Flourish Clinic Cochrane, Alberta
At Flourish Clinic our focus is to help you regain your health so that you have the energy to share your gifts and passions with the world.
When we’re healthy, we have the energy to pursue our passions.
When we’re sick, we’re tired. All we can think about is getting better.
The practitioners of Flourish Clinic: Ali Frederick, Chelsey Beda, Mark Volmer, Dr. Natalie Fox, Sheena Huculak and Steph Perryman use a wide variety of modalities. These include:
Ali Frederick, D.O.M.P., RMT
- Osteopathy
- Massage
- Nutritional Therapy
Chelsey Beda, RMT
- Massage
Mark Volmer, R.Ac, FMP
- Functional Medicine
- Laser Therapy & Shock Wave Therapy
- Acupuncture
Dr. Natalie Fox, DC
- Chiropractor
Sheena Huculak, RN, RHN
- Holistic Nutrition
- Nutritionist and Health Coach
- Coaching
Steph Perryman, RMT
- Massage
Our Practitioners at Flourish Clinic
Mark Volmer, R.Ac., FMP
Hi, I’m Mark.
As the Functional Medicine practitioner, acupuncturist, and researcher at Flourish Clinic, I empower people just like you to beat fatigue (for good!) and focus their energy towards their passions. I studied acupuncture at MacEwan University and Functional Medicine at the Kresser Institute in Berkley, California. I practice Functional Medicine, specializing in fatigue-related illnesses.
For me, health is so much more than the absence of disease. Health is a superior state of well-being.
But, it wasn’t always that way for me…
In my twenties, I was exhausted. And completely lost. Every morning was a struggle to get out of bed. I didn’t want to go to school or work. But, I was healthy, or, so I thought. I was exercising multiple times a week, ate a “nutritious” diet (according to the Canada food guide), and my lab tests were impeccable.
To combat the (now overwhelming) fatigue, I saw medical doctors, chiropractors, acupuncturists, energy healers, and shamans. All tried to help me get my chutzpah back. But it didn’t work. I was still tired all the time.
It wasn’t until I sat cross-legged in a 10-day silent meditation retreat that I had an a-ha moment:
My fatigue was not caused by a medical illness. It was a sign that I was not living a life aligned with my values. Meaning and purpose were missing in my life.
I left that retreat with a renewed sense of purpose and lots of energy. I was convinced that I wanted to study natural medicine. And that fatigue could be overcome by living a life aligned with your values.
I was so wrong.
Shortly after receiving my acupuncture license, I got tired again. Really tired. All that meaning and purpose I had in my life suddenly vanished. Another silent meditation clued me in.
Purpose and meaning are not finite destinations. They are processes. We have to keep working at them.
But in my work with patients, meaning and purpose didn’t help everyone. Neither did acupuncture. If I’m being completely honest, it hardly helped anyone. There had to be other causes of fatigue. What was I was missing in my training?
I dove into the medical research. Studied Functional Medicine, read every book and medical journal there was on fatigue. I learned that treating fatigue involved so much more than creating meaning and purpose. I learned the food we eat plays a pivotal role in our body’s ability to create energy.
I’ve spent the majority of my career studying the different causes of fatigue. It is one of the most complicated and multi-faceted conditions to treat. Its cause is often due to a combination of issues, including:
- Cortisol imbalances
- Unknown dietary allergies and/or sensitivities
- Hidden gut infections
- Blood sugar irregularities
- Toxic mold exposure
- And yes, even a lack of meaning or purpose in our life
Do you know the #1 reason why we stop pursuing our ambitions? I don’t either. But in my work with over a thousand patients, I’ve discovered that a lack of energy always plays a role.
I know that you have a unique gift.
At this point, you may be too tired to even think about that. But believe me, there’s something special inside of you. And when you share it with the world, we all benefit. And that’s why we created Flourish Clinic. To help you overcome fatigue and get back to sharing your passion(s) with the world.
To the right of the screen, there’s a sign-up form for my free e-Book. Please check it out. It has information about the 4 hidden causes of fatigue. Plus, unique strategies to overcome each!
I hope I get the opportunity to work with you at Flourish Clinic in the not so distant future.
Warmly,
Mark
Ali Frederick, D.O.M.P, RMT
Hi, I’m Ali.
I’m a manual osteopath, massage therapist, and gluten expert at Flourish Clinic. I take complex health issues and break them down into simple, easy to understand pieces.
After years of a healthy, active life, I suddenly found I was tired all the time, had unrelenting gut issues (I’ll spare you the details), and couldn’t stay asleep if my life depended on it. On top of that, I had chronic neck pain that just wouldn’t go away – no matter how many massages I had.
I saw practitioner after practitioner in hopes of finding something that tied all my symptoms together.
Instead, I got one practitioner focusing on my neck, another on my digestion, yet another on my sleep, and one more for my fatigue. I was frustrated that none of my practitioners were seeing my body as the interconnected whole that it is. Everyone was focused on my symptoms – no one was looking for the root cause.
Fortunately for me, Mark started studying functional medicine. I learned I was allergic to gluten and changed my diet to not only eliminate gluten but to also include whole foods, free from any refined or packaged products. Through the simple act of changing what I ate, my fatigue and neck pain were eliminated. Turns out the food allergens were creating an inflammatory situation in my body, which caused my neck to always hurt. I found that the cause of my gut issues were due to a hormone imbalance – after remedying that, I now sleep like the dead and best of all, I have no gut issues.
After going through this on my own, I know that getting to the underlying or root cause of disease is the key to truly healing.
I work with patients at Flourish Clinic in two distinct capacities:
- For patients experiencing acute pain, I provide a combination of osteopathy and massage to ensure your nervous system is communicating with your musculoskeletal system. This gets my patients out of pain in short order and gets them back doing what they love.
- For my patients with chronic pain, I take a more systematic approach to their health. Most people come in for the management of a painful area in their body. I take a detailed history to see how this pain could be connected to other areas of their health. These are often areas that are overlooked by other practitioners. I look to see how your job may contribute to your condition and add exercises or stretches to help you remedy the problem. We discuss the food you eat and, if appropriate, I recommend easy, understandable changes that will positively impact your health.
If you’re like many of my patients, you feel overwhelmed with all of the varying opinions on which therapy is best for which illness.
That’s why I empower you
I give you simple information based on your wellness goals and address your musculoskeletal aches and pains through a targeted combination of osteopathy and massage.
I have specific training and experience in working with:
- Celiac + Gluten intolerance and related disorders
- Food allergies and sensitivities
- Abdominal pain
- Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue
- Acute and chronic pain management
- TMJ and associated syndromes
- Swelling in the ankles and feet
- Headaches
- Sports injuries
- Tendonitis
- Stress management
- Low back pain
If you want a hands-on therapist who can perform treatment without causing you more pain and keeps the big picture of your health in mind, then I would love to help!
Hugs,
Ali
Sheena Huculak, RN, RHN
Hi! I’m Sheena Huculak
As a Holistic Nutritionist and a Bulletproof Coach™ at Flourish Clinic, I am committed to helping our patients:
- Learn to nourish their body in a healthy and sustainable way;
- Make powerful lifestyle shifts ;
- Achieve their personal health goals.
I graduated from the U of C Nursing program in 2004 and worked as a Registered Nurse for more than 10 years.
However, it wasn’t long after I began nursing that I started to realize there was a huge missing component in conventional medicine. This led me to question what role diet and lifestyle play in the disease process. To find out I began studying with the Canadian Society of Natural Nutrition and graduated as a Certified Holistic Nutritionist in 2006.
My passion for health and wellness has grown and evolved immensely over the past decade and I have continued to learn and grow in the thick of my own health journey as I navigate autoimmune diseases.
I am a mother of two, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend and a health coach! I love natural health and strongly believe that that body can self heal. You can find me eating chocolate, watching movies with my family, walking my dogs or diving deeper into health books and podcasts!
In short I am a big health nerd. I love learning and I can’t imagine doing anything other than helping people learn about food and nourishment, and health and wellness to feel their best in their body!
My Health Journey
Shortly after my daughter was born in 2012 I was diagnosed with a number of hormone-related issues as well as Celiac disease. All were closely linked to stress. I was trying to do so much and be so much it was exhausting and prompted disease. I had to make some obvious changes, including eliminating gluten and starting on prescription medication for my thyroid. This was around the time I was introduced to Bulletproof Coffee.
I was still working as a nurse and for any nurses out there, you know how much we love and rely on our coffee! Bulletproof Coffee was an absolute game changer for me. I increased my fat intake significantly (growing up in the 80’s instilled a fat phobia in me for sure), I cut out grains, dairy, sugar and literally came to life again with abundant energy and an excitement about the future.
In 2015 I had a calling, (well actually it was an email) to go to California to train as a Bulletproof Coach. That weekend completely changed the trajectory of my life. I learned to connect with others through the heart instead of the head. Learning to listen from that space shifted my whole world.
Instead of being a problem solver (or know it all) I learned how to be truly present with another. It changed my relationship with my family and with myself, it manifested new friendships and partnerships in business and life.
Then mold struck.
We had been living on our acreage for a few years already when we experienced a massive summer storm in 2019. Heavy rain breached our front door, drenching the whole front entrance into our kitchen as well as down into the basement and (though we didn’t know it at the time) into our cold room below. As you do, we dried it all up best we could, aired it out for a while then thought nothing more of it.
However, I started to feel increasingly awful and didn’t know why. My symptoms included:
- Constant fatigue and irritability;
- Brain fog,
- Trouble concentrating,
- Weight gain for no reason,
- Forgetting simple day to day things, like words for common objects or even the names of my kids!
I felt constantly inflamed and felt so uncomfortable in my own body. My marriage was suffering and I pulled away from friendships and opportunities unsure where I would get the energy from. I was not showing up anywhere as my best self and – needless to say – I was depressed, miserable and needed help!
Assuming I must be starting perimenopause, I blamed the obvious culprits, my hormones! I went to see Mark in May 2021 to test my hormones and help me figure out what was going on
Much to my surprise my hormones were in great shape!
Nowhere close to perimenopause yet. However, he realized I was experiencing all the weird myriad of symptoms of CIRS which traced back to the flooding of our home in 2019. After testing came back it was confirmed: I am one of about 25% of people who have a genetic susceptibility to mold illness and was suffering from CIRS.
It has been more than a year since my diagnosis and I am feeling much better! I have seen and felt shifts in my mental health, cognitive functioning and I am not so sensitive to, well everything anymore. Some days I even forget that I’m sick, which is pretty awesome! I know I still have some work to do but most days I feel pretty amazing.
I am incredibly excited about my role at Flourish Clinic helping other CIRS patients and look forward to supporting you through this often confusing and lonely journey.
Check out my Instagram page where I offer inspiration and ideas for your healing journey.
Chelsey Beda, RMT
At 25 years old I was bogged down with chronic pain. I looked young and fairly healthy on the outside, but on the inside, I felt decades older than I was. During this time the pain so bad that I was scared to exercise. Activity always aggravated my symptoms bringing on multi-day migraine headaches – something I couldn’t afford as a mother.
Feeling scared and slightly hopeless – I worried how could I be energetic enough to take care of my 3 children, all under the age of 5? I figured there must be a way to feel better!
And that’s when my healing journey began.
Over the years I have spent thousands of dollars on different varieties of health care treatments. Many of which were effective and others not so much. What amazed me was the variety of different practitioner’s attitudes. Some therapists took your case on as a mission, and others did things by wrote, seemingly half asleep.
After spending so much money on treatments over the years, I had many questions unanswered. How did these treatments work? Why were some effective, and others not? These questions ate away at me.
So, instead of continuing to find a therapist to ‘cure me’, I decided to figure things out myself.
I went back to school to learn how the body works on a deeper level. I’m happy to say that in 2019 I finished my 2200hr diploma in Massage Therapy at MH Vicars school of Massage Therapy and in 2020 I joined Flourish Clinic.
Right now I’m happy to report I am feeling healthy. I can now exercise without getting migraine headaches. Self-massage is part of my everyday routine. I have tools and techniques that help me remain pain free and active.
Learning for me will always be a passion – with a love of research and always discovering new areas of interest involving the body, mind, and spirit.
What makes me a great massage therapist is that I can relate to your aches and pains. I know what it’s like to feel ‘under the weather’. This life work of mine is not to only free myself of pain but to also help others out of their pain. Through my experience and education I am confident I can help you, especially in the following areas:
- Athletes: injuries, range of motion issues, muscle recovery
- Chronic Headaches and Migraines
- Neck Pain
- TMJD
- Shoulder/Elbow injuries such as pain, frozen shoulder, tendinitis
- General Pain and dysfunction that prevents you from being active and enjoying your favourite activities
I know that nobody wants to live life on the sidelines. I am here to help maximize the greatest gift you possess – your health – so you can go on and rock your next adventure!
Follow me on Instagram for some of my favourite stretches, exercises and general tips for well-being!
Dr. Natalie Fox, DC
Hi – I’m Natalie Fox, chiropractor at Flourish Clinic. I grew up in Calgary, AB where my interests in competitive sports and athletics led me to study Kinesiology. After this I studied Chiropractic at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College, and graduated in 2010.
I believe every patient’s injury is due to their own health circumstances. That’s why I follow an integrative approach when treating every one of my patients. I use a number of techniques including joint mobilization and manipulation, myofascial release, acupuncture and exercise rehabilitation.
Each of my treatment plans are individualized using an evidence-based, functional and diversified model of care. I aim to heal you and get you back to your life in 3-5 visits. I provide a detailed treatment plan, plus exercises and stretches you can do at home to continue healing between visits and after your treatment is complete.
Follow my Instagram page where I post my favourite exercises and stretches.
Stephanie Perryman, RMT
Hi, I’m Steph.
I’m a registered massage therapist at Flourish Clinic. Before massage therapy, I spent years working in the hospitality industry. I started as a teenage take-out employee at Swiss Chalet. Over the years I worked my way up in the industry moving from take-out, to server, to bartender, to shift leader and eventually restaurant manager at Chili’s in the Calgary International Airport. Then, in 2017, I met my husband, Tyler.
We had a whirlwind romance and got married the next year in 2018. We welcomed our first child, Brixton, in 2021. Tyler is a framer, carpenter, and construction worker; he basically builds houses. However, with his high risk job comes TONS of injuries, chronic pain, and fatigue. This includes frequent headaches, hip and low back pain from his toolbelt, frozen shoulder from firing a nail gun all day, and overall body stress from working.
Then, one day in July of 2017 Tyler fell from the roof of a house to the basement, about 27 feet. He was left with chronic back pain including compressed discs.
Wanting to help alleviate his pain, I started giving him massages him 2-3 times a week. However, as I didn’t have any training, I felt insecure and incapable.
So I decided to become a massage therapist!
I was welcomed in Vicars School of Massage Therapy in 2020.
Due to his chronic back pain Tyler was an ideal case study for both years I was in school. The first year was focused on relaxation. Even though I was only doing basic, simple massage techniques with Tyler I noticed an increase in his energy, he slept better, his appetite grew, he was getting more done at work and so much more!
Then I entered year two. I started doing more complex techniques with Tyler such as joint play, active inhibition techniques, performing active and passive strengthening and stretches on the table, and giving more specific home care.
Not only did Tyler improve, but he greatly improved! His posture was better, the numbness and tingling down his arms went away, his sleep was more restful, and his overall muscle tone improved – in fact all the muscle imbalances he previously had in his body were getting better.
He was also able to get a house built in a few days rather than a week, he was more attentive with our little one, and he was so much happier.
How my journey will help you
After seeing all these changes in Tyler during my two years at Vicars, I knew from the bottom of my heart I could help others with their chronic pain, headaches, injuries (from work or from sports), and stress management. I see how acute and chronic pain can affect every area of your life and know that massage can make a difference!
During a treatment with me, I will ask you about:
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your day-to-day life,
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any pain you may be feeling presently or chronically,
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limitations in how your body moves,
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your last massage,
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your expectations for this treatment
I will listen, not only with my ears but with my heart. I will provide a safe space for you to share what you need to say and truly listen to you. This interview is a crucial part of the treatment as it gives me a snapshot of your life and pain. It gives me an understanding of how this pain came to be and enables me to create the best treatment plan for you!
After the treatment, you can expect specific home care recommendations based on your chief complaint during the interview. This may look like stretches, strengthening exercises or recommendations to see other modalities such as a chiropractor or acupuncturist. I will then customize a treatment plan that best fits with your path to feeling better!
I empower you to take charge of your pain and will always be available to help you along the way.
Much love,
Steph
P.S. Follow me on Instagram for all sorts of health-related advice and information!