. We can also add natural, safe supports to aid our body’s detox processes.

Indigestion, bloating, constipation, and loose stool are all very uncomfortable and disruptive. These are signs of gut inflammation and imbalanced flora (gut bacteria). A holistic gut health approach supports the gut lining, considers food sensitivities, aids the digestion process, and supports the “rest and digest” nerve. Your gut actually starts in your mouth—so learning how to optimize oral health is important too! Much of your immune system and mental health lives in your gut— symptoms such as anxiety, skin problems, and frequent illness can be traced back to the gut!

Are you missing out because you’re getting sick all the time? Do you feel like your immune system isn’t as strong as it used to be? Do you keep staying home from chronic sinus infections or chronic bladder bladder infections? Do you have an autoimmune condition? Your immune system is likely imbalanced. Supporting your immune system and identifying the hidden immune triggers you’re not even aware of is crucial.

Our cells are the tiny building blocks of our entire body. They are our energy factors and are responsible for our body’s communication signaling. They carefully gatekeep what enters and what doesn’t. When our cell factories aren’t functioning properly, or our cell membranes aren’t properly gatekeeping, we experience fatigue and lots of uncomfortable symptoms. Fortunately, there are ways to help our cells out and help restore their proper health and function!

Hormones regulate our body’s functioning and our behavior. Improper levels of certain hormones cause fatigue, stress, anxiety, depression, brain fog, weight gain/loss, and frequent illness. Some of our most important hormones are insulin, Vitamin D, thyroid hormone, cortisol, and sex hormones. Supporting women’s hormones can lead to regular, less painful cycles and a smooth transition into menopause. Supporting men’s hormones can alleviate discomfort, fatigue, depression, and bone fractures.

Bladder irritation, under-functioning lungs, a racing heartbeat, and fatigue are all distracting and detract from our day-to-day lives. However, there are many holistic options for supporting our bladder, kidneys, lungs, liver, heart, and more. It’s also important to support our cells—our cells make out energy and regulate all the processes within our body! If our cells are struggling or have a weak membrane, we’re going to have fatigue and other symptoms.

The longer the body has been out of balance, the more help it needs to regain health. For example, when the brain is inflamed or stress levels are high, the body often needs more melatonin (sleep hormone) than it can make in order to induce sound sleep. It’s helpful to learn what supplements are commonly used to promote deep sleep, boost energy levels, support mood, and more. It’s also important to learn about supplement interactions and what to watch out for when purchasing supplements.

Plants have been used to support health for thousands of years and are still commonly used around the world. Many pharmaceuticals, such as aspirin, are derived from plant medicine. Plants have unique properties, such as fighting viruses and modulating hormones, that still have no pharmaceutical equivalent. Each plant typically contains dozens of active medicinal compounds, and some of these compounds even help fight the formation of drug-resistant bugs. Many people believe their bodies know how to assimilate whole plants better than synthetic chemicals, and they achieve multiple positive effects at once with fewer side effects.

Sometimes regular lab work doesn’t cut it. For example, it doesn’t detect most cases of Lyme disease. It doesn’t catch the chronic infections that are responsible for “interstitial cystitis” or chronic sinusitis or a non-healing wound. Standard labs don’t identify mold toxicity. Standard GI and parasite tests miss a majority of infections. This is where tests like Igenex, Microgen, Genova, and Parawellness are life-changing. I do not order lab tests but I can inform you about which conventional and unconventional lab tests you can pursue.

Our bodies are covered in a layer of fascia connecting our toes to the top of our head. When one rib is out of place, or one joint is swollen, our whole fascia is slightly torqued—which means pain in our foot can actually be caused by an imbalance up in our shoulder! Manual therapy can correct structural imbalances and relieve pain and tension. Hands-on therapies include chiropractic care, acupuncture or acupressure, craniosacral therapy, and energy work. If you’re feeling stuck, we can discuss what your care team options are.

There’s a time and place for everything, and that includes pharmaceuticals. It’s important to know what drug options exist, such as low-dose naltrexone (LDN). I do not prescribe pharmaceuticals, but I can educate you about pharmaceutical options and side effects. Safe prescribing of pharmaceuticals involves knowing drug-herb interactions and drug-supplement interactions. Many drugs are necessary and lifesaving therapies, but deplete nutrients or minerals over time and cause gut imbalances. For example: did you know statins, metformin, and birth control pills deplete certain nutrients? It is important to know how to safely counter these effects.

Sometimes oral dosing isn’t cutting it. Some people who have been sick for a long time benefit from supraphysiological (more than can be absorbed through the gut) dosing of nutrients or nutraceuticals. Injection or IV dosing allows for a more systemic effect, a much higher dose, and the ability to bypass gut absorption. This can be helpful when high doses of an oral substance would require taking 30 pills a day, when someone doesn’t like taking things orally, or when the gut is so inflamed that absorption just isn’t happening. Multiple IV therapy options exist for potent antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and regenerative therapy. I do not administer or order IVs, but I can educate you about injection and IV options.

Many pharmaceuticals contain fillers, food dyes and additives that can cause allergies or adverse reactions. Sensitivities are common in those with chronic symptoms because the adrenals are depleted, histamine is high, and the limbic system is overactive. Luckily, compounding pharmacies exist to formulate medications without these. Creams and suppositories can be made to deliver antibiotics locally and avoid systemic side effects. Low-dose naltrexone (LDN) can be made at personalized doses. Bioidentical hormones can be compounded in different delivery forms. Compounding allows room for personalization and caters to the individual. I do not prescribe compounded medications, but my familiarity with the pharmacies allows me to educate you about medication options.