I’m a student of life, yoga teacher, fitness instructor, health coach, and wellness blogger. In 2015, I had a series of mystery illnesses where conventional medicine failed me that sent me on a journey to explore natural and functional medicine.
What I learned over the years with the help of functional medicine practitioners and naturopathic physicians, helped me bring my body back into balance and made me want to share my message with the world.
When I was able to heal myself through functional medicine testing, supplementation and lifestyle changes, I sought out on a mission to change my life and if I could, marry the bridge between conventional and alternative medicine.
I spent the next few years back in school, attending premed classes and shadowing physicians. I found osteopathic medicine and thought that would be the best route since the principles of osteopathic medicine incorporate taking a holistic view of the body and including physical medicine into the curriculum. After spending time with a DO surgeon and shadowing a hernia repair, I realized this was not the path for me. I wasn’t sure if the patient would be sore from the actual surgery or from the 4 physicians burning flesh and jabbing their hands and knives into this person. This may have been necessary since this person had mesh from a previous surgery, but it was not the healing I had in mind.
That sent me down the path to find naturopathic medicine, which also includes physical manipulation as part of the practice, similar to osteopathic medicine. I stayed on the path spending time with NDs, taking medical biochemistry classes from a DO school and taking premed organic chemistry and physics classes from a local university. Somehow I managed to achieve a nearly 4.0 gpa while continuing to be a top performer at my day job in the high tech industry.
After being accepted into the naturopathic medical school, I had to make a life decision. Walk away from a successful career and a fiancé who just moved across the country to be with me for a mostly unknown profession, 4 years of medical school and hundreds of thousands in student loans. Or I could stay put, put my medical school dreams on hold and figure out a go forward plan. Being in my mid thirties by this time, I chose the latter. I stayed at my job, got married and built a beautiful home and family. And to be honest, some of the principles I learned escaped me over the years and it landed me in a very similar situation with frustrating medical issues. But fortunately, I’ve been down this road before and I know what to do. But it really wasn’t until a dear family member and separately a colleague, both shared desperation with their chronic conditions and the hopelessness they had with little to no answers from conventional medicine, that I realized I needed to take the time to share what I have learned and that it wasn’t common knowledge. I needed to share this information with as many people as possible and to anyone who would listen.
I’m happy to say, both of those individuals are in a much better place and were able to make significant strides with their health. And that’s why I’m here and you are reading this. Maybe you’re meant to see this message too. So thank you for reading. I hope you find something valuable in what I have to share.