Lisa Keller founded Design Your Health in 2012 to help people resolve chronic pain and get back to doing what they love in life like travel, family and friends.
Since 2001, Lisa has been an active practicing therapist in a variety of settings including homecare, outpatient and skilled nursing facilities. She is licensed to practice PT in Ohio, Florida and Colorado,
Lisa is a graduate of Baldwin-Wallace College with a BA in Sports Medicine and earned her Master’s Degree in Physical Therapy from Old Dominion University.
Her journey to health has given her much insight into both traditional and alternative options in healthcare and how they best fit together to achieve maximum health and wellness. Lisa’s experiences with her own health issues have given her the passion to guide others to a painfee lifestyle.
education by the school of hard knocks
My education of the non-traditional and alternative approaches to restoring health started when I was quite young; in high school as matter of fact. It was then when I was diagnosed with mononucleosis. It is amazing how you can be so sick and not even know it because I thought it was normal to barely sleep at night and nap everywhere there was an opportunity, including the shower, staircase, and even the kitchen floor. Maybe I was too tired to realize there was a problem or maybe I was too young to know the difference. Around this time, my mom was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, Epstein Barr and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. She came home in tears; however, vowed to herself and to us that she would get rid of it which is the opposite of what the doctor told her which was “ learn to live with it”. This is where my education in the non-traditional and alternative approach to regaining health started. My mom forged the path and I just learned and followed.
My mom spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on seeking an answer for us both. She found a naturopath doctor that was the only one in the local area. We went to chinese medicine doctors in the city and they made horrible tasting herbal concoctions for us to drink. We tried every vitamin we could get our hands on and I do not think I ever saw a house filled with as many vitamins as ours. We juiced organic vegetables and fruits long before it was popular. This was all part of my “non-traditional” health education.
Slowly I found the right answers for my fatigue and exhaustion and over the course of close to 20 years I passed my “non-traditional” healthcare 101 and resolved my own fatigue and exhaustion using a large variety of means to get there. My formal education I had received to become a Physical Therapist also helped me tremendously in discriminating the “bunk” from the “non-bunk” information.
Somewhere in the midst of all this learning I acquired a massive debilitating case of back pain. At this point I was already a PT and had my own clinic to boot so I have to say it felt quite frustrating and humiliating that I had such debilitating pain. This pain was bad enough to keep me stuck in bed or take me to the floor where I could not get back up again. And getting up off of the toilet - wow! It is a wonder that I did not tear the toilet paper holder off of the wall in the process.
With having already attended “non-traditional healthcare 101" for my chronic fatigue and exhaustion I was no stranger at trying whatever was possible to relieve these symptoms of debilitating back pain. It took me around 2 years to resolve the pain 80% and another 5years to get to 95% all the while learning a process to resolve severe and chronic debilitating pain. I funneled all this learning straight to my patients and I was seeing and saw dramatic results with them. My patients actually had better results than I was getting which was great for them but was quite frustrating for me. However, the pain kept me moving forward and learning more and more on how to make it go away. I finally graduated from “pain 101” and was living a life pain free and full of energy and vitality to boot.
This experience in the School of Hard Knocks attending “non-traditional healthcare 101" and also "pain 101” while also having the gift of a formal education as a Physical Therapist gave me a unique perspective and approach to managing pain and health in general. It has helped me to develop systems I never could or would have without such an experience and now, even though it was a painful experience, I appreciate my education in the School of Hard Knocks.
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