Dr. Jen’s Bio
At a young age, I figured out that in order to change the future of my health and make it something different, I had to DO something different.
I was at a fork in the road.
Up to this point, I had been handling things with a traditional mindset around healthcare. We go to our doctors and expect them to fix us. We expect them to give us some prescription that’s going to make everything OK. And we expect our insurance to pay for it all.
But here’s a question I had to ask myself: Apart from crisis intervention with events like a heart attack or severe infection, are prescription medications that we rely on to get health back really fixing the underlying cause of the symptoms? Or are they just masking the symptoms in a temporary way?
I started thinking about it like a check engine light in your car.
The light is the symptom that there’s something wrong. Imagine if we took our car to the mechanic but instead of fixing the cause of the check engine light, the mechanic merely reset the light using a computer and said everything was okay.
What do you think would happen if you continued driving your car?
That’s right: the light would come back on.
Why does the light come back on?
Because the cause of the problem was never addressed.
Doesn’t that sound just like when we take a medication to eliminate a symptom?
The next morning, what do we have to do again? We must take the same medication. Because if we don’t, what’s going to happen? The symptom is going to come right back. That’s because these medications are not addressing the underlying cause.
Now let’s be clear, I’m not saying there isn’t a time for medication.
When there’s a crisis, our traditional healthcare system does an amazing job at putting us back together. I’ve been there. A few times, actually.
But what about when we develop chronic health issues and chronic symptoms? Or when we lose our health over time with symptoms like weight gain, chronic pain and low energy?
I had a car accident at 19 years old that I never really recovered from. The extent of my injuries was not obvious, and I needed someone to take a closer look. That wasn’t happening, and as a very young adult, I suffered with chronic pain, migraines, and debilitating anxiety for years.
Taking one drug after another was not resolving the problem. When I look around, pain is an epidemic, obesity is climbing fast, diabetes has tripled, heart disease, autoimmune disease, and cancer are all continuing to get worse.
So, it comes back to the fork in the road.
I wanted different results, and I knew that meant I had to do something different.
My insurance would pay for more medication, but my health continued to decline. I started getting shuffled around from one specialist, then another, and no one could give me answers only more options for medication to manage my issues instead of resolving them.
I had to be willing to invest in my health. Because insurance doesn’t pay for what it takes to resolve the underlying cause. It doesn’t pay for us to take control of our greatest asset: our health.
So, what did it look like to really take control of my health?
It started with understanding which factors had the biggest influence on my health.
At the time, I didn’t know that most symptoms that people face today are connected to diseases that are called lifestyle diseases. Lifestyle includes what we eat, how we use our body, and how we manage stress.
These factors dramatically affect the function of our bodies.
If we aren’t conscious of our choices, we can lose our health over time.
That’s exactly what was happening to me until I made the decision to focus on the cause and reverse the downward spiral of health I was experiencing.
Up to that point, I felt lost in the system and was losing hope.
Taking this new direction changed that for me.
Now, I help people take charge of their health in the same way I reclaimed my own.
I graduated from Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine in 2015 and have been in private practice since completing my Preceptorship in Comprehensive Pain Management that same year.
My background was is in biochemistry and after completing my Bachelor’s degree, years earlier, I worked in the Pediatric Oncology Department assisting cancer research at Dana Farber Institute of Health in Boston, MA.
I found that research was not my only interest and started working in the field of chiropractic, massage, yoga, and health promotion until graduation from naturopathic medical school.
I have certifications and additional training in prolotherapy, comprehensive pain management, regenerative injection therapy, Suisse-neural injection technique, ozone therapy, IV chelation therapy, visceral manipulation, craniosacral therapy, holistic counselling, neuro-linguistics and neuro-emotional techniques, Autogenic training, Acupuncture, Tennant Biomodulator, and holistic dentistry.
I love to learn!!!!
And the only thing I love more than learning is sharing what I’ve learned and helping you find your path to health.
Help me learn more about the pain or health challenges you’re struggling with.
Set up a 30-minute complimentary call.
You’ll receive thoughtful feedback and information about your individual situation. I will listen and provide suggestions to help direct you.
If we are a good fit, you can schedule your first appointment.