Michelle Wargo's Personal Journey

Our next story is a unique one in that it brings you, the viewer, along for Hometown health producer Michelle Wargo's personal journey to wellness. While suffering from several chronic conditions and watching the success of others through treatment, Michelle decided to seek the expertise of Lori Essery at Total Nutrition and Therapeutics in the Villages.

So with Lori's help, we've discovered that I have leaky gut. I also have adrenal fatigue and a couple other things going on. And she's helping me right now through these things and heal my gut in order to heal my immune system and make myself feel better. The first meeting with Lori is actually a very intense background. And I don't mean intense as in uncomfortable. I mean intense as she wants to know about you and your history, not just your medical history, but your personal history. And then she can backtrack with the tests and with the symptoms that you've had throughout your life to where all the problems started. And that's how she really helps you work through it. What's interesting is that one of the tests that she runs is your thyroid test. And every time that my doctor has run my thyroid, it comes back within normal range. Well, Lori's tests take it a step further, and you see the different hormones within the thyroid that the thyroid produces, and I was producing enough, but my body wasn't converting it and using it. So since we started this process a couple months ago, she's put me on a supplement that actually gives me that available hormone, and I feel amazing. I am feeling way better than I expected to feel because I'm a skeptic. You know, I do my reading and I do my research, and it's not until you go through the process yourself that you can really understand it. She hooked me up with Jamie, who is her nutrition counselor. We actually went on a shopping trip. She came with me to the grocery store, showed me a lot of different foods that I'd never been introduced to, and explained to me why they're important to have in my diet. If you just look in here, radishes are a great snack. So you can actually just take them and slice them. And, you know, I love radishes. They're delicious. They were good for you. They are very good for you. Meeting with Lori in the beginning, she had said, there are going to be moments where you hate me. She said, you're going to get angry. And I thought, why? You know, it's just food. Let me tell you. I went in there one day and I wanted to yell at her. I was so frustrated because I was coming from a vegetarian diet and now they're telling me I have to eat animal proteins and I have to eat all of this food more often than I've ever eaten before. And I'm actually losing weight, feeling better, gaining muscle. So what they do really works. We're only three months into this process and already I'm feeling so much better. But, you know, this is still just the beginning phases. I still have some chronic conditions that are going to take a while to heal, and I'm anxious to see what comes next. I mean, I know I'm losing weight and I'm feeling better, but if I already feel this good, how amazing am I going to feel in another three months and then another three months after that? I'm very glad that you're coming with me on this journey.

We'll continue to follow Michelle's progress on future episodes of Hometown Health. You'll find contact information for TNT in the villages under the Personal Journey storylink icon on our homepage YourHometownHealth.com.