Living in alignment through functional medicine

Heather Graves

Staff

August 12, 2024

NORTHEAST WISCONSIN – Green Bay native Alexa Ingold said she always knew she wanted to be involved in some type of health care.

However, it wasn’t until she began her clinicals and navigated her way through her own health struggles that she said she recognized a future in functional medicine was the path she was meant to follow.

“Functional medicine has brought clarity, resiliency and transformation to my own life, and I cannot wait for it to do the same in the lives of my patients,” she said.

Finding her path

Ingold received her bachelor’s degree in rehabilitation psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Shortly after, she moved across the country to obtain her master’s in physician assistant studies from the University of Touro Nevada.

“My husband, Alec – who was my boyfriend at the time since high school, plays in the NFL, so I applied to schools that were near the teams he was possibly going to be playing,” she said. “It worked out well. We both ended up in Las Vegas where he was with the (Las Vegas) Raiders, and I went to PA school there at the University of Touro Nevada.”

Two years later, Ingold said her husband was picked up by the Miami Dolphins.

“I completed my clinical year of PA school in Florida,” she said. “I graduated about two years ago.”

After graduation, Ingold said she started working in psychiatry – finding out quickly “it wasn’t my thing.”

“I was still drawn toward functional medicine,” she said. “As I was going through my clinical routines, none of them were sticking out to me. I think that’s because I wanted to be working in functional medicine.”

Ingold said she worked in clinical medicine for a few months with another doctor, but ultimately decided starting her own practice was the best fit for her.

The inspiration

About a year into PA school, Ingold said she started to struggle with her own health problems – severe anxiety, cystic acne, gut issues, bloating, constant fatigue and brain fog, PMS symptoms and irregular periods.

“At the time, I chalked most of it up to stress from school and thought to myself, ‘it will go away eventually,’” she said.

When it didn’t, Ingold said she made an appointment with a doctor to “see what was going on.”

“I had hoped they would give me an answer to what was causing all of this,” she said. “Unfortunately, my appointment lasted less than five minutes, and I left the office with no answers and two prescriptions.”

Ingold said she left the office thinking, “these medications might help me, but what caused all of this in the first place?”

Deep down, she said she knew these prescriptions weren’t the answer.

“That’s when I found functional medicine,” she said.

When she began seeing a functional medicine provider, Ingold said she instantly resonated with the root-cause approach.

“Functional medicine gave me the answers and explanations I was looking for, and I was able to identify the root causes of my symptoms,” she said.

However, Ingold said that wasn’t the end of it.

“I thought I had cracked the code – until my symptoms slowly started coming back,” she said.

Ingold said through a functional medicine approach, it was clear she was addressing the root-cause systems, however, “until I addressed what was going on in my mind, there was no way my body was going to feel safe enough to start to heal itself.”

“By digging even deeper, we identified where these root causes originated from and then took steps to make sure the root causes don’t recreate an environment for imbalance to resurface,” she said.

Ingold said she has seen first-hand how beneficial and necessary conventional medicine is in handling emergencies, trauma, addiction and acute illnesses.

“But I’ve also seen first-hand how conventional medicine masks and suppresses symptoms, only taking action when a disease has already developed,” she said. “Our bodies are smart, and it’s time to give them some credit.”

Functional medicine, Ingold said, is looking at symptoms not like they are “things to fix” but as clues to a bigger puzzle.

Align with Alexa

Ingold said her work with psychiatry and functional medicine as a certified physician assistant, as well as her own personal health journey, pushed her to start Align with Alexa.

She said her lifestyle also bodes well for having her own clinic.

“(With my husband in the NFL), we tend to move around a lot,” she said. “So having the possibility of creating my own hours, creating my own business and taking hold of my own functional medicine practice was appealing to me.”

Ingold said Align focuses on in-depth functional labs and testing, nutrition and lifestyle changes to address the root causes of health issues.

“Align with Alexa focuses on all of what makes an individual unique,” she said.

Ingold said her work with patients often starts with a free clarity call.

“I offer half-hour clarity calls for (potential patients) to ask questions and receive clarity on the services I offer,” she said.

Align’s main offering, Ingold said, is a year-long membership where she works one-on-one with patients.

“We do a lot of in-depth, root-cause testing that moves the needle in a lot of directions of patients’ health,” she said.

Align with Alexa, Ingold said, also offers annual blood work – which she said is a bit more in-depth than the annual blood work patients typically get at a conventional doctor.

“I have different markers that can show me things coming up below the surface,” she said. “So it’s a little more comprehensive. For example, the thyroid panel – we’re not only looking at one or two markers, I’m looking at the entire thyroid functioning.”

Ingold said she also offers functional lab testing.

“For example, patients might want a micronutrient test, a food sensitivity test, they want to know if they’re gluten intolerant or they want to know if meat is a problem for them,” she said. “You’re able to order those labs through me.”

Ingold said she provides patients with the lab results and a follow-up analysis.

“I’m not only giving you the test results and the comprehensive analysis that comes with the test, but you’re also getting an appointment with me to sit down with you and make sure you understand everything in the test,” she said.

Ingold said she will also, if warranted, provide patients with supplement and nutritional recommendations.

Align, she said, also offers three different packages – all of which include the annual blood work, as well as one, two or three functional lab tests.

“Those are more condensed packages,” she said.

Ingold said patients can also order supplements through Align with Alexa.

Right now, everything Align with Alexa offers, Ingold said, is offered through telemedicine.

“I offer everything online, which is flexible with where I’m working and at what time,” she said. “It works well with meeting a patient where they’re at and helps eliminate scheduling issues.”

Ingold is licensed in Florida and Wisconsin.

“Since our long-term goal is to move back to Wisconsin, and being from Wisconsin, I know a lot of people there, and I wanted to extend my business, not only throughout the State of Florida but also to Wisconsin,” she said.

Getting Align with Alexa up and running, Ingold said, “took a lot of work on the back end.”

“I had to do a lot of HIPAA logistics,” she said. “Opening up a medical clinic was more work than I thought it was going to be, but it paid off. I was happy I could extend my services into Wisconsin – to hit that clientele and bring functional medicine to a state I think would appreciate it.”

Functional medicine

Ingold said in today’s world, it is “generally hard to stay healthy.”

“I think more people are becoming more aware of what chemicals and what things are being placed in our foods and our drinks – and I think functional medicine is emerging because of this,” she said.

Bringing the knowledge she’s gained on functional medicine to the state where she grew up, Ingold said, is impactful.

“To bring this knowledge of functional medicine to the smaller communities I grew up in is special to me,” she said.

Ingold said the most challenging and equally the most rewarding aspect of her work is the patients.

“Hearing patient stories and how they’ve been struggling with the model that’s in place right now and not having any other options – that has been challenging,” she said.

At the same time, however, Ingold said hearing those stories and working with patients is one of her favorite parts.

“Hearing those stories of how they got to where they are, then having functional medicine as a resource I can bring to them and implement into their healing process is rewarding,” she said. “Though it’s challenging to hear the tough parts of patients’ health stories, I think by bringing in functional medicine and seeing how much of the difference it’s making in their health and their lives – it has been rewarding to go through that process with them.”

Long-term goals

So far, Ingold said the response she’s received about Align with Alexa has been supportive.

“I think people are appreciative of the work I’m doing and in functional medicine in general,” she said. “I think they’re excited to see this kind of medicine integrated more and be more available. I think, generally, everyone is excited to see the field of functional medicine grow, especially in smaller communities within Wisconsin.”

Though Align with Alexa has only been in business for a handful of weeks, Ingold said she has goals in mind for the future.

“Right now, I’m all on telemedicine, and that’s due to our lifestyle,” she said. “Eventually, I would love to open a brick-and-mortar location somewhere in Wisconsin and have a place where patients can come and have that physical location as a resource.”

Plans, Ingold said, also include bringing on board nutritionists, health coaches and different therapists for nerve system regulation – “have everyone in the same area so patients come in and feel like they have a team behind them.”

“Patients can feel like they are walking into a one-stop shop for their health,” she said. “That would be my long-term goal.”

Ingold said she is proud of what she’s accomplished so far and the steps she’s taken to get here.

“It was a long process of navigating and figuring out exactly what I wanted to do,” she said. “Obviously, God used my personal story to bring me into the realm of functional medicine – I’m thankful for that.”

For more on Align with Alexa, visit alignwithalexa.com.