Welcome, I am Sally-Anne Kearns

a certified Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner

I share this, only for you to appreciate how hard I looked to understand my own health, and how equipped I now am to help you with yours.

Looking over my health history and the last nearly 40 years, it started pretty young, at the age of 6 I presented with a rare autoimmune condition which the doctors thought was leukemia, I was in the hospital on and off with bone marrow tests, frequent blood analysis and heavily medicated for over 6 months, I put on a lot of weight/inflammation at the time, particularly around my face.

This then morphed into unexplained food sensitivies, mood disorders, later an eating disorder, mental health conditions, addictions, an unhealthy body image and so much more, all my daily version of normal.

Heading into my 20's I started having debilitating migraines which were so severe they lead to chronic anxiety attacks, often being hospitalised, all around my menstrual cycle. 

Thousands of dollars spent on MRI's, blood tests, specialists, to no avail, I recall one GP telling me that my anxiety attacks were 'because I was approaching 30 and that I wanted to have children'.

With no luck in the conventional medicine space, I then took the natural health route, bowen, reiki, massage, Chinese medicine/acupuncture, naturopathy and more, the whole time my skin had hormonal acne that I found embarrassing, particularly leading into my 30's!

Mid 30's I fell pregnant with my first son, upon routine tests I was informed that my platelets had dropped very low and that my autoimmune condition had re-presented, there was a significant birth risk should there be any complications that my blood would be unable to clot, therefore I could bleed out and die. Not exactly the calming news you wanted to hear before birthing your first child. Every person I asked about my diet indicated what I ate had no baring on my health and that the consumption of gluten would not change anything. 

After selling my real estate business and leaving a career of 22 years, heavily pregnant, my two cats in the back of the car driving from Sydney to Melbourne to start the next chapter with my now-husband, I stumbled upon a podcast, The Quirky Journey, I could not stop listening as I nodded along in tears to a naturopath sharing her hormonal journey and the consequences they also experienced, very similar to my unexplained normal. It felt at the time like a game of Tetris, all of my life symptoms dropping into a well-formed explanation, I continued listening for years on end to anything I could find on natural health, I just never stopped being curious.

I had never really been taught how to cook, nor about nutrition, now being a mother and wife and really with a driving need to take responsibility for my own health, my priority had shifted, to assist my health we embarked onto the GAPS protocol, I engaged a GAPS coach, I only cooked and consumed whole foods from scratch, no gluten no dairy, months and months on end, some symptoms resolved or alleviated but never ceased altogether which confused me as we were eating so well!

Then I fell pregnant with my second son, post-birth I also suffered severe postnatal depression and anxiety again, I also again had challenges breastfeeding past the 3-month mark and was prescribed pharmaceuticals which never felt like an option I wished to take. I was looking for a way to create income via the health and wellness route, I came across a whole food nutrition supplement which I started taking, looking back, I was so depleted that I had almost immediate benefits in my energy, skin and mental health. These wins further encouraged my need to understand nutrition and its functional benefit to our bodies and mental health, particularly post-birth where our depletion levels are often the highest. 

After much deliberation I joined the Nutritional Therapy Association Australia and pursued with vigor the course and what I have since discovered:-

• Every symptom is a clue

• We each have the power to heal ourselves

• It is not complicated, however, it is change (and work) and at times it can be overwhelming

• Everyone is bio-individual, no one dietary approach is right for all people

• The magic happens when we tune into how particular foods make us feel

• When we remove our dietary and environmental burdens, we begin to heal, rapidly!

I knew to help others I needed a hands-on approach, a bio-individual strategy, meeting people with where they are at with an opportunity to show a keen mind for detail and detective work, and a true need to simply, truly and passionately help people live a better life. 

As a Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, my biggest passion is implementing simple solutions for women and family health to ensure we are able to show up and wear the many hats we do in this day and age. My belief is that when we support the body through the health choices we make, the body begins to heal, I have experienced this with my own health and for so many others. I feel we want to complicate it, however, when we nurture our connection and values around health, we make better decisions for ourselves, our families, and crowd out the noise of confusion when it comes to our food choices. 

Let me hold your hand in wellness, if your discomfort is as strong as mine was, then you are definitely in the right place.