I help committed, optimistic, family-focused individuals who’ve hit a wall with joint pain, to turn it around naturally so that they can feel better, move better, live better.
As a Holistic Nurse & Board-Certified Health Coach, I’d like to share my story about being a holistic nurse and becoming a health & wellness coach so you can understand why I am so passionate about helping people with chronic inflammation and pain.
My expertise is in helping people find hidden imbalances in their bodies causing inflammation and joint pain. To avoid the toxic effects of prescription medication, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication, over-the-counter medications, or dangerous opioids, I help them naturally rebalance their bodies so that they work the way they are supposed to. I use lab testing so as to “test, not guess” to help people see where their test results correlate with their symptoms. Using natural protocols to approach healing opportunities, I specialize in helping clients address underlying hidden causes of inflammation and pain, whether it is from food sensitivities, toxins, infections/pathogens, hormonal imbalances, energy imbalances, digestion issues, or detoxification problems.
I am Leslie Parran, MS, RN, Health Coach, Founder and Champion Peacemaker, Peace x Piece Wellness Coaching LLC.
As a holistic nurse and health coach, I’m committed to being an expert in my field. I’m a National Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC), Board-certified Functional Wellness Coach (BCFWC), Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner (FDN-P), Licensed Ecclesiastical Holistic Practitioner (LEHP), Holistic Health Practitioner (HHP), Certified Functional Medicine Health Coach (FMCHC), Certified Gluten-Free Practitioner (CGP), Certified Emotional Freedom Technique/Thought Field Therapy (EFT/TFT) Master Practitioner (also called Tapping), and Essential Oils Coach. I have 40 years of experience as a registered nurse with a master’s degree and advanced Nursing certifications.
What’s inflammation?
Inflammation is the body’s response to an injury. When we sustain an injury and inflammation results, it is usually resolved within a limited time. However, chronic inflammation is not always visible in the way we normally think of it, for example, as visible swelling. Chronic inflammation is actually at the root of almost every disease and symptom and may be caused by several things that are not necessarily evident. Let’s face it, symptoms are not normal!
While we know that stress is the number one cause of chronic inflammation, there are often other hidden causes that contribute to inflammation such as hormonal imbalances, immune system issues, gut issues such as dysbiosis (abnormal or imbalance of gut bacteria), leaky gut, food sensitivities, digestive issues, toxin exposure, or detoxification issues.
While your genes (genome) may predispose you to disease about 10% of the time, your total diet, lifestyle, and environment (exposome) contribute about 90% of whether you develop disease and symptoms. Most disease is triggered by one or more factors including environmental factors (exposures to toxins), diet (including food sensitivities), and gut dysbiosis or infections. So, taking control of your health and getting proper lab testing can help uncover opportunities to improve wellness.
What does chronic inflammation do?
Chronic inflammation may lead to a myriad of symptoms. People who may share similar symptoms, however, may have different root causes. The good news is that through FDN® detective lab work, these hidden stressors may be identified and when correlated with symptoms, may be addressed with protocols to potentially resolve inflammation and pain symptoms such as gut pain, joint pain, migraines, or emotional distress.
Why am I a pain expert?
My coaching program is designed to help you! As a leading expert with over 40 years of Nursing experience, using both my extensive knowledge in inflammation and pain as well as my coaching expertise, I have a unique approach to helping people address their pain so that they can feel better, move better, and live better. You can learn how it works here.
Here’s why I’m the expert to help you:
- Nurse expert in both conventional and holistic/integrative forms of acute/chronic pain assessment and management.
- National Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coach, Board-Certified Functional Wellness Coach with expertise in functional medicine, functional diagnostic nutrition, and essential oils.
- Certified gluten-free practitioner.
- Provide clients with access to functional lab testing to correlate symptoms and disease and provide insight into healing opportunities to re-balance hormones, immune system, digestion, detoxification pathways, energy, and neurological system.
- Certified EFT/TFT Master Practitioner (also called Tapping) to help address issues with physical/emotional pain relief.
- Nurse researcher with published pain research in peer-reviewed journals and member of an academic hospital pain policy committee.
- Member of American Holistic Nurse’s Association, Sigma Theta Tau (Nursing honor society), Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner Alumni, Functional Medicine Coaching Academy Alumni, Oncology Nursing Society, and Minnesota Holistic Medical Group.
My passion as a holistic nurse and health coach is to help you manage the key pieces contributing to inflammation and pain so that you can move to peace in wellness. I help you find healing opportunities to address what may be contributing to your inflammation and pain so that you can feel better, move better, live better.
You want to be in the best health possible to participate in the activities you love as you continue to age so that you can live your passion and be active and participate in those family and social activities that bring you joy.
Do you want to feel better? Do you feel limited by symptoms of inflammation and joint pain like I was, which can make it challenging for you to feel up to connecting socially with friends or family and enjoy activities because you no longer can move without pain? Do you feel limited in participating in events because of fatigue, pain, migraines, constipation, or diarrhea?
Do you want to move better? Do you have difficulty moving and getting around, maybe even at risk of falling? Do you have pain flares and never know when or how you may be able to function? Are you experiencing stiffness or feeling inflexible? Do you want to get back out there socializing actively through golf, tennis, walking, dancing, playing with children/grandchildren, or other things that are just too difficult right now?
Do you want to live better? Do you want to live your passion or be more engaged in your life, but you are preoccupied with pain, stress, chronic infections, or have limited energy other than to hang out at home? Are you stuck dwelling in your current symptoms not feeling a way out?
Peace! I’m Leslie Parran, Champion Peacemaker, Peace x Piece Wellness Coaching. I’m a mom, grandma, wife, holistic nurse, and health coach. I’ve come a long way on my journey to health, by learning to take control and heal myself so that I can continue to be active as I age.
As a kid, I was an active figure skater and runner. I rode dirt bikes, snowmobiles, and climbed trees. I studied, played, and did chores outside, going from 5 AM ice skating practice to school, then play/chores/homework, then ice skating again at night until 9 or 10 PM. I often read books late into the night. Well, frankly, while my body took a beating, and I did not sleep as much as I should have as a kid, my saving grace was my mom and dad. My mom, a terrific cook, and my dad, who was a great BBQ griller, provided wholesome homemade meals. I considered myself fortunate in that I avoided many processed foods…until I was a teenager and in college. It was these processed foods and an increased intake in sugar-laden foods that led to significant weight gain, along with a couple of accidents that resulted in 2 knee surgeries and put a sudden stop to my active life.
In college, I was back to exercising, but the irregular sleep/study/party lifestyle and the demands of my academic requirements led me further into the pendulum of weight loss and weight regain. The intake of colas, beer, ice cream, frozen yogurt got a hold of me. It was not until after I got married and prepared for having children, that I finally started taking better care of myself more consistently. Still, I sometimes felt like a failure because I thought I had to do everything right at once to get my health together.
While raising the kids, I tried emulating the whole foods and home cooking that my parents provided. It was hard with both working full time, my husband traveling, and having 4 kids. My full-time Nursing career was demanding and, so, I did sneak in the Stouffer’s Fettucini, the Kraft Mac ‘N Cheese, and, well, things that were just not good for us. The good news was that our family was active in sports and/or working out regularly.
Then Came Thyroid Disease in My late 30’s and identifying the culprit-GLUTEN.
Still, after the kids were all born, I developed Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. For a while, the medication helped, but then, I developed some hair loss, constipation, some uncomfortable sensations in my throat, and hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) episodes. My schedule was packed with the demands of full-time work, kids in travel sports, and I slept 6 or less hours a night. Despite reporting my symptoms, my endocrinologist was, unfortunately, no help in managing these symptoms, so I finally decided to take control via a different path.
Here’s what I did. For one, I started reading and getting more resources on natural, holistic therapies. I stopped taking over-the-counter meds for my aches and pains and learned more about essential oils and other natural ways to address my symptoms. I became an essential oils coach. I committed to a healthier diet and self-tested for gluten sensitivity. Lo and behold, I was gluten sensitive, so I eliminated gluten from my diet because this was the likely trigger for my autoimmune thyroid issues. While I made progress in normalizing my blood sugar and losing my dependence on sweets and carbs by eliminating gluten, stabilizing my weight, I continued to have some gut issues. This prompted me to study and become certified as a gluten-free practitioner.
To My Surprise, I Developed Arthritis
Well, and here I thought that I had everything on the up and up, and was making progress with my dietary changes!. My next step was to get my mercury dental amalgams removed as I had read that they can contribute to autoimmune disease. Knowing that I had family members with more than one autoimmune disease, I wanted to do what I could to prevent yet another. So, I had my regular dentist extract my mercury-laden amalgams. Several weeks later, I suddenly developed debilitating arthritis in my feet. I then decided to go to a natural medicine (functional medicine) practitioner to see if they could help because I knew that they focus on root causes of health issues and figured that they might be able to help. I just wanted to get back to finding my younger self again!
We first uncovered that my thyroid medication contained gluten (so much for thinking I was gluten-free!). So, my functional medicine practitioner changed my medication. Through making some changes, the throat symptoms and hair loss subsided. She also did some testing and we found that I had some gut dysbiosis and some gut bugs that needed some natural herbal therapy treatment. Along with that, she found mercury in my system and some foods I was sensitive to. Using lab testing, supplements, and protocols to improve my diet, and sleep and exercise significantly helped. Given the impacts of my foot arthritis on my ability to walk, she also referred me to a regenerative stem cell therapy practitioner.
Wow, did I make headway! I had injections/infusions of my own stem cells and utilized other natural therapies to control my arthritis. I fixed my gut by identifying the sources of my gut dysbiosis (imbalance of normal gut bacteria) and food sensitivities. I transformed…
From pain to peace…
I was so impressed by my results made through getting more of a complete picture of my health through functional medicine, that I completed a functional health coaching program and obtained several other certifications. Through these efforts, my symptoms resolved and as a result…
I feel better, move better, and live better
…since taking charge of my health. My goal was to be able to exercise, take long walks, play with my grandkids, do my gardening without pain and now I can! I also continue to learn more about functional medicine, lifestyle and diet medicine, the microbiome, the gut-brain connection, epigenetics, natural/integrative/holistic therapies, and a whole host of ways to support wellness. I’ve learned that getting to peace with my health is a continual journey and that I need to approach it in manageable pieces to feel and be successful. Through my health journey, my 40 years as a nurse in an academic medical setting, and my health coaching studies and certifications, I became convinced that the path to health lies in…
Achieving wellness peace by piece
I was so frustrated as a nurse in a large academic hospital seeing the results of chronic inflammation…pain, disease, and multiple symptoms. Patients struggled with chronic diseases, inflammation, and pain. Many relied on opioids, and of course, we all know that people become dependent on these over time, and some, unfortunately, become addicted. While we once were instructed as nurses to provide as much medication as needed to address pain, we have in more recent years, swung the pendulum back to an integrative approach to pain to minimize the need for opioids.
On top of this, the healthcare industry is broken and mainly focused on chronic/acute care management. Providers are restricted in access to specific tests or medications due to cost/reimbursement issues. This is not individualized care! The industry has still not embraced a model of preventative care that supports appropriate testing and intervention BEFORE chronic disease and symptoms set in. This inspired me to help others who are trapped in a cycle of trial and error with their health issues.
So, I embraced the principles of functional medicine, which addresses the root issues of what is behind disease and symptoms. I learned that through functional lab tests, and coaching support I could help guide others in diet and lifestyle choices that were more optimal for their bodies through learning how to correlate their symptoms and disease with the test results and provide individualized protocols to help them re-balance their health in manageable pieces. So, I became a Certified Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner (FDN-P) and Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach (FMCHC). Now, I can provide access to functional lab testing and a program that addresses how with the right…
Diet, Rest, Exercise, Stress-Management, Supplements…
you can achieve a healthier state and be on the journey to peace. Know that symptoms are never normal. As your health coach detective and Chief Peacemaker, my passion is to help you, “test, don’t guess and D.R.E.S.S., don’t stress”. I use the FDN D.R.E.S.S. for Success® Program to implement an individualized approach to help you with diet, rest, exercise, stress reduction, and supplementation to address your specific healing opportunities so that you can move from pain to peace so that you feel better (less pain), move better (less inflammation) and live better (a more active and engaged life).
Visit my “How does this work” page to find out how I can help YOU.
See my recent feature on Subkit.
Peace in Wellness, Leslie
