The Founder of the Rowan Health and Wellness Clinic.

I am so excited to get you know you, I am Alex the Founder of the Rowan Health and Wellness Clinic. I am a licensed Nurse Practitioner, Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner and Health Coach. My journey to Functional Medicine began when I was searching for answers to my own health struggles.

Once upon a time I was a very busy professional working full time hours and then some most days, while also teaching at a local university part time, traveling internationally as a guest speaker while still managing to keep some time for self-care with exercise, diet, Chiropractic care and massage.  I also had relationships as a daughter, sister, girlfriend, friend and coworker. The most significant support I was providing was to my significant other, who at the time decided he wanted to open his own business, which changed life more than I had anticipated.

It was busy, but most days I felt pretty good.  Then I was in a car accident. Not terrible, but enough that I had whiplash severe enough that I was told to stop exercising until it healed. As the universe seems to do, things also got a lot busier at work around the same time and the demands of finances were starting to add up for the new business.  It all started to unravel.

I would say I noticed the difficulty of focusing and concentrating first, along with the much lower energy than I usually had to get through my day with everything on my plate.  Then came the weight gain; with the lack of exercise and the increased stress that was taking its toll.  Finally came the depression; the panic attacks. I could sleep 14 hours and still feel like I had not slept a wink. I didn’t enjoy anything anymore.  I felt I had to push myself to get through my day, and I usually had a headache by the evening.  I had nothing left in the tank for exercise or making healthy foods anymore.  Riddled I went to my family doctor and told him my story.  He could see that I was not well.  I was burnt out.  I was put on stress leave for a few weeks, which I was thankful for.  The trouble being a few weeks in I was sleeping lots, eating better, back to easy exercise but I still did not feel recharged.  I was concerned that as soon as I went back to work it would turn out the same again.  That is when I found functional medicine and luckily found a great practitioner to take me on.  They took a very thorough look at my health journey over my entire life. They recommended some testing that was new to me and explained my health in a new way.

In short I was a hot mess! Cortisol was very low throughout the day, adrenals were having a hard time keeping up, gut had too many bad bugs and too few good ones (even though I really did not have gut symptoms, this was pivotal to understanding my health).  I had several nutrient deficiencies which was leading to hormone imbalances, neurotransmitter imbalances (brain function and mental health) and low energy on a cellular level.  And I was in my EARLY THIRTIES! Really?!?! Noteworthy is all my bloodwork was within normal ranges on paper.

Functional medicine helped me get back into balance so I could get back to what I loved, back to work, back to purpose and enjoying that purpose, back to health and feeling good.  But also into a new understanding of my body and how I can take care of myself so I can continue to take care of others.  Everything is connected in the body and you need to take a look from head to toe to get the most out of your health.  I started to look through a different lens at health.  I become certified in Functional Medicine in 2017 and start to help as many people as I can to find the same balance and health with this approach between working with clients one on one as well as education.   It is so empowering when someone “gets it”.  When they have so many symptoms and the pieces are put together a different way for them to understand.  This is my goal in my practice, to help as many people as I can through functional medicine find their balance.