My Why…

To understand my why and how I got here, you have to understand my journey. I did not grow up dreaming of becoming a Functional Medicine Doctor or anything in the holistic relam for that matter. I actually wanted to be a Psychologist. When I was 4 years old I told my mom I wanted to be a psychologist when I grew up (so the story goes according to my mom). I followed that dream through graduate school earning my Masters in Counseling Psychology. While I was in my final internship for school I had an amazing opportunity to work at an inpatient facility for teen girls. In this facility, we had monthly check-ins with our client's psychiatrist. One particular meeting changed my life forever. My client at the time was a 15 year old girl. She had a list of diagnoses and an even longer list of prescription medications. After we went through the visit and my client left the room I asked the psychiatrist what the plan was to get her off these medications. I mean she was only 15 years old and she was on about 13 medications. He looked me in the eyes, snickered and responded there was no plan. She would be on these medications until she reached tolerance, then they would do a “med wash” (essentially they would take her off her meds for a period of time, so her tolerance would go back down and she could get back on them) and she’d go back on them for the rest of her life. I was devastated. I cried my whole drive home that day. I couldn’t imagine what this child’s life would be. Every single medication gave her “side effects” that contributed to her unhappiness and suffering. This was not a system I wanted to be a part of.

Life is full of amazing parallels and guidance. I truly believe if you can just quiet your mind, you will hear your purpose and path in life. While I was finishing up my degree and becoming disheartened with the field of mental health, I was also suffering from severe migraines. Conventional medicine was failing me and I was getting worse not better despite numerous medications and lots of negative tests (basically “nothing” was wrong with me). As a last resort my mom suggested trying a chiropractor or an acupuncturist. The chiropractor was closer. Literally, that’s how I decided to see a chiropractor for the first time. He was a shorter drive and I was busy with school and didn’t want to put time into something I didn’t think would help (I mean nothing else had helped so why would this?) Thankfully, I was very very wrong. My chiropractor gave me relief I had never had before. I was feeling better than I had in years, which would have been enough of a gift, but my doctor took it one step further. He educated me on the body and how it was designed to heal itself. We weren’t designed to have migraines, fatigue, abdominal pain etc. When we give the body what it needs, we take away our disease. After mentioning my frustration with psychology, he suggested I go to chiropractic medical school. I decided, with full support of my husband and family, that I would trust myself and my intuition and apply to chiropractic school. Essentially starting over educationally as well as financially (with dreaded student loan debt), but I felt I was meant to do it.

I’ve spent the last 8 years working as a Chiropractic Physician, 4 of those years in my own practice. While I loved caring for patients in this way, private practice left me desiring more. You can only spend so much time with an individual during each appointment and I found I was barely scratching the surface of most people's health issues. It was then I started my deep dive into functional medicine. Again I had that quiet voice telling me I was meant for something different. I had been interested in functional medicine since school, but I thought my path was to work as a more traditional chiropractor. I would have loved to maintain my chiropractic practice and simply add on functional medicine, but roadblock after roadblock showed me that was not my path, at least not at this time. I’ve decided to once again take a huge leap of faith and focus all my time and energy on functional medicine. Thankfully I still have the love and support of my husband and family. I’m so excited to go on this journey with you and help you feel the inspiration I have felt to live a healthy, happy life. “Everything is super important until you are sick, then you realize there was only ever one thing that was important, your health.”

Sending you the best,

Dr. Stacy Fuller