You may not be functioning perfectly —
but you can still see a train wreck coming.
You’re exhausted.
Can’t sleep.
Brain fog has become a problem.
Your body hurts and you have headaches.
You need answers.
You want this to end.
When you need answers,
the Roots & Wings Roadmap to Renewed Health
can lead you to them.
You don't have to wait to be a train wreck to get answers.
You've taken stock. You've been to the doctor. Maybe you were told everything looks fine. Or, quite commonly — to follow up in three or six months. Would that doctor actually “wait and see” if it was him or his family?
You want answers now.
When your health has changed and you don't know why, waiting isn't actually a reasonable strategy. Why wait? And, if you did wait and see, are we waiting for things to get better — or worse?
Fortunately, The R&W Roadmap to Renewed Health was built specifically for people who have seen a decline in their health and their ability to get things done.
The stated goal for entering this program is to change the trajectory — from a downward decline in health and ability back toward either normal for you, or maybe even better than it was.
These are people who are roughly four, six, maybe eight months in — living with unexpected, emergent symptoms that may include:
1) pervasive exhaustion
2) inability to sleep well despite genuine effort
3) brain fog impacting name and word recall, driving and task completion
4) unexplained body aches and pain, headaches, and/or migraines
5) needing to plan around uncomfortable digestive issues
The Roadmap to Renewed Health is built around investigating functional health and the physiology of your health systems. I look broadly enough, in enough places, to find the pieces that may explain what's going on, and then deeply enough to understand what they mean to your ability to function as you must to live your life.
Because complex chronic illness is never purely mechanical, our investigation and restoration work always integrates a holistic and somatic lens. True healing requires looking at the whole person—acknowledging the profound interplay between your biology, your nervous system, your emotional landscape, and your lived environment. You cannot address the physical body without also addressing the state of the nervous system that governs it.
You can't address what hasn’t been identified.
We need to find out what's going on. Then do something about it.
There’s a lot at stake.
The state of your health makes everything that’s in your life possible.
Your ability to work.
Your income.
Your role in your family and extended family.
Your independence.
The career or business you’ve built.
The life you’ve built around all of it.
Hi, I’m Ellen Nicholas, the founder and sole practitioner of Roots & Wings to Renewed Health.
I’m a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner and a Board-Certified Holistic Health Practitioner. My work is grounded in investigating people’s declining health broadly — looking for the things causing it to decline.
As a systems thinker I never stop thinking about why things are the way they are, particularly in the arena of a poorly functioning body. Why is it operating this way? If we identify and address a contributing factor, will health and function begin to improve. If we add or remove a particular input (i.e. a specific supplement, more protein, less protein, more activity, less activity), will it improve the body’s ability to function.
I’m not exactly a nerd, but if something were new to me, I would pretend I was till I found the answers to the puzzle.
I look broadly. I collect clues. I look for connections. I pay attention to what has changed, what came before it, what may be contributing now, and sometimes what no one has thought to ask about before.
And because I know how much can be at stake while you're trying to get better, I believe in being deeply proactive while also being fiercely protective and careful of your energy and ability to function day to day.
That stance informs my judgement and decision-making throughout our work together. Improving your health matters. So does protecting your ability to live your life while we do it.
Are We a Good Fit?
Our working together successfully requires that you be an active and observant participant in your health. It also requires a willingness to work within the pace and parameters that I set for our work together.
There may very well be times when I recommend a dosage that is less than what the bottle says to take.
I may recommend that we slow something down like particular activities.
We will always give your body time to show whether something is helpful or unhelpful before layering on other protocol components or before taking the next step.
When someone is already dealing with multiple significant symptoms — exhaustion, pain, brain fog, insomnia, digestive problems — adding new inputs requires caution. We need to know how your body responds to each new thing before adding anything else.
Pacing isn't just about saving physical energy; it is a somatic practice. When the body has been stuck in chronic distress for months, it often remains locked in a protective fight-or-flight stress loop. By introducing small, deliberate, sequential steps and giving your body time to integrate them, we signal to your nervous system that it is safe to let down its guard and begin restoring.
In this world, more isn't necessarily better, and faster isn't either.
Both can lead to a worsening of your body’s capacity and ability to function, and an increase in symptom flares. Possibly the creation of new ones. That can lead to you requiring more rest and recovery — which is exactly the opposite of our goal.
If your instinct is to double or triple a dose, accelerate the protocol schedule, add several things at once when requested to wait three to five days in-between, or push through an extreme lack of energy or pain, because you want results faster, we may not be a good fit.
Part of what you're hiring me for is not only for getting answers from the assessment, but also about developing potentially restorative protocols. Pace, sequencing, and protecting your capacity are an important part of that.
If we wind up working together, you are ALWAYS welcome to ask for help with strategies to deal with abnormal circumstances that create increased demand on your capacity short term. Emergencies that require your getting to a funeral, getting to a family member in a hospital, a wedding you must attend out of town.
There will be times when life requires you to push beyond what would otherwise be wise. We can work together to help you manage those circumstances. But when there is a choice, pushing through exhaustion, significant pain, or other warning signs in order to get more done or try to get better faster, is not how we work.
The reason is simple: I can’t guarantee what results our work together will produce. But I do know that pushing harder, doing more faster than the body is ready for, or haphazardly adding more inputs can take your health in exactly the wrong direction, rather than where you want to go.
My Vision for our Work Together
That we find the answers you need to change the trajectory of your health — and you don’t lose more ground.
That we identify and begin addressing the factors contributing to the changes in your health, while protecting the capacity you have now and working to rebuild what has begun to slip.
That we introduce interventions carefully, sequentially, and at a pace your body can handle. We make changes, watch how you respond, and adjust as needed — so improving your health doesn’t require putting the rest of your life on hold.
And ultimately, that we do more than interrupt a decline. We work to create the conditions that support your body’s capacity for restoration, greater resilience, and the possibility of regaining ground.
We work to support not just your physical markers, but also your overall mind-body resilience—helping your physiology shift away from chronic stress responses and toward greater biological and emotional ease.
Roadmap to Renewed Health:
Investigation Phase
At Roots & Wings, looking harder, broader, and deeper isn't what we do after you get worse. It's where we start.
So where do we start? By investigating broadly — and digging deep when a closer look is warranted.
First, you, your clinical presentation of symptoms, and rebuilding your health foundations for improved health and ability to function in your daily life.
Second, the Roots & Wings Restorative Health Framework, our proprietary methodology for investigating functional health and physiology and guiding the work we do to help you renew your health.
The Roadmap to Renewed Health Program is built around two things:
It is a complex investigation. On purpose… We can do so because insurance companies are not able to exert the kind of influence that stops investigation into symptoms that don’t have a full-blown diagnosis. The bad news is that insurance does NOT pay for our work.
The Restorative Health Framework was developed specifically for investigating complex chronic illness — which involves multiple symptoms and body systems, with numerous potential contributing or causative factors.
In the Roadmap to Renewed Health, we use the same foundational investigative process that undergirds our work with people who have complex chronic illness.
The difference is that in the Roadmap to Renewed Health we are using it earlier in the illness process for people with emergent symptoms. Long before multiple symptoms, conditions, and systems have had years to develop into a long-term chronic health pattern.
We systematically investigate more than 40 areas known to affect health, physiology, and function for the same reason. So that years do not go by allowing things to develop into long-term complex or chronic health patterns.
This program corresponds to the following milestones on our Roadmap to Renewed Health
How does the Roots & Wings
Emerging Symptoms Assessment Work?
This rigorous assessment process is comprised of:
Comprehensive health history intake and structured assessment materials, including review of up to seven pre-existing laboratory and diagnostic reports
Initial Assessment appointment of up to 75 minutes with Ellen Nicholas
Telephone calls initiated by Ellen Nicholas, as needed, to clarify information you provide while completing the assessment process
Recommendations will be provided for additional laboratory testing, medical evaluation, or deeper investigation when the findings indicate that more information would be useful. Testing costs and any required medical review fees are additional to the Assessment and will be discussed with you in advance.
Independent case analysis and synthesis by Ellen Nicholas
A preliminary written Assessment report, when we are awaiting functional laboratory test results
Review & Recommendations Appointment of up to 75 minutes with Ellen Nicholas to receive report, review findings, recommendations, and next steps.
Amended Assessment Report incorporating any functional lab testing results not yet available when initial report was written
Roadmap to Renewed Health: Renewal Phase
Once the assessment is complete and we have our findings,
our focus shifts from investigation to renewal.
We went looking for answers. We found them.
We looked broadly and dug deep. We turned over lots of stones.
We will have a clearer understanding of what’s driving your symptoms.
Have a better understanding of what’s slowing you down.
Know what’s interfering with your ability to function in your daily life.
Understand what’s adversely impacting your health — not just today but your future health too.
What needed to be identified has been identified. Now we can begin to address it.
With that information, we can develop targeted strategies for renewal — strategies based on what we’ve learned about you — not guesswork.
We can’t know exactly how the trajectory of your health will change.
What we can do is educate you on your physiology after we have the data from the complex investigation that is your completed assessment.
Then we can teach you the tools and evidence-based health and lifestyle strategies that can potentially move your physiology toward better functioning in your daily life.
Everyone’s biology and physiology is different because of their genetics, lifestyle choices, and ongoing exposures. So what works for a hundred other people may or may not work for you.
Fortunately, we have dozens of strategies and tools in our tool belt — and the information we’ve gathered helps us determine which ones may be right for you.
Proactivity 101:
Knowing when you’d better act.
Sooner rather than later.
To avoid negative consequences.
Long before I became a health practitioner, I had a whole other life. My pre-illness life.
I am passionate about helping people protect the life that good health makes possible.
My story is why.
When I speak about having a lot at stake, unfortunately for me, it isn't theoretical.
I may use the word “health”, but what I’m really talking about is your ability to work and earn — and the financial security that comes with it.
My goal isn't to scare the heck out of you.
Primarily, I work with people who have complex chronic illness.
But I also help people who have symptoms that interfere with their lives. They don’t know why and want answers so they can end the interference.
My Story…
I had a degree in business and finance and spent 15 years in real estate and mortgage banking. I had built a successful career with significant earning potential. Then my health deteriorated to the point that continuing to get to and do the work became impossible.
When my health improved enough for me to return to banking, I spent two years trying to get back into the industry. I couldn’t. Being out of the workforce for a few years because of illness had changed how prospective employers saw me. The career I had worked to build was simply no longer available to me.
But I still needed to earn a living. If I was going to continue working, I had to find another way.
I built part-time businesses that gave me control over when and how I worked. First, operating a bed-and-breakfast and then a gluten-free farmers market business in the Hudson Valley.
Self-employment gave me a way to keep working, but it didn’t change that I needed to work limited hours and as a result, have a significantly lower income than I would have had were I able to work a 40-hour week.
Declining health cost me a 15-year career and years of real income I could never get back.
The consequences went far beyond my career. They affected my financial security, my family, my lifestyle, my ability to get health insurance, my relationships, and ultimately, my retirement income.
When my health began unraveling decades ago, much of what we know today simply wasn't known yet. Many of the conditions, contributing factors, tests, research, and connections that can be investigated today weren't known or accessible then.
In approximately 1997, I waited five months to see a rheumatologist moving into our community. I brought him a written history of my symptoms. He looked it over, confirmed my fibromyalgia diagnosis and, when I asked how he could know without really examining me, told me simply that I was “a train wreck.” I couldn't argue with him. I was.
There was no investigation into why my health had deteriorated so dramatically and no meaningful plan for what I could do about it.
Fortunately, for someone experiencing symptoms today that are interfering with their life, considerably more is known. We also have laboratory testing, research, and other investigative tools that can help us look for factors that once would have been difficult—or impossible—to identify.
That's where the Roadmap to Renewed Health comes in.
My purpose is to help you change the trajectory — and avoid the train wreck you sense may be coming.
Our goals are straightforward:
— Complete recovery wherever possible
— Better management of any chronic illness to minimize disruption and allow you to participate more fully in your life
— Provide sequenced rather than stacked strategies designed to reduce symptoms and improve your health without doing too much, too quickly — potentially jeopardizing your ability to keep working
Enough energy left after work to make dinner — and a Saturday that doesn’t have to be spent recovering from Friday.
The capacity to care for your children, help an aging parent, play with your grandchildren, and be present for the people you love.
Going to the gym. Playing pickup basketball at 5:00 in the morning at the Y with the same people you’ve played with for years. Working in your garden. Seeing your friends. Going to Sunday dinner — even when it’s a pain in the neck. Hey, it’s family.
Being able to keep doing the work you value and earning the income that supports the life you’ve built.
Travel. The house. The boat. The hobbies. The plans. Whatever you’ve worked for and whatever makes your particular life yours.
Being able to make plans without first calculating what they’re going to cost you physically.
And coming away from our work understanding more about your own body and what it needs — better equipped to be a proactive manager of your health for the years ahead.
My Vision for You
That protecting and improving your health protects the life your health makes possible.
You know something is wrong.
✳︎
You're proactive by nature.
✳︎
You're not the type to wait months to "wait and see".
✳︎
You want an exhaustive assessment now.
✳︎
The Roadmap to Renewed Health is exactly that.
*
Schedule now.
*
You know something is wrong. ✳︎ You're proactive by nature. ✳︎ You're not the type to wait months to "wait and see". ✳︎ You want an exhaustive assessment now. ✳︎ The Roadmap to Renewed Health is exactly that. * Schedule now. *
Program and Investment
Module One | 13 Weeks | $2,295
Functional laboratory testing, if utilized, is billed separately.
The first 13 weeks give us time to complete the assessment and investigation, use what we learn to develop a strategy, begin putting that strategy into place, and observe how your body responds.
Throughout the module, you will have scheduled appointments as well as access to our private Facebook group and twice-weekly open hours, where you can check in when questions or concerns arise between appointments.
At the End of Module One, We Reassess
What comes next depends upon your progress, your current needs, and the level of support that will serve you best.
Module Two | 13 Weeks | $2,295
Some clients benefit from another full module at the same level of interaction as Module 1. Module Two provides continued close support as we implement, monitor, and adjust your strategy. This may be appropriate when health concerns are particularly complex, when the body needs to move slowly, or when several areas still require active attention.
Extended Support | 13 Weeks | $1,595
Clients who are ready to work more independently but would still benefit from consistent guidance may step down to Extended Support. This provides a reduced level of service, with generally once-weekly contact for continued monitoring, problem-solving, and adjustment of the plan.
Continued Support through Appointments on an As-Needed Basis | $135 for 30 minutes
Other clients may be ready to continue largely on their own or schedule individual consultations only as needed.
There is no automatic expectation that everyone will need every level of support. At each transition point, we will reassess what your body requires and decide together what makes the most sense.
There are three ways to start the
Roadmap to Renewed Health
If what you’ve read here feels aligned with your current health experience and where you want to go — and our working together feels like a good fit — choose the starting point below that best matches where you are now.
Schedule an Initial Consultation.
Begin with a paid initial consultation if you would like to consult with Ellen before deciding whether to proceed.
For a 45-minute appointment - $175 Schedule here
For a 75-minute appointment - $225
Emerging Symptoms
Assessment — $875
If you are ready to begin with the Roots & Wings Emerging Symptoms Assessment, use the button below to initiate the process.
Roadmap for Renewed Health Program
Module 1 | 13 weeks $2,295
If you intend to enter the Roadmap for Renewed Health Program, use the button below to let Ellen know. This allows us to reserve a place for you while you complete the assessment.
If you begin with the Assessment or indicate your intent to join the Roadmap for Renewed Health program, I will send you a welcome email with our Terms of Service Agreement and simple instructions for what comes next, including scheduling your first appointment. Once the agreement is signed and payment is received we can get started.
Sliding scale options are available for two clients per quarter with documented financial need. Eligibility is based on the client’s own financial circumstances. It does not take into account a family member who assists.
Ellen offers these spaces as a way of paying forward the help others extended to her during years when illness severely limited her own resources. Feel free to inquire for details.