Dr. Lesley Allen Grows Her Virtual Functional Medicine Practice With Well World
Dr. Lesley Allen has two practices. Her brick-and-mortar integrative physical therapy practice — The Center for Holistic Healing in Pewee Valley, KY — combines physical therapy, Ayurveda, yoga, and meditation for a complete mind-body approach to healing.
Her second practice is DNADoc, a virtual Functional Medicine practice that provides results-driven, personalized programs to patients based on their unique biology. Dr. Allen does extensive testing on each patient to find the right solution that will help get to the root cause of their condition.
As a health practitioner, Dr. Allen practices what she preaches — eating healthfully, exercising, and living a healthy lifestyle. Yet she never imagined she would transition from physical therapy into Functional Medicine.
But when she was diagnosed with two different autoimmune conditions, and she wasn’t getting better results from her doctor’s treatment plans, she looked for other ways to treat her conditions.
Now years later she leads her own team of physical therapists, yoga teachers, and mindfulness practitioners who work together in her in-person practice, and she focuses primarily on her virtual Functional Medicine practice.
A Highly Personalized Protocol for Each Individual
Before she got into Functional Medicine, Dr. Allen saw how other providers approached nutrition with their patients. Many would only prescribe a Paleo diet or only a Modified Mediterranean diet, using a one-size-fits-all approach to nutrition and wellness.
“It just didn’t work,” she said. “You really have to personalize the nutrition plan with where they are in their healing journey.”
Dr. Allen’s programs are personalized to each individual based on their test results. All patients in her Functional Medicine program get a range of high-level tests, including genetic testing, stool analysis, gut analysis, and other diagnostics.
From there, each patient will get a number of stepping stones in their treatment plan — including different nutrition plans for each phase of their healing.
Dr. Allen knows that it’s critical to meet patients where they are in their health journey. “If someone is eating fast food for several meals a week, it’s going to be a lot easier to start them on a Clean Eating Guide,” she said. “When they’ve transitioned into eating more unprocessed foods, then I can give them a stricter nutrition plan for their treatment.”
Well World’s Plans Library Simplifies Custom Programs
While she uses the Autoimmune Reset protocol often, Dr. Allen has used just about every done-for-you plan available in Well World. She loves working with Well World’s entire nutrition plan library because of the way that she works with her patients.
“I change my patient’s plans two or three times during their program,” she said. “Because the meal plan they start with can look very different from their treatment meal plan.”
Prior to Well World, Dr. Allen was using handouts for meal plans, recipes, and shopping lists, which were not as customizable or easily switched.
“As soon as I started working with Well World, I realized that using it was very streamlined,” she said. “Everything is very plug-and-play.”
Hours of Time Saved in Setting Up Patients with Protocols
“I didn’t have as many meal plans that had complete recipes, menus, shopping lists, foods to eat, and foods to avoid. Before, I had to mix and match what I had in printouts,” she said. “Well World’s plans have saved me hours of time with managing my patient’s meal plans.”
Dr. Allen also likes that her patients have easy access to their meal plans and shopping lists in their app, so they are more likely to follow it.
More Patients Order Supplements Through Well World
When Dr. Allen sets a patient up with a nutrition plan, she also includes recommended Designs for Health supplements from Well World’s built-in virtual dispensary. Adding them into the cart makes it easy for patients to purchase and start using them right away.
When patients order directly from Well World, the supplements are dropshipped directly to them.
Notifications Help Patients Stay on Track
Dr. Allen customized her plan’s notifications to align with her brand and found that it was easy to add patients into the app.
“I think it’s been definitely helpful for my patients to get the notifications throughout their day to keep them on target.” She said, “When they’re reminded with questions like ‘Did you drink your water today?’ or ‘Have you taken your supplements?’ it’s a gentle reminder to stay on track.”
Designs for Health Supplements Work Well For Her Clients
At first, Dr. Allen was hesitant to recommend Designs for Health supplements because she wasn’t sure if they would be as effective as other brands. But she has been impressed with the clinical-grade products.
Dr. Allen also appreciates the support she received from her Health Educator about specific protocols and case questions.
Thanks to Designs for Health’s support, Dr. Allen is about to launch her own line of private-label supplements.
Supporting Patients With Health and Happiness
As Dr. Allen explains, health and happiness go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other.
“Once we have a 60-75% reduction in symptoms, we can put a patient on a more flexible maintenance plan,” she said.
As part of the maintenance phase, Dr. Allen recommends a gut restoration program every 3-4 months to rebalance from anything her patients may have inadvertently done during maintenance.
After going through her own health journey, she found that having flexibility in what she could eat once her symptoms were in remission was part of her key to happiness. She didn’t want to feel defined by her condition, and she wants the same for her patients.
