The Perfect Meandering
The path here was not linear. My love of science, the body, and its miraculous design fuels the drive to learn. A curiosity to view healthcare through a different lens led me to functional medicine and epigenetics. This informed the path to helping my own body heal, and in turn my purpose of helping others heal.
Pathological change is always preceded by biological change.
Which is to say that chronic dysfunction (disease) is always preceded by cellular deficit (nutrient shortfall). Healthy cells create healthy tissues, which build healthy organs, and organ systems. In providing the cells with what they need, we can help rebalance the systems of the body, in stimulating resonance and resilience. How?
It all starts with our story.
When I was young my mother healed her chronic sinus conundrum through ceasing of all prescribed antibiotics, which had not resolved the issues for years. She was the one that introduced me to holistic health-care, taking me to a homeopathic practitioner to address migraines and a holistic nutritionist for correcting nutritional deficiencies. She also brought me to my first yoga class while a junior in highschool (my gratitude to you, Ginger Smalley and Pati Caputto, for planting the seeds).
I’d always considered myself “healthy”. I grew up very active, a gymnast for nearly ten years, playing on team sports throughout K-12 adolescent years; basketball, volleyball, track, tennis, and softball. We ate “balanced” meals growing up, soda in the house was rare (except for Mother’s TAB), and sugary treats were also few and far between.
Regardless, in my late teens, I can remember feeling pain during well women exams (aka papsmears) when the OBGYN would knead my abdomen, in the normal examining of lumps and bumps. I never mentioned this to her, which occurred during most visits for years.
Fast forward through my 20s and 30s, which were filled with college, travel, living fast, climbing the career ladder in the Pet Industry in San Diego, while studying nutrition and herbs on the side. The “busyness” of life and external commitments paved the way for neglect to Self care. The result was among other things, a marriage coming to an end, migraines, back issues, and a drive to live life differently. A relationship brought me to Portland, Maine in my late 30s. After several years in my new home, my energy hit a low point with intermittent episodes of somber. My usual upbeat and positive persona felt harder to embody.
There is a seasonality to life.
Around this time is when I found Functional Medicine (FM). The tenets of this type of health care resonated deeply. When my partner came home with a clean bill of health after a 7-minute annual exam from his PCP, I offered to find him an FM doc to address his digestive issues and decreased energy. Out of excitement for this new paradigm, I went with him to the initial visit, which lasted nearly 3 hours! Clearly this MD was engaged in the process of discovery, partnership, and healing. That was it for me. I set out to find a graduate program with the foundation of functional medicine at its core, and after 15 years of searching for this in the nutrition field, I found the ideal curriculum at University of Western States, an evidence-based nutrition and functional medicine program (see below for more info).
It was here where I learned how to apply personalized medicine and predictive nutrition to my own body. A thyroid test showed normal or low-normal results (it is very common in conventional medicine to be within normal range, when actually the tests are inconclusive because they are incomplete). After a more complete thyroid panel blood test, it was clear that my thyroid was not functioning optimally – and an autoimmune response was kicking into gear. Diagnosis: Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. This pattern had been going on for a long time. Based on what I’d learned about how the body responds to lack of nutrients and the chronic stress cascade, I could now track the symptoms (downstream results) back to their origin, and identify root causes (upstream). Root causes: deficiencies (both inherited and epigenetic), lack of stress management (the way we stress is key to thyroid/hormone regulation), amongst other physiological, emotional, mental contributors. I did have help through this process, through a functional medicine-based DO and nurse practitioner I was working with. These individuals were part of the path, yet in the end I knew my body best, what worked and what didn’t, with regards to the trial-and-error phase of pushing for more tests and then correcting nutrient deficiencies. I was my own best advocate.
Through the conventional medicine lens, my condition may not have carried this diagnosis until the function of the thyroid deteriorated further, perhaps years down the road. Why wait for our body to fall into dysfunction before we intervene? This would be like waiting for the boat to start sinking before addressing the leak. My body was showing signs of a leak back in San Diego, the boat continued to fill with water amidst the lack of sun and exercise in Maine. Another personal growth season was on the horizon.
When we ask the why and not the what.
Diagnose and Adios. After you are diagnosed with a condition, if you feel a sense of our work is done here from your doctor, you are not alone. It’s as if knowing what it is will fill in the blanks for the road to recovery. Functional medicine and functional nutrition takes a different approach. Knowing the what is not as important as the why.
Functional nutrition is about connecting the physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental fortitudes of our life. My road to recovery happened quickly (days), with regards to energy repletion, based on addressing the immediate needs of the thyroid. More gradual was: healing the gut, learning how to stress better, cultivating awareness of mind, body, and soul interconnectedness, and resolving chronic nutrient deficiencies. About a year after the initial diagnosis discovery, I felt and continue to feel better than I have in…well, probably two decades. Note: my parents subsequently were diagnosed discovered their low-functioning thyroid and Hashimoto status shortly after mine.
While I have had many health influencers and contributors to my healing, I felt the ultimate burden of discovery rested on my shoulders. What I offer to clients is to be a partner in their healing, with a thorough and attentive approach.
This is a medicine of connectivity.
Helping others heal drives me to carry this work forward. I honor the multiplicities of healing and hold that the body knows how to heal when provided with the right tools. There is not a one size fits all, or one pill to fix the ill. No drug for the bug. There are parts and systems, not separate from one another. When optimally functioning, the miracle is vibrant living and aging gracefully!
At Enroot Wellness, we want to partner with you in your health and healing. Sometimes the fixes are quick, efficient, and easy. Other times they require more time, trial-and-error, and peeling back on the layers of chronicity. It’s a commitment. And like any commitment, patience for where we want to be, acceptance for where we are, and relief for having the right partner in the process, is invaluable.
We are en-root to practice personalized nutrition through a functional medicine lens. This involves being a partner with someone eager to improve their health & vitality. My specialties lie in preventive and predictive work through: bloodwork analysis (utilizing basic blood tests: CBC, CMP, lipids, etc), to identify and correct nutrient deficiencies and patterns of imbalance, food sensitivity testing, to identify food offenders and reduce inflammation, SAUNA sessions (for those local to Portland, Maine), and more!
Take a Wellness Walk with me…
Continuing Education
Cami is currently involved in a 6-month course studying Internal Family Systems. Having direct experience with this method in my own personal growth, it is powerfully transformative and an evidence-based model of psychotherapy. The IFS model postulates that the mind is naturally multiple and that is a good thing. We are not just one personality. Put another way, we are a multiplicity of parts (as in “part of me wants to work out today, and part of me does not,” or you may think of this as in, we have many sides to us). Our inner parts contain valuable qualities and our core Self knows how to heal, allowing us to become integrated and whole. One only has to watch the Disney movie Inside Out, which beautifully depicts the internal family system or dynamics inside each of us; the angry side of us, the introverted part, the gleeful part…and so on.
In IFS all parts are welcome. One of the tenets of Functional Medicine (FM) is the recognition of a weblike interconnectedness between mind, body, and spirit – and therefore the emphasis on mental, emotional, and spiritual health as a precursor to, and influencer of, physical health and healing. It is through this lens that IFS applied during functional wellness sessions can help influence overall healing, in quick and dramatic ways. IFS + FM together can provide profound and poetic healing. Inquire more in your next session with Enroot Wellness.
Please note that I do not speak on behalf of Institute of Functional Medicine, Linus Pauling Institute, or Internal Family Systems, though I hope my sentiments are in harmony with all these. Any error in judgment should be credited to me and not anyone else.
