Years ago, I was a semi-professional athlete who’d just finished my MCATS and was applying to med school because the challenge of science and medicine had always intrigued me. But in the middle of choosing a med school path, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. My body just shut down. I had worn myself out, stressed my body beyond its limits, and ended up deeply ill. I was twenty-two years old and had to reevaluate everything.

From the start, the treatment the doctors could offer was not helping me get any better. After months of sickness, my mother pointed me toward a specific carbohydrate diet she had researched (mind you, these were very early internet days!). After one week on the diet, I began to feel better, but this first shift was just the start of a very humbling path on my health journey.

In 2002, I completed my undergraduate at UW-La Crosse in Biology, concentrating in biomedical sciences and chemistry; I then earned my Doctorate of Chiropractic at Northwestern Health Sciences University, and later became an Institute of Functional Medicine Certified Practitioner. After schooling, my family and I moved to the high-altitude desert of Taos, NM where I practiced for 13 years at Taos Chiropractic Health Center, eventually including the micro clinic, Taos Chiropractic Center for Functional Medicine, into my practice.

This is not a story with a simple resolution, a straightforward fix, or even an anecdotal ending: where the strongest medicines failed, dietary shifts were successful. When dietary changes were eventually not enough, medical interventions would help, but other times hurt. I tried approaches through conventional, Chinese, Homeopathic, Anthroposophic, and Functional Medicine. I had to get curious about the origins of my disease and how to treat root causes rather than just the symptoms. I began to look at my health like a riddle. How would I work daily with this disease physically, emotionally and spiritually? How could I help my patients to do the same?

During the last 20-plus years, what I have found to be most helpful is to stay curious and learn to observe—even when quite ill – in order to note patterns in both illness and in health. Being humble and open is where the greatest healing seems to come from.

“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” -Rumi

It was my experience as a patient that compelled me to render meaning in this illness and to forge a different path—one that could contain both my respect for allopathic medicine and my respect for personal, individualized care.

In 2019, my wife, Beth, and our three children — Oliver, Mae and Anna Rose — were ready to return to our family roots and homeland and settled in Viroqua, WI where I began to practice at the Holistic Health Center. In 2021, we had the blessing of opening Watershed Chiropractic and Wellness in the clinic of Dr. Odell Solverson — the beloved chiropractor who had taken care of this community for forty-three years prior.

My intention, as a chiropractor and functional medicine doctor, is to give time and deep attention to each of my patients, developing real relationships that allow me to treat holistically and with great care for their personhood. My hope is to create a place for true partnership, where each person is empowered to take control of their own health alongside the guidance and support of their team of health professionals. A place where every person feels seen as the magnificent and complex human being that they are. A place to rebalance and come into harmony with oneself again.

I am honored to serve in this community.