Chronic Pain.
Disrupted Sleep.
Exhaustion.
Brain Fog.
No idea what to do next.
Until now.
This is the work I do.
Welcome to
Roots & Wings for Renewed Health
with Ellen Nicholas.
You know something isn’t right.
Specifically, with your health.
That you aren’t recovering.
Maybe, you’re beginning to realize you might benefit from a practitioner specializing in complex chronic illness characterized by all or most of the following:
Chronic pain. Exhaustion. Sleep disturbances. Brain fog.
Anxiety. Gut issues. Pervasive weakness.
Fear that something important has been missed.
Going to multiple specialists makes sense when you’re trying to gather information but it also means that no one is watching the big picture. Specialists tend to just watch their piece, like your blood pressure for cardiologists, or your ulcers or irritable bowel for gastroenterologists.
Whether you’re watching your ability to function decline month after month, or you’ve been chronically ill for years, maybe now you want a practitioner who specializes in complex chronic illness — someone watching all the balls and orchestrating the sequence of practices and activities that make meaningful improvement possible across multiple facets of your health.
That’s exactly the kind of specialist I am. In addition to training, I have 20+ years of lived experience with this kind of complex illness. And yes — I mostly recovered.
I believe there is value in intervening wherever you are in that process — whether you’ve been struggling for years or you’re trying to keep declining health from becoming long-term chronic illness.
I invite you to read through this website to get a good read on me, how I work, and what I do with each client. I’ve been transparent so you can see and imagine the process.
Plus — whatever other misery comes with it…
See if what you read resonates with you. If it does, reach out. This is the work I do.
My name is Ellen Nicholas
The entirety of my work is with clients who either have complex, chronic illness or have been experiencing a progressive decline on a month-by-month basis.
I work with the whole body, its physiology and “operating” systems to help clients regain, or at least improve, their body’s ability to function reliably.
Today, our bodies are overburdened by modern stressors — both internal and external.
When the body is overburdened, its operating systems begin to lose the ability to function reliably — and symptoms develop, and then worsen.
While we are often told our symptoms are common, there is nothing “normal” about them.
Who gets sickest, or presents with the most symptoms, has absolutely nothing to do with being intrinsically good, bad, smart, not smart, or trying hard enough.
It depends ENTIRELY on each person’s:
individual physiology, genetics and exposures
good or bad luck in terms of the infectious, environmental, and life stressors they encountered along the way
And lack of knowledge regarding the body’s physiology; its operating systems; what may be impacting them; and how they affect your ability to function. Fortunately, that lack of knowledge can be overcome.
Why work with me?
What Differentiates My Work
I’m giving you a heads up here so as you read through this site, you notice these five particular things:
1) You Will Work Directly With Me
I am a sole practitioner who intentionally maintains a high level of attention on each of the clients I accept. I aim at all times to be the practitioner that I needed for over 25 years of life with 15-20 symptoms most of the time. I am motivated to help others to renewed health after chronic illness.
To make that possible, I intentionally limit the number of full-support clients I accept at one time. This allows me to remain actively engaged in each client's process while providing the thoughtful guidance, realistic pacing, and ongoing support that complex chronic illness requires.
This is a working relationship — not a set of directives or something that happens to you, but rather something we work through together. It requires conversation, observation, feedback, and adjustment.
Chronic illness frequently creates isolation, confusion, and decision fatigue. My goal is to ensure that clients feel seen, heard, supported, and understood while navigating a process that can often feel overwhelming.
The level of contact, structure, support and type of support varies by program, but regardless of where we work together, you will be working directly with me.
2) The Roots & Wings Restorative Health Framework
As a specialist in complex chronic illness, I utilize my Roots & Wings Restorative Health Framework to cast a wider net than many when organizing the investigation and management of complex health challenges.
The framework is designed to ensure that important pieces of the puzzle are unlikely to be overlooked while creating a structured process for evaluating symptoms, declining health, loss of function and the many factors that may contribute to them.
We never forget that every client is a bio-individual. What works well for one person may not work for another. For that reason, I remain nimble, drawing from a wide range of tools, strategies, and interventions rather than relying on a single intervention or protocol.
3) Advanced Functional Lab Testing
As part of my Roots & Wings Restorative Health Framework, I may recommend and utilize advanced functional testing when it is likely to provide meaningful information.
Depending on the situation, this may include hormone testing, organic acid testing (OAT), food sensitivity testing (MRT, Cyrex), environmental exposure testing, and specialty testing through providers such as DUTCH and Vibrant Wellness, in addition to conventional laboratory testing.
Many of these tests are not commonly used in conventional medical settings because they are not covered by insurance.
While not every test provides definitive answers, objective information can often help identify areas requiring further attention, rule out possibilities, confirm suspicions, and improve decision-making.
4) Hope Through Handholds
Just because you haven’t found the answers you’ve been looking for yet — does not mean there is no hope or possibility for a meaningful reduction of symptoms, improved health, and increased capacity to function.
Complex chronic illness can leave people feeling lost, discouraged, and unsure what to do next.
When the future seems bleak, and while you are carrying the disruption, disappointment, and uncertainty that complex chronic illness brings, I will still be working the problem. My role is not simply to suggest the next thing to try. It is to continue looking for meaningful ways to change the equation.
Complex chronic illness has no simple answers. Meaningful improvement often results from multiple well-chosen interventions working together to create incremental improvements in health and capacity over time.
I combine generative thinking, systems thinking, and evaluative thinking to look within and beyond conventional explanations; generate and assess potential solutions; and identify approaches that may influence physiology in useful ways.
The result is continuous, disciplined problem-solving in pursuit of reduced symptoms, improved health, and increased capacity to function.
The goal is not to pursue every idea. It is to help identify not only the next handhold, but a series of them, when the path forward is not yet clear.
5) When a Client Leaves
My hope is that when you complete one of my programs, you leave with more than improved health and function.
I want you to be more capable than when you arrived.
The knowledge, skills, and ways of thinking you develop here are portable.
They will go home with you.
They will help you navigate future symptoms, any future setbacks, and future decision-making long after our work together has ended.
And you will remember to enjoy and appreciate the good days.
You will better know how:
your body functions and what it needs to actually function well
to maintain the functioning of your body's various systems
to protect and conserve your health to the extent it has been regained
to recognize and respond to old symptoms should they resurface
The Roots & Wings
Restorative Health Framework
The Roots & Wings Restorative Health Framework
serves as the cornerstone of all
Roots & Wings Assessments and Programs.
It was forged through decades of lived experience, relentless investigation, study, and persistence. I spent nearly three decades searching for relief from chronic illness characterized by chronic pain (in multiple quadrants of the body), debilitating fatigue, brain fog, physical weakness and insomnia. Today, that would be labeled or described as complex chronic illness.
In my search for wellness, I encountered many different maps for understanding how practitioners approached illness. Family practitioners and internists had their map. Lyme specialists had their map. Functional medicine had its map. Chiropractors, acupuncturists, nutritionists, and other practitioners had maps and opinions of their own.
While each practice contained valuable insights, none led to the level of improvement in health, function and quality of life I was seeking. Over time, I incorporated the most useful concepts, observations, and strategies into my own framework while researching and discovering other possibilities that I felt were overlooked, insufficiently addressed, or ineffectively addressed.
The result of that work is my two-phase Roots & Wings Restorative Health Framework, specifically designed to identify for my clients the unique combination of factors contributing to their symptoms, declining health, and loss of function—enabling me to then develop a customized strategy for meaningful improvement for each individual.
Phase 1: Investigation & Discovery
Using the Roots & Wings Assessments, I systematically evaluate more than 30 areas of inquiry that I have found to be relevant when investigating chronic illness, declining health, and loss of function.
Rather than assuming that the diagnoses, labels, or explanations a client arrives with tell the entire story, Phase 1 casts a wider net to identify, from a broad pool of potential contributors, the factors most likely affecting an individual's health, function, resilience, and quality of life.
The goal is to develop the fullest picture possible of the contributors and influences affecting each client’s health, function, and quality of life.
Phase 2: Strategic Protocol Sequencing
Once the assessment process is complete, we use the information gathered during discovery to identify the unique combination of factors affecting each client's health and function.
Those findings are then used to:
Guide the development and strategic sequencing of customized protocols, recommendations, referrals, and activities.
Identify when additional testing, specialized care, or referral to other professionals may be appropriate.
The intended outcome is improved health, improved function, increased resilience, and renewed capacity for life.
I have been where you are.
I was completely bedbound for eight years, and then “mostly” house-bound for another
20 years.
I know it’s hard to believe the complex, chronic illness you’re experiencing can be addressed so thoroughly and broadly that you might experience major improvement in your ability to function — but I’m living proof.
I would say, on any given day, I now function at 70-85% of my pre-illness energy from more than 30 years ago and regained essentially 100% of my cognitive ability.
That happens to be enough for me to work, think clearly, engage with family and socially, travel carefully, and enjoy my life again.
When I was at my worst, I would have been unable to read and comprehend this website due to fatigue, weakness, and brain fog.
If you find yourself in the same situation, reach out by phone or email and I will step out of my preferences (that you already know all you need to know about me and my work as found on this site) and we can address what you need to know by phone.
I hold no judgement, and there is no place for shame. We do what needs to be done. Once you’ve been chronically ill, you can become very pragmatic.