My Story and Motivations Behind Foundational Wellness

I have always been motivated to learn.  Having excelled at one of the highest ranked high schools in the nation, I went on to the University of Wisconsin Madison where I spent my first 3 years at the top of my Chemical Engineering class. 

When I realized I’d rather work with people than things, I transferred to Physical Therapy. My first seven years post-graduation were spent in acute care and long-term rehab in an advanced teaching, level one trauma hospital where I gained experience in multi-level trauma and multi-systemic diagnoses including cardiac, vascular, orthopedic, cancer, transplant, medical, infectious disease, wound care, and psychiatric.

I have always given my utmost to provide comprehensive, individualized, and research-based care.  In this setting, it was especially important to be innovative and flexible in order to meet the goals and challenges of each individual.  The most important aspect of working with people who have sustained intense trauma and/or suffered progressive illness is developing a caring and trusting relationship. 

It was with this same dedication that I continued working 37 years as a Physical Therapist in the additional areas of orthopedics, subacute/acute/long-term care, cardiac, and respiratory rehab.  My focus in continuing education has primarily been in the areas of orthopedics and functional manual therapy.

During my long satisfying career, I have seen massive changes in the way health care is administered.  Much of the industry is now encumbered by productivity quotas, insurance restrictions, and pharmaceutical influences.

There is more emphasis on specialized care, which has its pros and cons.  The greatest loss in this model is decreased oversight, focus on body systems instead of a fully integrated body, and lack of advocacy for people who can’t or don’t know what questions to ask or how to best navigate the system.  Little attention is given to lifestyle choices, preventative measures, or search for root cause of chronic symptoms.

There is almost no time or resources to counsel at a deep personal level.  Chronic disease states are often managed via pharmaceutics that simply quell symptoms and bear side effects that progressively cause other disease states. 

As one thing tends to lead to another, I noticed that many of my elderly patients suffered the same cluster of preventable disorders and diseases.  I started to notice that many of my patients had multi-joint and migrating pain, such that it became obvious that they were not dealing with simple biomechanical dysfunction, but rather systemic challenges.

Too many friends and colleagues with severe chronic symptoms of disabling fatigue, pain, and brain fog spent years seeing multiple specialists and got no answers. They “looked fine” and their lab tests were “normal.” Not only do I hope to change the way we age as a population, but I also want to find and teach folks how to overcome their chronic health challenges. 

These dynamics and my own personal health quest fueled my motivation into the Foundational Wellness space.  I completed my certificate in Functional Medicine in 2019 and since have continued a constant learning quest through formal classes, webinars, seminars, conferences and 1:1 mentoring.  In 2023, I completed my Chronic Lyme Certification which covered multi-systemic pathogen load reduction through the unique application of homeopathy. 

Early on in my studies, I began to recognize a gap in functional medicine as well, witnessing too many practitioners using supplements in the same way that medical doctors prescribe medicine, giving “a pill for an ill,” albeit natural substances.  They would do functional lab tests (which get closer to root cause), but each test is only a small window into the many complexities that lend to chronic illness.  Too many will treat to improve each functional test, peel a layer, and move on to the next functional test for further answers.  This can become an endless process, and, without insurance coverage, the costs are staggering.

In early 2020, I was introduced to actual root cause methodology and have spent all my time since mastering this knowledge.  We often think that we just need more nutrition.  But what we overlook is the toxic environment we live in.  It's not just about what we need to put in to our body, but what we have to judiciously remove.

The average woman puts on 168 ingredients in or on her body each day (85 for men), many of which are known carcinogens or otherwise toxic. (1)  Our food is full of pesticides, herbicides, and non-nutrients.  The air is polluted, our soils are depleted and rife with chemicals.  Our houses may have mold and toxic off-gassing from construction and textile manufacturing.  Our drinking water is full of toxicants and, often, radioactive elements.  We are increasingly exposed to multiple viruses, vectors, and pathogens. 

Because of this toxicity, our immune systems, which were designed to manage all of these things, become overwhelmed.  This is combined with the fact that many of us carry genetic variances which make our enzymatic functions less efficient and effective in detoxification.  Our cell membranes, composed of a fatty lipid layer, are compromised due to a poor omega 6:3 ratio due to the “standard American diet,” so that they no longer efficiently transport nutrients into the cell and toxins out of the cell.  Parasite loads, microbiome, and mitochondrial function become imbalanced/dysfunctional due to this toxicity.

Therefore, we no longer produce enough ATP (cellular power) and pure water (a function of cellular respiration) to power our immune systems.  No matter what our gastrointestinal, "Dutch Plus" (hormone), or organic acids tests look like, one still needs to deal with the toxicity.  There is a very systematic and ordered way to do this, and it requires intricate knowledge and mastery to make the process effective, efficient, and tolerable. 

My philosophy is to help guide clients in a comprehensive, systematic detox, while instructing the immune system to reduce the pathogen load through the use of homeopathic series kits.  This is a very unique pairing, but awesomely effective.  I am super excited to be on the cutting edge of this dynamic knowledge in the wellness space to really make a difference in my clients' quality of life. 

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1. Exposures add up – survey results (2004) Environmental Working Group. Available at: https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2004/12/exposures-add-survey-results (Accessed: 11 July 2024).