Less of This, More of That: 10 Patterns I See Over and Over With My Patients
They aren’t helping you get healthy and might be keeping you stuck. I’ve spent years at the bedside — ICU, cardiac, ortho, and public health. Now I see patients every week as a nurse coach. Across all of it, the same patterns keep showing up. None of what follows is about doing more. It’s about doing the right things, with the right support.
Here are 10 patterns I see constantly, and what I’d actually tell you instead.
1. Supplement Overload
Less of this: Taking handfuls of supplements — or needing a schedule just to get them all in — tells me you’re relying on them too heavily, or taking too many.
More of this: One well-chosen change at a time. Taking that many supplements can actually be unhealthy — they can cause real side effects, and yes, that includes herbal and homeopathic remedies too. Personalized care isn’t grabbing a supplement and just hoping it works — it’s finding the right one for your body and what it actually needs. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen supplements causing the very symptoms someone came to me for.
2. Pooping Every Few Days
Less of this: Treating infrequent elimination as ‘just how your body is.”
More of this: Daily, easy elimination is the goal. A few common culprits: not enough water or fiber, too little movement, stress affecting your gut-brain connection, or a motility or mineral imbalance. Healthy digestion is key to balance in the whole body.
3. Steroids Before Answers
Less of this: Reaching for a fast fix before understanding the root cause.
More of this: A deep dive and an honest conversation first. Steroids can suppress the immune system and carry real long-term effects — they have a place, but shouldn’t be the first option before other factors are considered.
4. Wellness Becoming Unhealthy
Less of this: Letting the pursuit of health create stress, fear, or obsession — tracking every bite or metric long-term until it becomes its own burden.
More of this: Health that calms your nervous system instead of running it. An obsession with being healthy is, in itself, a kind of unhealthy.
5. When Sales Become Health Advice
Less of this: Making health decisions based on recommendations from people whose primary role is selling a product rather than understanding your health. Whether it’s an influencer, social media personality, MLM representative, online certification, or someone with a compelling success story, be cautious of recommendations made without knowing your medical history, medications, lab work, diagnoses, or individual risks.
More of this: Seeking guidance from professionals who are trained to assess the whole picture, weigh risks alongside benefits, practice within ethical standards, and tailor recommendations to you. New therapies, supplements, and peptides can all have a place, but they should be recommended because they’re appropriate for your body, not because someone has something to sell
6. Relying on Healthcare to Keep You Healthy
Less of this: Expecting the healthcare system to manage every part of your health for you.
More of this: Ownership of your daily choices is your job. But you’re not trained in health, so you can’t do it alone — find someone trained who can guide and support you along the way. That’s what I do!
7. Navigating Your Health Alone
Less of this: Piecing together labs, symptoms, and specialists by yourself — being the only one connecting what your cardiologist, your endocrinologist, and your primary care doctor each said separately.
More of this: Someone in your corner helping you make sense of the whole picture — connecting the dots your specialists likely will never communicate or compare notes on themselves.
8. Basic Labs, Quick Conclusions
Less of this: A few standard labs and a fast “you’re fine.”
More of this: Thoughtful investigation, context, and time spent actually understanding you. You’re more than your lab results — sometimes labs and symptoms don’t line up, and that doesn’t mean your symptoms aren’t real.
9. Assuming It’s Just Aging
Less of this: Accepting fatigue, poor sleep, pain, or brain fog as inevitable — including symptoms tied to perimenopause, menopause, or the gradual drop in testosterone that comes with age in men.
More of this: Refusing to write off real symptoms just because you’re getting older. Hormone shifts are common at every stage of life — common doesn’t mean nothing can be done about it.
10. Feeling Like You’re Going Crazy
Less of this: Invisible symptoms that no one else can see, so they don’t validate them — leaving you feeling dismissed. Break a leg, and people show up with casseroles and sympathy. Struggle with something no one can see, and you’re often met with silence instead.
More of this: The truth that hormone, autoimmune, reproductive, and mental health struggles are real — seen or not. You deserve the same empathy as anyone with a visible injury.
Health is more than diagnosis and treatment. Lifestyle choices, foundations of health, values, beliefs, mindset, roadblocks, and more are all factors that deserve to be considered. I specialize in you — not the disease.
No one person has every answer. Collaboration with specialists — physical therapy, integrative medicine, functional medicine, nutrition, and more — is part of how I work, so you get a team in your corner, not just one set of hands.
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