Region’s wellness movement changing how we approach healing
Some of Stephanie Gordon’s favorite patients are the ones who walk through her door convinced she’s a fraud.
“Some of my absolute favorite patients are the most skeptical, rude, grumpy, in-pain elderly male patients,” said Gordon, founder, owner and clinic director of Sacred Dunes Integrative Health in Michigan City. “I love it because it takes out all the placebo.”
Their wives usually make their appointments. The husbands are wary of the whole proposition. Then the acupuncture, cupping and moxibustion do their work, and the skeptics become regulars.
That transformation — from doubt to belief — is playing out across Northwest Indiana.
Patients, many who are tired of managing pain and stress with another prescription, are seeking practitioners who promise to look at the whole person. And a growing number of nurse practitioners, acupuncturists and wellness experts are answering the call with integrative, functional and holistic care that starts well before the prescription pad comes out.
Different kind of practice
For many business owners working in this space, the decision to open an integrative office was born out of a personal turning point.
Kate O’Connor, a nurse practitioner trained in family medicine, didn’t even know the term “functional medicine” until 2020. After the birth of her third child, she started researching it.
“It was just like that ‘aha’ moment,” said O’Connor, founder of Optimal Health & Wellness in Chesterton. “I was like, this is it.”
She pursued training that year, worked at an integrated office, then struck out on her own in 2023. Her growth has been steep. She started in a 150-square-foot office and moved to a 900-square-foot space four months later. A year after, she landed in a 2,400-square-foot location.
“I would say that Optimal Health and Wellness is the most comprehensive integrated functional practice in Northwest Indiana,” O’Connor said.
The clinic treats people seeking preventive maintenance to the chronically ill who “just cannot get answers going through the traditional healthcare system.”
The core of the work, she said, is digging for the source of a problem.
“Most places out there just want to put a Band-Aid on it and prescribe a medication, whereas we really try to find the actual cause.”
For Jackie Primos, the path started in a less likely place.
“Initially, I was a fully licensed financial adviser, and I was learning that I liked taking care of people,” said Primos, a licensed massage therapist, certified health coach, wellness practitioner and owner of Wellness & Retreats Inc. in Merrillville. “I just didn’t like the way that I was doing it in the realm of finance.”
An avid spa-goer, she studied massage and began practicing on her grandmother. The results stunned her. Through changes to diet and activity, she said, her grandmother went from a Type 2 diabetic on two insulin shots to reversing the condition.
“In her 80s, she was back out fishing and gardening and doing the things that she did when I was growing up,” Primos said. “I just knew I needed to open up a brick and mortar after that, and I haven’t stopped looking back.”
Nearly 20 years later, her goal hasn’t changed.
“My goal … is to help people take responsibility for their health,” she said.
Whole-person care
A recurring theme across all four practitioners is time. This is a resource that many report is in short supply during a traditional visit.
Gordon, a licensed, board-certified acupuncturist with a master’s in traditional Oriental medicine from the Midwest College of Oriental Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, said she often resists the urge to treat pain at its source first. Instead, she calms the nervous system.
“We’ve found that acupuncture can deactivate the limbic system, which essentially, when I translate that to patients, it’s like turning the volume down on the epicenter of the brain, where both pain and fear begin,” Gordon said. The goal is to move people out of fight-or-flight and into ‘rest and digest.’”
Jodi Allen, who trains the next generation of providers, said that whole-person focus is exactly what she pushes her students to understand.
“We try to really talk about wellness as not being the absence of disease,” said Allen, family nurse practitioner program coordinator and assistant professor at Purdue University Northwest. “You can still be well without being completely healthy.”
Allen has coordinated the program since 2017 and is still practicing as a family nurse practitioner at Sojourner Truth House in Gary. The nonprofit serves unhoused women and children. She said family nurse practitioners are built for this work.
“We always say we can see patients from womb to tomb,” Allen said. “It’s very much first line of defense.”
Defense may sound intense, but practitioners like Gordon assure the public that the modalities, like acupuncture, are both effective and safe.
Gordon drew a sharp line, though, between her training and the dry needling now offered by some other professionals. Gordon completed 1,800 hours of needling in her master’s program before she could sit for national board exams. By contrast, she said, the minimum requirement for some practitioners to learn dry needling can be as little as six hours.
“Acupuncture is so safe and effective when you’re getting it done by a licensed, board-certified acupuncturist,” she said.
Similarly, O’Connor pointed to the long history behind many of her treatments.
“A lot of what we do actually has been around for hundreds of years,” she said.
She cited ozone therapy, in which blood is drawn, ozonated and reinfused, as an example. That treatment has been around for hundreds of years, and it actually has fewer side effects or less adverse reactions than taking aspirin.
Patients are also chasing results that do more than mask symptoms.
“People always love a good massage, but yes, they are definitely looking for things that are more restorative,” Primos said.
For example, Primos has added red light therapy, oxygen therapy and a hyperbaric chamber as interest has grown.
Why patients show up
The practitioners agree across the board that demand has surged, and they trace much of it to the pandemic.
“Since COVID, honestly, that was like a huge turning point for alternative healthcare,” O’Connor said. “I feel like that has really created a lot of momentum, and there’s so many more practitioners just in this area alone.”
Gordon framed her own practice as a meeting point, not a replacement.
“This doesn’t have to be east or west, it’s integrative,” Gordon said. “I will meet you as a patient wherever you are on your timeline. If you have a laundry list of pharmaceuticals, if you’ve had every surgery under the book, there’s no judgment here.”
Marcie is among Gordon’s many success stories. The 54-year-old has been a patient for three years and spoke highly of her and her expertise. Before finding Sacred Dunes, she suffered from hemiplegic migraines that greatly diminished her quality of life.
“After about four one-hour acupuncture treatments a week, I started to be able to come out of my very dark bedroom that I had been trapped in for 10 years,” said Marcie, who asked that we not use her last name. “After two months of the same acupuncture treatment from Stephanie, I no longer had to stay in my dark room.”
Marcie said she reclaimed her health and was able to avoid a scary misdiagnosis.
“Over 10 years, I saw (providers ranging) from ER doctors to neurologists,” she said. “The countless types of medications they had put me on (had) terrible side effects and no relief. They told me I was having strokes because that’s what these types of migraines mimic.”
A noticeable shift
While the results may be impressive, earning respect from clients and the medical establishment alike has taken work to varying degrees. And, in Gordon’s case, it has required thick skin.
“When I first graduated acupuncture medical school … I had to really prove to people who I am, how much education I have and that it’s a four-year medical master’s degree,” she said. “This isn’t like a weekend retreat under the moonlight.”
She built her practice on education, taking speaking engagements and offering free ear acupuncture so people could feel the difference. Twelve years later, the perception has changed.
“I get more referrals from doctors and surgeons on a daily basis,” Gordon said.
She credits new neuroimaging research and the pressure of the opioid crisis, which has pushed physicians to find nondrug options for pain.
Primos earned that trust early, even two decades ago.
“What kept me going was the fact that I had doctors and hospital administrators coming to hear me talk about wellness,” she said.
Today she works alongside a doctor of physical therapy out of her Merrillville location and receives steady referrals.
“What we do kind of goes hand in hand with a lot of your well-being,” Primos said.
O’Connor is candid that the relationship isn’t always smooth.
“I definitely think our worst critics are other traditional medicine facilities,” she said. “However, it is shifting year by year. You’re getting less of a pushback as the years go on.”
From inside the education system, Allen sees a mixed but improving picture. Specialists tend to stay in their lanes, she said, while primary care is hit or miss.
“I’ve worked with physicians that are extraordinarily wellness-focused,” Allen said, including some who insist every patient get an annual wellness visit.
But she acknowledged the system’s limits.
“Our system is not as built for wellness,” she said. “I think we’re trending in the right direction.”
Business of feeling better
Running an integrative practice is its own kind of challenge, and the owners are frank about it.
O’Connor’s clinic is largely out-of-pocket, though patients can use health savings accounts or submit superbills (highly detailed receipt) for possible reimbursement. Labs are billed through insurance. She has built membership programs to make ongoing care more affordable. She’s expanding into aesthetics, lasers, red light therapy and an infrared sauna.
“I really wanted to create a one-stop shop,” O’Connor said.
Still, she’s honest about the strain.
“I love what I do, and I love helping people and treating people, but the business aspect of it is just not really something that I love doing.”
Gordon, now pursuing a doctorate, has turned her clinic into a Michigan City institution, active in the Duneland Chamber of Commerce, Michigan City Mainstreet Association and a nonprofit that provides acupuncture to first responders and veterans across Indiana.
She’s also deliberate about language. Sacred Dunes was originally named “Sacred Dunes Alternative Health,” but she quickly changed “alternative” to “integrative.”
“When people hear ‘alternative,’ they think one (thing) or the other,” Gordon said. “There are acupuncturists that work at Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and Northwestern University. This is integrative to the Western medicine and complementary to enhance one’s livelihood.”
For Primos, caring for people is its own reward. Her Merrillville center hosts spa parties, senior spa days and wellness retreats, blending services with community.
“It’s a very rewarding business to help people help themselves,” she said. “Everybody needs some form of self-care on a regular, continuous, really daily basis.”
She returns, again and again, to a simple metaphor.
“Just like when you wash your car, you feel like it runs better,” Primos said. “When you keep your body clean, it just runs better.” •
Read more stories from the current issue of Northwest Indiana Business Magazine.
Flexibility for working mother
Heroic values on display
One-stop print shop
Power of collaboration
Avoid the unexpected
Childcare challenge
New life for dormant buildings
Banks keep branching out
Professional advancement
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