Have you ever felt like a trip to the medical doctor is a frustrating cycle of symptom masking prescription medicine with countless side effects?
Integrative health practitioner and functional wellness coach Sidney Jackett felt that same frustration with allopathic medicine. She brought her refreshing total body healing practice, Restoring Vitality, to Fort Lauderdale on March 2023 and has been helping people heal ever since.
Getting at the Underlying Cause of Illness
Sidney was a first responder/battalion fire chief for 22 years in California. 15 years into her tenure, in her early 30s, she suffered debilitating hair loss, night sweats and general malaise. After medical doctors failed to diagnose her properly, Sidney met with a firefighter colleague’s wife, who was a functional nurse practitioner. The nurse evaluated her adrenal, thyroid, and metabolic health imbalances, and Sidney’s health woes reversed with supplements and gluten/dairy elimination.
Sidney became enthralled with the study of functional medicine as a side business. She began her studies in California at the Nutritional Therapy School and the Integrative Health Practitioner course. She is an FNTP – Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner.
Jackett relocated back to her birth state of Florida during Covid-19 as she sought refuge from California’s pandemic lockdown measures. She soon realized that her fire service days were numbered, as her own successful wellness outcome solidified functional nutrition as her career.
Empowering Your Health: The Principles of Functional Nutrition
Functional nutrition is a root cause, whole body approach to optimizing health, via clean eating, breathing modifications, and exercise/body movement. Unlike traditional allopathic or western medicine, functional medicine discourages pharmaceuticals and looks to balancing dis-ease (lack of ease) naturally through supplements, sleep optimization, and dietary modifications.
70% of Americans take at least one prescription medication daily, and big pharma markets zealously to legislative bodies, such as Congress and the House of Representatives. Increasingly, more Americans seek alternative/holisitic approaches to chronic conditions like irritable bowel disease, eczema, psoriasis, menopausal symptoms, polycystic ovarian syndrome, bloating, fatigue and sluggish adrenal and thyroid. Sidney wishes to help these conditions without overutilization of prescription medications when possible.
She describes functional wellness to her clients with this explanation: “One of my main goals as a Functional Practitioner is to connect people with their bodies again and have them learn what it feels like to feel amazing so they notice when something is feeling off. They learn to take inventory of what they’ve been eating, how they’ve been sleeping and what kind of stressors are in their lives and make changes accordingly”.
Personalized Protocols for Lasting Transformation
Sidney assesses clients in her Fort Lauderdale office on a massage table with an in depth, 350 long questionnaire called Nutri-Q. The detailed questionaire links common health complaints to organ/visceral micronutrient deficiencies. She does not refer out for labs initially, in order to make the program affordable. Instead Sidney recommends a gluten free, low caffeine, dairy free, low processed food based eating plan. She also emphasizes boasting sleep hygiene which means sleeping 7 hours nightly, watching the sunset, avoiding screens 2 hours before bedtime, and using blue light glasses. She encourages basic movements like walking, and deep breathing for nervous system stimulation and relaxation.
Her protocol is a 90 day program with a one month follow up visit after the first and second month to ensure compliance with the new regimen. Sidney charges her clients for her consultation services, but she only charges her cost for nutritional supplements. She emphasizes that she is not in the supplement sales business, but is in the nutritional consultation business.
Word of Mouth and Success Stories Sparked Client Referrals
Sidney’s first clients were primarily family, friends and firefighter colleagues. She met some skepticism from some more medically minded family and friends, but in time, friends and family referrals gravitated to her for a holistic perspective.
Sidney tells one powerful healing testimonial of a 59 year old woman with chronic sinusitis every 5 weeks. After countless rounds of gut toxic antibiotics, this woman endured bloody diarrhea and an IBS (irritable bowel system) diagnosis. Sidney emphasized a program of gut healing with an elimination diet of bone broth and cabbage juice. One and a half years later, and the woman has not had a single sinus infection! “I first started consulting with Sidney because I was in a place of un-health that I didn’t know how to start digging myself out of. She was such a caring and knowledgeable, yet honest and firm source of help for me that I cannot begin to describe the changes and the turn my life has made. A complete 180!,” she says.
A Refreshing Holistic Addition to Oakland Park
“Progress, not perfection” is Sidney’s motto. She hopes to one day expand her office services to include a full wellness panel, including chiropractic, acupuncture, and dry sauna.
She shares that she loves Fort Lauderdale’s “come as you are”, casual, beachy vibe. That casualness and non-pretentiousness were deciding factors for her office location.
She is available for free, 15 minute initial consultations by appointment.
Restoring Vitality
1200 NE Seventh Avenue, Unit 7, Ft Lauderdale FL
Phone: 954-409-5020
www.restoringvitality.com
