The Wellness Detective

The Wellness Detective Hi, I’m Courtenay! I’m a Board Certified Holistic Health Practitioner, Menopause Coach, and Certified Functional Nutritionist.

I help women and men get to the root cause of their health issues and symptoms by putting all of the puzzle pieces together.

How many times have you heard: 'your labs look normal" or even that they look "good"?This was one of the things that rea...
05/19/2026

How many times have you heard: 'your labs look normal" or even that they look "good"?

This was one of the things that really drove me crazy because I KNEW something wasn't right and yet every basic test I had came back "normal"; even in the ER, there was nothing visibly wrong on my blood work. I hear this a lot from clients, family, and friends too.

So why do so many people still feel exhausted, inflamed, anxious, dizzy, burned out, foggy, or unlike themselves but have "normal" blood work?

One of the biggest problems in wellness is that “normal” does NOT always mean: optimal, symptom-free, or healthy for YOU. There is also a great lack of individualization in modern medicine's lab work.
Most standard lab ranges are designed to identify severe disease (aka you're basically one foot in the grave before anything looks off), not necessarily early dysfunction, hormone shifts, nutrient depletion, chronic stress, inflammation, or nervous system imbalance. Their levels are also far from optimal ranges where most people really should fall into.

That means you can technically fall “within range” and STILL struggle with symptoms like fatigue, weight gain, hair loss, anxiety, dizziness, poor sleep, brain fog, burnout, hormone chaos, chronic inflammation, etc. etc. etc.

Lab markers should never be looked at completely isolated from:
✨symptoms
✨stress level
✨sleep
✨nutrition
✨inflammation
✨nervous system health
✨hormones
✨lifestyle patterns

We need to take all of these things into consideration, as well as optimal ranges vs. normal ranges. Our bodies are constantly giving us clues.

Sometimes the issue isn’t that “nothing is wrong”, it’s that nobody has connected the dots yet.

Have you ever been told your labs were “normal” even though you felt awful?

04/19/2026

Burnout and how to prevent it.

I attended a great event by Stephanie Satterfield with OYA, centered around how to prevent burnout as a women.

Key takeaways:

Optimize your attitude - your attitude is a decision and how you react is critical.
Put yourself on your priority list. We’ve all heard it before: you can’t pour from an empty cup
Pick 3 things to focus on in a day: one family priority, one personal prio, one business prio
Build a consistent system for your day/life
Journal - physically write things down to get it out of your head and nervous system
Be aware of, and control energy leaks: unspoken expectations, guilty, people pleasing, what ifs.

Move away from the mindset that we can have it all and focus on “we can have enough”.

You’re doing great my girls! You’re doing enough, you don’t need to do it all.

04/14/2026

Diet culture has convinced women that smaller is better and “less is more.” But when you constantly restrict calories, cut food groups, or skip meals, you aren’t just losing weight, you’re losing iron, magnesium, B12, and essential vitamins and minerals.

Chronic undereating creates a stress response in the body, raising cortisol levels. When the body is constantly under-nourished, it shifts into survival mode, often resulting in immune system dysfunction and, ultimately, autoimmune conditions.

Many of us are walking around “well-fed” but starved of micronutrients, leaving our metabolisms sluggish and our bodies in fight-or-flight mode. We need to unlearn and let go of this mentality; it’s keeping us sick.

03/29/2026

This one will probably annoy some people, so buckle up. But I standby the fact that getting injectables, Botox, etc. is not a health and wellness practice. And if you’re a doctor providing these services, sorry but you’re not really that concerned with your patient’s well-being.

Before you say “it’s proven safe“, cool… now ask yourself, “who funded the studies?”. 70 to 75% of clinical research on Botox is funded or conducted by the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture them. That screams conflict of interest. The rest? Often done by universities and researchers with financial ties to those same companies.

And since everyone wants to talk about how it’s FDA approved, even the FDA has issued a black box warning about the risks of Botox and injectables. There is also an FDA adverse event reporting system with thousands of adverse events reported around Botox and injectables. Many of the adverse events are not even reported. But if you want to learn more you can check out to learn about the dark side of these injectables.

I stand by the fact that as a naturopathic doctor, or someone in the functional health field, or if your philosophy is rooted in root-cause healing and whole body wellness, offering Botox and injectables is a massive misalignment.


Hormones
Doctors
Menopause
Perimenopause

03/28/2026

The more women I talk to the more I realize that I’m not actually alone in this stage of life. But we don’t talk about so many aspects of perimenopause enough. Brain fog is at the forefront of one of the many symptoms that we have and, for me, one of the more frustrating. The days of multitasking and doing more than one thing at once are gone. If I don’t stick to one thing at a time I end up flooding my laundry room…

And yes there’s a lot of things we can do to help the brain fog, like lifestyle changes, food, supplements. And that’s all fine and well and I love to talk about those things, but today I just need you to talk about how frustrating it is.


Hormones this sucks

One of the biggest things I see in my work is people being told their labs are “fine” or "normal", but they don’t feel f...
03/20/2026

One of the biggest things I see in my work is people being told their labs are “fine” or "normal", but they don’t feel fine at all. This is across the board with hormonal issues, autoimmunity, perimenopause, thyroid dysfunction, or when people don't even know what's wrong with them. Doctors say "oh yeah your labs look good" but in reality, they are far from good and people leave the office feeling insane.

So, with this in mind, I created a guide that walks through exactly which labs/blood work to ask for, what your numbers should actually be, and how to connect it all to whatever symptoms you're having.

It’s essentially the foundation of how I approach root-cause work with my clients to start figuring out what's wrong. It's what helped me heal from POTS and now figure out what the heck is going in with my hormones. For context, so you know I am legit😉, I am a Board-Certified Holistic Health Practitioner, Functional Nutritionist, and Menopause Coach.

If this is something that can help you, the link is below. I would be grateful for your support. If you know of anyone who could use this, please share with them or share to your page. I am a small business, and any like, comment, or share is tremendously helpful for me to grow and help others.

https://twd22.mysamcart.com/the-lab-test-playbook-zjvzw

03/12/2026

I’ve been a little more quiet than usual as I work on some big things behind the scenes. I’ve got some great courses, guides, and a community in the works that will help my mid-life ladies, moms, parents, and those struggling with dysautonomia. Keep a lookout for those! I’ll share here when they are ready. As always, thank you for your support. 🫶

02/09/2026

It’s not that we don’t love you, it’s just that our bodies don’t always want to cooperate.

02/05/2026

What it’s like to have POTS (and other autoimmune disorders).

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