Meet Dr. Chelsea Karwath of Abide Functional Wellness

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Chelsea Karwath.

Hi Dr. Chelsea, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
If I am truly going to talk about where I started, I have to go back to when I was 14 years old and, after dealing with digestive issues for my whole life, I decided I wanted to figure out where my issues were coming from. I had tried to talk to my doctor about it several times and was given no help or even shown any effort to get to the bottom of it. I started reading about clean eating and reading all of the wellness mommy blogs I could. I started to DIY every product I used to make it non-toxic, and I started caring about what I put in and on my body. Functional medicine didn’t have a name at that point. Still, I was, in a sense, already becoming my own functional medicine practitioner as I was learning about the root causes of gut dysfunction and trying to heal holistically. Fast forward to college, and I knew I wanted to help people using alternative healthcare, but I didn’t have any direction or figures to look up to who were doing what I wanted to do. I thought that potentially pursuing nutrition would get me there, so I saw an ad for a master’s in the nutrition program at Logan University, which would later become the chiropractic school where I graduated. When I went on the visit to learn about the master’s in nutrition program, I was, of course, pitched the doctor of chiropractic program. I fell in love with chiropractic and the philosophy of viewing the body as a functioning whole. I had always believed in it but never knew exactly how to pursue an education based on those principles. Right then, I decided I wanted to go to chiropractic school and started on my track to becoming a Doctor of Chiropractic. While I was in chiropractic school, I also became certified in Acupuncture. I got serious about expanding my functional medicine training. I attended multiple functional medicine seminars and started my practitioner certification through the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM). Although learning about the gut brought me into functional medicine, I really started focusing on hormonal issues, stress, and adrenal dysfunction as a direct result of the issues I faced due to the chronic stress of being in a doctorate program. Today, my practice marries Chiropractic, Acupuncture, and functional medicine to offer a multifaceted approach to women’s hormonal health from what I like to call “post-pill,” or post-birth control, “to postpartum,” and everything in between! I am also a Webster Certified Chiropractor, which means I have additional training in caring for women throughout pregnancy and postpartum to support them in having a healthy birth and baby!

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been a smooth road, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
“Smooth” is not the word I would give to the road that got me here! Ha ha! I had a really challenging time, health-wise, throughout chiropractic school. I didn’t realize it at the time, which sounds super ironic since I spent nearly four years learning about the human body and its functions. Still, at the same time, I had almost no awareness of how my body was doing or how it was handling the demands I was placing on it. It was challenging academically, but I felt the effects of the chronic stress, the constant anxiety and pressure to achieve, very little sleep, and tons of caffeine. Towards the end of my time in chiropractic school, I began to reflect on what I had just gone through mentally and physically. Sure, I “made it through,” but it was at a cost to my adrenals and hormones. Not only is chiropractic school extremely stressful, but there is all this pressure not to fail a class because it would mean being months behind on your graduation timeline and tens of thousands of dollars more in debt. But there are also board exams to pass, a future practice to plan for, a job search, and having to figure out what “kind” of chiropractor you want to be even though you barely know anything about chiropractic, so it’s a lot of pressure all the time. But I also added to that pressure by planning a wedding and getting married in the middle of chiropractic school to a college coach who went through 3 job changes in our first year of marriage. A lot was going on. Today I have been in practice for over a year and a half. My time in practice has also had its challenges.

I have only been in the Kansas City area for almost as long as I have been out of school. After becoming a Doctor; I moved to a completely new city for another job change for my husband! I took a job as an associate when we first moved to the area because I was truly scared to be out on my own, especially without knowing anyone here and being a brand-new Chiropractor. I have had my practice for almost 3 months now. And before that, I was an associate in a group practice. I learned a lot in the first year in practice, but I wasn’t becoming the kind of practitioner I wanted to be, and I feel like God just aligned things in a way that made it very clear that it was time to open up on my own, which was officially in June of this year! My biggest challenge with opening my practice has been that I am the only one. I am the only one when I need to ask a question. I am the only one answering emails and making sure test kits are mailed out, I am the only one wiping down my table and equipment, and I am the only one to bounce ideas off of, it’s all me right now, and that’s a lot. But it’s also been incredible because I am doing things my way and serving my clients the way I have always wanted to, and I’ve experienced more growth than I ever anticipated. Things are going amazing, and I will be hiring some help very soon, but there is a lot of pride that comes from knowing I am building this myself, exactly the way I envisioned.

Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about Abide Functional Wellness?
Abide Functional Wellness is a boutique wellness practice offering nervous system-focused chiropractic care, holistic acupuncture, and functional medicine services. I am the primary provider in the practice and I am a Functional Medicine Practitioner, Doctor of Chiropractic, and Certified Acupuncturist. I am very passionate about women’s health and supporting women holistically. Through hormonal changes, fertility struggles, adrenal insufficiency, thyroid dysfunction, pregnancy, and postpartum health, chronic stress, and everything in between! I offer Chiropractic and Acupuncture services locally, and I offer functional medicine consults in-person and virtually. I utilize functional lab testing: including comprehensive blood labs, Dutch hormone testing, Hair Tissue Mineral Analyses (HTMA), and other comprehensive testing to provide a big-picture look at the individual health of each of my clients and create a game plan to identify and eliminate the root cause of dysfunction and get to a place of optimal health and vitality.

Had we love to hear about your fond memories of growing up?
My favorite childhood memory is just the way I grew up! I grew up in the country with woods and a creek to play in. I have four other siblings, and all my immediate family lives in the same town. I was homeschooled up until high school. I feel like that allowed me and my siblings to have the freedom to develop into our own people, and enjoy our home and the land we lived on so much more. I didn’t realize how great we had it until becoming an adult and moving away, so that’s been hard living away from all of our family, but I feel grateful for getting to grow up like that.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.drchelseakarwath.com
• Instagram: @drchelseakarwath @abidefunctionalwellness
• Facebook: Chelsea Karwath DC

Image Credits
TMB Photography