We were lucky to catch up with Traci Eliszewski recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Traci, thanks for joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

I spent 7 years in the acute care medicine field before taking a risk and leaving everything I knew behind.
I had family members who were being medicated for chronic health care conditions, including cancer.
I had friends who could not get pregnant despite all the advances in traditional medicine.
While I absolutely loved my time in Neurology and Internal Medicine (Hospitalist department), I just always felt like there needed to be more to to the health care I knew and wanted for my family.
My husband is chiropractor and while we were both studying for our boards (he as a Doctor of Chiropractic and myself as an Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner) we both found ourselves asking more about diet, nutirtion, lifestyle, fitness and performance and indepth cellular medicine.
While I was working full-time as a Hospitalist Nurse Practitioner (helping admit, taking care of patients during the hospital stay and discharging them back home) and also 8 months pregnant with my second child, my husband and I decided we should open our own Functional Medicine and Chiropractic clinic. That was a risk. We opened our clinic on Feburary 1st 2021 and my daughter was born on March 1st 2021. It was wild, chaotic, beautiful, exhausting, but most of all the most rewarding times of our lives. We started focusing on the root cause of diseases and truly looking at blood work more indepth than I had ever been taught or even knew about. After my maternity leave was over, I went back to the hopsital part-time and worked at our clinic part-time as well until our clinic clientel grew big enough. A few months later I was then approached by a bigger Functional Medicine clinic in the same town we opened our own clinic and asked to work for them full time. Leaving acute care medicine entirely was very scary to me; it was all I knew and I had worked so hard to get to where I was in terms of confidence in both my skillset and also a dependable provider as well. I cried a lot and there were a lot of emotions, wondering if I was making the right decision for myself and my family. But I did it, I took the leap with encouragement from my amazing husband, that this is exactly what we were working towards, to truly change lives together and help patients really work on their health, their diet, nutrition, fitness, and really understand their blood work to a whole other level of cellular medicine.
Fast forward 3 years, my husband (Dr. Drew) and myself are running a (few) very successful companies and practices; my current practice really focuses on true health optimization, looking into the root cause of patient’s symptoms and making them feel their absolute best but also living their best life at every age. There are so many advances in medicine, specifically in the longevity and performance medicine side of things and I am so excited to be an expert in the longevity and anti-aging medicine fields.
Take the risk, it can be really lonely in the building times, but it is definitley worth it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I first got into medicine at 21 years old as a CNA (certified nursing assistant) while getting my Bachelors of Biology-PreMedicine emphasis with the goal of going to medical school; however being a full time student while also playing collegiate basketball was truly mentally and emotionally exhausting and also was a full time job between classes, practices, lifting, game days, etc and I was completely burnt out so the thought of going to school for 6-8 more years was honeslty nauseating. I worked as a CNA until I figured out what I really wanted to do, turns out I could not see myself doing anything other than medicine. I wanted to truly help people and as a CNA you are often with patients at their most vulnerable moments and I knew what I needed to do. I decided to go back to Nursing School with the intention to still be in the provider role as a Nurse Practitioner; all-in-all I shaved off maybe one year of the original plan of medical school.
Currently I practice a mix of many times of medicine: Functional, Longevity, Performance and Regenerative Medicine techniques. I do a lot of hormonal optimization (sex hormones, thyroid hormones, blood sugar regulation by combining life style, nutrition, peptides, other alternative therapies, medications if I need them, and certain supplements can be helpful but honestly it is a lot of accountability. I like to check in with my patients often and make sure we are on the right track with their health.
As far as problems I solve, any woman over the age of 18 with any hormonal problems starting from younger women with heavy menses to peri-menopausal and post-menopausal women who are suffering with their decline in their overall health; I am a huge advocate for optimizing hormones (in both men and women) as this is truly the foundation for everything else we do. We do a lot of gut and micobiome testing and a whole lof of blood work. I am truly an advocate and consider myself an expert in cellular medicine, which is the future of medicine.
I am most active on my instagram profile where I will often share patient wins and like to educate others on overall health recommendations you can apply today. Instagram profile is @the.longevity.np
I also cofounded a supplement company with my husband and another collegue/strength and conditioning coach called Patriot Performance Supplement Co. where we focus on performance supplements with clean, whole food ingredients only without the other garbage.
When I sit down with a patient I often say “my goal for every single patient of mine is how do we have the next 50+ years be your best years, I always say when your 106 years old, you can be tired, until then I truly think there is a lot we can work on”.
My husband and I currently work with a company called Forum Health which is a nationwide network of Integrative providers with locations all over the country as well as a separate clinic we own and operate called True Health and Performance (truehealthwi.com)

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I am very driven.
Starting as a young age my mom said that I always had to be the best at whatever I was doing- it truly came to fruition in sports. I was an athlete and often exceeded expectations because I would not stop. I practiced with the varsity volleyball team as an 8th grader at times, I played varsity and started as a freshman in all sports with collegiate offers in volleyball, basketball, and softball after graduation.
That drive has continued as I have gotten older.
I truly have that mentality that I have to the best at what I am doing, it’s probably a good thing, I think. But it also means I spend a LOT of time and energy and money on continuing my education.
I have done all the trainings through the Institute of Functional Medicine (IFM), which is often thought of as the gold standard for Functional Medicine training. I am stting for my boards to be board certified in the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M). I am certified in peptide therapy through SSRP and also a member of the AAOM (AmericanAcademy of Orthopedic Medicine) as well as NAANT (North American Academy of Neural Therapy). I also stay uptodate in acute care medicine practices as well and continuing my CMEs.
I’ve had my fair share of setbacks, but I know I have to put in the work to care for myself and my family and my patients and I will do everything and anything I need to do to make that happen.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

90% of my new patients are referrals from other patients. Developing a relationship with my patients is crucial for me, I want to get to know them personally. My husband and I truly believe that if you give everything your best and your heart is in a place of truly helping and caring for your patients, they will be life time patients.

Contact Info:

• Website: truehealthwi.com; forumhealthmadison.com
• Instagram: the.longevity.np
• Facebook: true health and performance
• Other: soon to be releasing a podcast with my husband, “The Vitality Blueprint”