By Dr. Mary Louder, DO | Integrative & Functional Medicine | Holland, MI
“Before we heal the gut, balance the hormones, or boost the mitochondria—we must ask: how safe does the body feel being in the body?”
This question sits at the heart of a revolution in functional medicine.
For years, the integrative conversation has focused—rightly—on microbiomes, food sensitivities, toxins, and hormone cascades. But for many patients, especially women navigating chronic illness, perimenopause, autoimmune flares, or post-viral burnout, one piece has remained unspoken or misunderstood:
Unresolved trauma.
And I don’t just mean the big, headline-making events. I mean:
- That time your body learned not to trust food, or rest, or intimacy.
- The medical gaslighting that taught you your symptoms were “in your head.”
- The childhood stress that primed your nervous system to be stuck in overdrive—decades before you were diagnosed.
Welcome to trauma-informed functional medicine, where the root cause lives not just in the gut, but in the story your nervous system has been carrying.
In my experience as a physician, patients can improve 50% sometimes even 75%, but until we deal with the underlying root trauma(s), the next steps, fuller remission or longer healing and improvements simply do not hold.
We trust that the body has the inherent capacity to heal and we are doing all the right things externally, so why can’t we get “all better”. The root answer is our trauma.
Now, this is where I welcome you to common humanity. Welcome. As a human we all have traumatic events both little and big that have an influence on our health and healing.
Why This Matters Now
Summer 2025 has seen an incredible rise in patient awareness and practitioner alignment around the role of trauma in physical health.
Why?
Because the body is not a machine—it’s a memory keeper. And when the body has experienced overwhelm without resolution, it adapts by changing how it digests, detoxifies, sleeps, and even how it reads hormones and neurotransmitters.
In short: trauma shapes biology.
And if we only chase inflammation or low progesterone without addressing the stored survival states behind them, we may miss the most profound healing available.
What Is Trauma-Informed Functional Medicine?
In my practice here in Holland, MI (and virtually across the state), trauma-informed care means this:
- We approach the patient’s history—including lived emotional, somatic, and social experiences—as foundational diagnostic data.
- We understand that the nervous system drives everything from gut motility to thyroid conversion to immune regulation.
- We slow down the healing plan to match the pace of nervous system safety, not just symptom urgency.
We don’t just ask, “What’s wrong with you?”
We ask: “What happened to you—and what did your body learn from it?”
The Biology of Trauma: It’s Not “All in Your Head”
Trauma-informed functional medicine is not about therapy replacing medicine. It’s about understanding how:
- Polyvagal theory (the science of safety and social engagement) explains chronic constipation, frozen fatigue, or IBS-D.
- Limbic system retraining—through programs like Self Compassion and ConnectionÔ, and Neural Resilience MethodÔ (both designed by myself Dr. Louder)—can reverse patterns of chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, mold sensitivity, or mast cell activation syndrome.
- FELT SENSE AWARENESS - helps rewire pain loops and calm hypervigilance.
Chronic illness is often not just a dysfunction of organs, but a pattern of threat held in the nervous system.
A Patient Story: When the Labs Looked Fine… But Her Body Didn’t
Let me introduce you to Megan (name changed), a 38-year-old patient who came to me with:
- unexplained GI distress
- severe fatigue
- irregular cycles
- episodes of full-body tremors during sleep
She’d seen 7 doctors. Her blood work was “normal.” Her SIBO treatment helped a little, then rebounded. Every plan worked… until her body said no.
When I asked, “When did this all start?” she whispered: “After the miscarriage. But I’ve moved on.”
Her body hadn’t.
Her vagus nerve, her microbiome, her cortisol levels—they were still bracing for loss. We shifted our approach.
Instead of layering more supplements, we:
- Integrated mycoVim™ Core Support 5 blend formula with additional magnesium threonine, L-theanine and mycoVim Reishi formula.
- Started gentle coherent breathing and Self Compassion and Connection
- Delayed detox until her nervous system felt safe enough to release
Within 3 months, her digestion stabilized. Her sleep improved. For the first time in years, she said, “I don’t feel like I’m fighting my body.”
Functional medicine is no longer just biochemistry—it’s biopsychospiritual.
The Tools We Use at Dr. Louder’s Clinic
(Holland, MI | Virtual Available)
In our practice, trauma-informed care isn’t a separate track—it’s part of every root-cause plan. Depending on your case, we may incorporate:
Nervous System Mapping
- Heart Rate Variability (HRV) tracking
- Symptom pattern journaling (flare vs. rest)
- Safe/Unsafe cues & triggers inventory
mycoVim™ Nervous System Support
- mycoVim Calm Blend – reishi, magnesium, GABA precursors
- mycoVim NeuroGround – lion’s mane, bacopa, ashwagandha for cognitive resilience
Somatic & Energy Regulation
- Coherent breathing (5-6 breaths/minute)
- Self Compassion and Connection
- Neural Resilience Method
Nutrition with Safety in Mind
- We avoid over-restricting unless necessary
- Food introductions are paced and tracked with emotional as well as physical feedback
- Support for histamine intolerance, cortisol surges, and blood sugar balance to stabilize mood and immunity
The Reframe: Your Symptoms Are Not a Failure—They’re a Form of Protection
What if your bloating is not about broccoli, but about your body preparing for battle?
What if your fatigue isn’t laziness, but a survival freeze to protect you from doing too much, too fast?
In trauma-informed care, we don’t shame these responses. We thank them. And then we guide the body toward safety—because safety is what opens the door to healing.
You Are Not Too Much. You Are Not Too Sensitive. You Are Wise.
Healing the nervous system is tender work. It’s slow, cyclical, and sacred. But once we honor it—once we really stop asking the body to rush—we begin to hear what it’s been trying to say:
“I want to heal. But I need you to meet me with gentleness.”
Ready to Explore a Trauma-Informed Path to Healing?
We’d be honored to walk with you.
At Dr. Mary Louder’s Integrative & Functional Medicine Clinic in Holland, we offer nervous-system-aware care:
- Support for women with chronic fatigue, gut issues, hormone imbalance, or complex trauma history
- In-person & virtual visits for residents across Michigan
Book your strategy session today or learn more.
Because sometimes the first step to healing isn’t a supplement—it’s a softening.
With compassion and cellular reverence,
Dr. Mary Louder, DO
Osteopathic Physician | Story Listener | Nervous System Advocate