Frequently Asked Questions

1) What kinds of people and conditions do you help with?

I work with individuals living with long-standing or recurring symptoms that have not resolved under any care they have previously experienced. These symptoms can include:

• persistent pain,

• deep fatigue,

• sleep disruption,

• brain fog plus

• anxiety

• weakness

• digestive challenges,

• a general loss of functional capacity.

These challenges usually affect every part of their daily life— work, relationships, sleep, and mood. They are motivated to get them resolved.

2) What if I’ve already tried many approaches without success?

Many clients I work with will have pursued multiple interventions without sustained progress. Unfortunately, that is the nature of complex chronic illness.

I cannot speak to the care you received before arriving here. My life experience is that important pieces of the puzzle are often missed when prior practitioners are not specialists in complex chronic illness and/or only look at the pieces that fall within their specialty.

As a specialist in complex chronic illness, I use my Restorative Health Framework to take a comprehensive look at your symptoms, health history, past diagnoses if they exist and compare what I find against the physiological landscape known to me as being associated with complex chronic illness I work with.

I assess and test as needed to identify the factors likely contributing to your symptoms. Once I have identified those factors, I develop a plan with a series of protocols — informed by physiology, functional health principles, and clinical experience to address them.

3) What is your role? What do you actually do?

My goal is to uncover the why — the root causes behind your symptoms. Once we identify those, we can work together with the goal to help your body return to balance — what biologists call homeostasis. That is the point where your body no longer has symptoms.

If your body has reached a stage where actual tissue or organ damage has begun, you will not be able to reverse all loss of functionality. In those cases, our focus is to recover as much of your functionality as possible, and lessen your symptoms, so you can experience increased resilience, energy, and greater comfort and enjoyment in daily life.

4) Are you a medical doctor?

‍No. I am not a licensed medical doctor.

I am a Board Certified Holistic Health Practitioner (AADP) and a certified Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner (FDN‑P).

My focus is on systems‑based assessment, health education, and structured, lifestyle‑centered interventions to rebuild functional wellness through a natural, personalized approach.

My work complements — does not replace — conventional medical care. Clients are encouraged to maintain relationships with their physicians and other licensed providers.

5) How is your approach different from conventional medicine?

Rather than chasing symptoms and offering prescriptions that manage symptoms as medical professionals do, I focus on identifying underlying internal systemic stress patterns and the factors that contribute to symptoms.‍ ‍

Utilizing my Restorative Health Framework, I assess how well your body’s systems are operating and create a plan so that you can return to function as close to normal as possible (given your personal biology).

From there, if you continue working with me, I can educate and guide you through non-medical and natural, lifestyle-based strategies designed to help your body rebuild functional wellness, balance, resilience, and support more stable, sustainable function going forward.

6) Do you offer functional lab testing? Is it included in the Roots & Wings Program?

I take a “test, don’t guess” approach when it’s appropriate and when resources allow. There are occasions where the information received can materially affect intermediate and longer-term health outcomes. I arrange for the lab testing I recommend at your expense.

Functional lab testing can help identify factors such as:

• unsuspected tickborne disease

• digestive imbalances (including H. pylori and food sensitivities)

• genetic conditions that may influence how your body functions

• environmental or toxic exposures you may have had that you are not aware of

These are areas that are not always thoroughly explored in conventional settings.

When used well, testing helps us make more informed, targeted decisions — rather than relying on trial and error.

7) Can I work with you if I’m already on medications or seeing a doctor?

Absolutely. My work complements — does not replace — your medical care. You’ll continue working with your physicians while we focus on the underlying imbalances that may be contributing to your symptoms.

I encourage my clients to maintain supportive relationships with their medical doctors and other licensed providers — each play an important role in your healing process, and will still be necessary in your future, particularly as you age. It is much better to have a working relationship with medical professionals before emergencies occur.

I will often make referrals to medical specialists including gastroenterologists, cardiologists, and other professionals if I believe that is what is needed. This integrative approach helps support your overall progress and enhances the effectiveness of your broader care plan.

8) Do you work online, by telephone, or in person?

I work with clients virtually throughout the United States via secure video sessions or telephone call. A limited number of in‑person appointments are available in the Hudson River Valley region.

9) Are supplements required?

Yes. While we’ll always recommend real food, the reality is that most clients who come to me are deeply depleted after years of chronic stress, illness, and/or toxic exposures. The longer they’ve been ill, the greater the depletion.

Additionally, it’s possible to discover that an individual, as a result of DNA testing, has extra needs beyond typical for support.

In both scenarios, targeted nutritional support is an important tool in the overall strategy to effect change in your health.

When supplementation is indicated, practitioner-grade products are dispensed through a professional platform to ensure oversight and quality control.

The supplements that I consider part of my toolkit include: vitamins, minerals, amino acids, electrolytes, homeopathics, and herbs in various forms.

It’s my opinion that meaningful progress (for those with long-term complex chronic illness) simply isn’t possible without targeted nutritional support to help the body rebuild and recover functional wellness.

For that reason, I work best with clients who are open to using high-quality, practitioner-grade supplements as part of their protocol. These are always personalized and carefully selected to meet each client’s specific needs and goals as determined by the R&W Assessments.

Once your health has stabilized, you may choose to taper or discontinue supplements, though doing so prematurely can interfere with the healing progress you’ve made.

10) What assessments and programs do you offer?

I offer two assessments and three programs.

1. The Roots & Wings Systems & Symptom Assessment with and without functional lab testing is for clients who clearly have complex chronic illness of long duration.
   
   This can be people who have greatly diminished energy which prevents them from living the life they want. They may even be housebound or bedbound as I was.
   

2. The Emerging Symptoms Assessment with and without functional lab testing is for clients whose health has not collapsed but rather is progressively declining on a month-by-month basis with multiple symptoms and body systems involved.

   They may still be able to work outside the home but in order to work must maintain a smaller engagement with family, friends and society in general. There simply is a limit to their energy.

   After assessment is complete, there are THREE programs for those who want to continue to work with me.
   

   
   Program 1:
   
   The Roadmap to Renewed Wellness Program is for clients with progressively declining health or a health situation they are not recovering from after three or more months.
   
   These clients are still functional enough to manage but want a proactive intervention in the trajectory of their health.

   Programs 2 and 3
   
   Both the Core Restorative Health Program and the
   
   Restorative Health and Reintegration Program

   are for clients who clearly have complex chronic illness of long duration characterized with many symptoms including chronic pain, exhaustion, insomnia, and brain fog.

   They may or may not be housebound or bedbound but their lives have been significantly narrowed by their symptoms.

   They may have diagnoses like tickborne disease, EBV, mold or heavy metals exposure, OR no diagnoses at all but multiple symptoms.
   

11) Do you work online, by telephone, or in person?

I work with clients virtually throughout the United States via secure video sessions or telephone call. A limited number of in‑person appointments are available in the Hudson River Valley region.

12) How do I get started?

1. Choose the assessment that best fits your situation.

2. Schedule your assessment appointment which will trigger your assessment to be emailed to you. You should not schedule sooner than 7 days out.

3. Complete the forms and questionnaires and return by email 24 hours prior to your appointment.

4. Your assessment must be paid in full prior to our appointment. You can pay when scheduling or pay when you send your intake forms in.
   

13) What’s your philosophy on healing?

My practice philosophy is grounded in multiple ways as follows:

• People who have been chronically ill for months or years are dealing with complex, multi-factor conditions rather than a single isolated issue. We need to discover as many of them as possible and address each of them in an order that allows healing.
  

• If the body were fully able to repair and regulate itself on its own, it already would have. When healing has stalled, there is a reason.

• The body’s ability to repair itself may be burdened by underlying stressors, deficiencies, infections, environmental inputs, nervous system dysregulation, lifestyle factors, or other ongoing demands that need to be identified and addressed thoughtfully.
  

• Assessment, clinical history, and when possible, functional lab testing can help identify the limiting factors or barriers affecting healing and function.

• By reducing what is burdening the system and restoring what is missing or supportive, the body may gradually move toward greater balance, resilience, and function over time.
  

• Healing is rarely fast, linear, or driven by a single intervention.
  

• Forward healing progress will come when problematic inputs are reduced, the body is nourished and fueled sufficiently, deficiencies are ameliorated, infections and toxins are addressed, and the sequence is appropriate for YOUR body. What works for one, may not work for another person.
  

• An important part of my work is helping people reconnect with themselves as whole human beings — not simply as patients, diagnoses, or collections of symptoms. This may not come easily to you but I consider it important to work with mindset to affect healing.
  

• People living with long-standing illness will benefit from steady partnership and feeling seen and heard. Particularly for individuals who have become isolated because of their illness.

  One of the most difficult parts of complex chronic illness is that people’s world become smaller. Activities they once enjoyed fall away. Relationships change. Life can become centered around symptoms, appointments, and making it through the day.

  My belief is that people living with chronic illness want and need to be seen, heard and encouraged in order to recover. For that reason , I make sure each client has that experience as part of our work together.
  

• My role is to educate, guide, organize, and support the process. Your role is to participate in a way that is realistic, sustainable, and workable for your life and capacity.
  

• Fragile clients will require more time.
  

• As committed as a practitioner may be, healing ultimately depends on the client’s participation. My role is to educate, guide, and support. Your role is to engage with the process in a way that’s realistic and sustainable for you.