So why am I so passionate about this?

I am the daughter of first-generation Dutch immigrants. I came to the UK aged 10, speaking no English, so school was interesting for a while!  I have always loved both arts and science, but as luck would have it I went to the kind of school where the careers advice was: will you be a doctor, a dentist or an engineer?

My real passion was art, music and sports, but like a good girl, I went off to medical school in the 1980’s – the years of 120-hour junior doctor jobs and survival of the fittest.

Fast forward 10 years, and broken by the junior doctor hospital experience, I made my bid for creative freedom. I left medicine, trained as an interior architect/ designer and spent a wonderful 5 years working in London.

Many curve balls later and looming single parenthood, I went back to medicine and re-trained to become a GP. Single motherhood, building a career as a part-time GP, and the pressure of being the sole breadwinner for my tiny family was one of the biggest challenges of my life.

Then in 2014, I had my own health crash. In hindsight, I should have seen it coming. Years of stress, sleep depreciation, worry, anxiety, financial struggles, single parenting….. You get the picture!

Throw in some dysfunctional relationships and another curve ball or 2 and voila, in May 2015 my house of cards came tumbling down.

Down I went: fatigue like you wouldn’t believe, everything in my body hurt, I was depressed, I became fearful of anything and everything, my body would hardly tolerate food, and all my systems went into chaos. I got infection after infection,  I put on crazy amounts of weight and no matter what I did, things got worse, not better.

My lovely GP only had his prescription pad to help me, and deep down I just knew that the deep fatigue I felt had another cause.

That’s when I discovered the power of functional medicine and the need for a truly holistic approach.

Since then my health and my life have completely transformed. Not only did I completely recover my own health using functional medicine principles, but I have since qualified as a fully certified Functional Medicine practitioner with the Institute of Functional Medicine, the world’s foremost provider of functional medicine training.

Through online programmes and 1-2-1 clinic services, I have successfully helped over 100 women recover their health and their energy and I now I want the same for you.