Hi, I’m Jenna-
I’m a Family Nurse Practitioner, Certified Functional Hormone Specialist, and women’s health coach specializing in rebalancing hormones and gut health using female-specific nutrition & protocols.
Even as a nurse practitioner, I, like so many women, struggled for years to figure out what was “healthy”. I tried every diet, every new workout trend, and handfuls of supplements but never felt like I could get it just right. I felt disconnected from myself and my body. I felt overwhelmed by all of the contradicting information floating around online regarding how to achieve my health goals. I felt tired, burned out, and, quite frankly, betrayed by my body.
It wasn’t until I started working WITH my body and menstrual cycle that I finally achieved the level of health that once felt like a dream. I finally had the energy to get through the day, my brain fog disappeared, and I naturally started losing weight that I had convinced myself was just an unavoidable side effect of getting older. And the best part? No trendy, gimmicky, snake oils needed!
If you are ready to balance your hormones, increase your energy, and create sustainable, nourishing habits in order to (finally!) generate lasting results, I’m here to be your biggest cheerleader and help you every step!
Why Work With Me
I have worked in the health space for 10+, first as a nurse in the ICU and then as a nurse practitioner in a variety of settings, including pulmonology, sleep medicine, men’s health, and internal medicine. During this time, I witnessed many healthcare providers overlooking the crucial holistic lifestyle elements of wellness that seemed to be the missing link for so many patients.
QUALIFICATIONS AND TRAINING
- Certified Functional Hormone Specialist
- Certified Family Nurse Practitioner
- Master of Science in Nursing
- Estima-Certified Women’s Health Coach
- DUTCH test and GI-MAP training via Rupa University
- Additional continuing education on: functional medicine, gut health, hormone health, mycotoxin illness, mental health, & more!
MY PHILOSOPHY
Let’s face it, medicine is a broken system that left both myself and my patients yearning for more. I burned out under the pressure to ‘just prescribe another pill and move on’, the pressure of quantity over quality when seeing patients. Just as Hippocrates, the ‘Father of Medicine’, believed in the mind/body/spiritual connection, I too feel there is no way to achieve health without considering all of these elements that make us into the unique, brilliant beings that we are. We are so much more than just the sum of our parts.
As a Functional Hormone Specialist, I am able to give my clients the time and attention they need to reach all of their goals without the confines of the traditional medical system.
To view more information about my professional background and education, click here.
My journey
I never felt like I could get it right. From the time I was a teenager, I struggled with hormonal acne, irregular periods, and fatigue. After being diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), I tried many different types of birth control and medications but never saw any improvement. The side effects often only made me feel worse.
In college, while completing my Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program, I continued to dig into the heavy sciences to figure out how this body actually works hoping maybe I could even heal myself. I made some changes to my diet and finally got my period back but still battled breakouts, hair growing where it shouldn’t, hair falling out where I didn’t want it to, and unrelenting fatigue even after a full night of rest. I felt like none of my doctors understood me and there was no hope. I decided I had to just adjust to the fact that I would probably feel like this my whole life but held onto a little seed of hope that things could be different.
Like many women, I put my health on the back burner while I balanced my high-stress career as an ICU nurse and attended full-time grad school to become a nurse practitioner, started my marriage, and tried my best to navigate adulthood.
My body was nothing more than an inconvenience that I quite honestly hated living in. If I could’ve detached completely and become a floating head alone, I probably would’ve.
It should come as no surprise to hear that I eventually completely burned out in my career, felt terrible in my body, and fully out of control. I felt like I had hit rock bottom.
Luckily, it was just the push I needed to get my life on track. I took a leap of faith and left my high-stress job as a nurse practitioner in a bustling outpatient office and moved into a position that gave me the mental space to really do the work I needed to do on myself first. I slowly began the process of coming home to myself and reconnecting to what my body was really trying to tell me. I read, meditated, journaled, and mourned the way I had treated my body and myself all of these years.
Then, I dug back into the science. I read and read and read, and finally found the magical combination of nutrition, movement, and mindfulness that created the shifts in my health I had always dreamed of. Plus, I did the one thing I never thought I’d do, I hired a functional medicine practitioner to help me figure it out. When I finally had the accountability, support, and tools to put all I had learned into practice, that’s when the needle finally moved for me. That’s when I decided to complete my certification as a Functional Hormone Specialist and begin supporting my own clients so they could also experience the life-changing benefits of having someone walk alongside you every step of the way on your journey!