More about me...

When I was in naturopathic medical school I didn’t yet know what it was like to not feel well.  Many of my fellow medical students had discovered naturopathic medicine through their own health struggles with depression, Crohn’s disease, hormonal imbalance, autoimmune diseases and more.  But for me, my interest in naturopathic medicine, Chinese medicine and natural health was fueled simply by my desire to be as healthy as possible. I had always been interested in living a healthy lifestyle and taking good care of myself(even if I made a lot of mistakes while learning what that actually meant!).  

It wasn’t until I graduated from medical school and was in my first year of practice that I started to have strange and certainly unwelcome symptoms.  For a while I brushed these symptoms aside, thinking I was just under too much stress or tired from all the years of school and then beginning my medical practice.  It wasn’t until I started seeing more and more patients who had THE SAME EXACT SYMPTOMS as me that I started to get nervous about my own health.  I was barely functional and was self medicating with caffeine in the morning and wine in the evening.  I didn’t have the energy to cook healthy meals for myself and beyond walking my dogs there was no energy to do much else. On the weekends my couch was my best friend and my nervous system was overwhelmed and overcooked.  I was no longer a model of health that I had always been and had wanted so badly to model for my patients.  There was also a great deal of shame that I felt for trying to help others figure out their own health issues but having this huge secret that I was just as unwell as them.  How could I help others if I was such a wreck?

The lightbulb really turned on when I had a patient who came to me with a multitude of symptoms, all identical to mine, and I diagnosed her with lyme disease through blood testing.  I could no longer ignore what was happening for me and this began my journey to heal myself from chronic lyme disease.  

You see, when I thought back to when symptoms really started it was actually years earlier.  The symptoms were minor then and I was able to manage them with my healthy lifestyle.  This was no longer the case.  

I now look at my diagnosis with lyme disease as MY GREATEST TEACHER.  It enabled me to learn how it feels to be unwell. It showed me what it’s like to not be able to be present for your loved ones, to not have the energy to do what you love to do, to feel betrayed by your body, to be ashamed of not being well and to hide from family and friends because you feel so bad.

I overcame my health challenges and for the past 10 years I have been teaching and helping women how to do the same.  It is not always an easy path, and yes there may be bumps along the way, but it is possible. Anyone can heal if you have the tools to do so!