Sage Center for Women’s Health provides holistic care for life | Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — Local women experiencing all of life’s seasons now have a place where they can go for comprehensive holistic health care and wellness services.

Sage Center for Women’s Health, located at 420 W. Jubal Early Drive, suite 105, opened its doors this week. The center brings together a team of women devoted to holistic care who can support women through changes — everything from pregnancy, postpartum, premenopause and post-menopause — in addition to providing support for general wellness and health.

Six practitioners have come together to provide an array of services that cater to women’s needs. Owner and founder Julie Carestio, who has a doctor of physical therapy degree, offers women’s physical therapy, functional medicine and herbal medicine. Rebecca Wilson-Nagy, a licensed massage therapist, provides therapeutic massage and energy work. Natalia Ossivnova, whose credentials include being a registered nurse, does lactation consultations and holds women’s circles. Brandie Leonard, a registered yoga teacher, teaches yoga.

Aimee Akers, who has doctor of nursing practice degree and is a certified professional midwife, and Desiree Cripps, and registered nurse and certified professional midwife, of Ten Moons Midwifery offer holistic full-scope midwifery care. Akers provides lactation consultation and holistic gynecology. Cripps focuses on home birth, prenatal, postpartum and newborn care and therapeutic nutrition for fertility, pregnancy and postpartum. The midwives can also provide hormone replacement therapy and work with women of all ages and in all stages of life. For specifics about midwifery care, visit www.ten-moons.com, email [email protected] or call 540-212-4142.

Carestio says Sage Center for Women’s Health also plans to host two businesses that will periodically come to the facility to provide imaging services. The Longevity Center, which is based in Charlottesville, offers Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging that specializes in breast imaging, pain diagnostics and early-stage disease detection. Longevity Ultrasound, which serves the Virginia Blue Ridge area, also will visit. From breasts to ovaries, thyroid to the spleen, clients can choose from a menu of body parts to be evaluated.

Carestio notes that it’s important to understand that the Sage team is not diagnosing illness or medical conditions. Instead, they want to work with information provided by doctors and other healthcare professionals to help clients seize opportunities to improve their health in ways that complement or enhance their other medical care, whether it’s through tinctures, teas, supplements, massage, movement, midwifery or another holistic method.

“We really want to be a bridge between medical and alternative medicine. We have people with degrees in their specialties. But, we want to know what a client’s doctor says,” Carestio explains. “I am clear with my clients that I don’t diagnose disease. If a client’s goal is stopping taking medication, I support that goal with recommendations for healing, but emphasize that all changes in medication should be made in consultation with their physician.”

Carestio’s doctorate in physical therapy and her education in functional medicine allow her to ask questions and listen to women in order to discover well-rounded solutions. “Functional medicine is looking to heal the body at the root cause of symptoms. I do provide symptomatic relief as a short-term solution. But, we like to look deeper at ‘why are you having trouble sleeping? Why are you in pain?’ I look way back into their history. I think it’s so much fun to dig into the story and figure out what is going on.”

She adds: “When I offer functional medicine services, based on my client’s symptoms, medical diagnosis from a doctor (if there is one) and client goals, I offer recommendations that include nutrition, lifestyle modifications, exercise, supplements and herbs. I place a lot of emphasis on sleep, stress management and digestive function.”

On the physical therapy side of things, Carestio focuses on women’s health and some aspects in which it might be challenging to find a specialist, like pelvic floor issues, urinary incontinence and diastasis (a separation of the abdominal muscles often occurring during pregnancy).

If Carestio is not able to provide what a client needs, she can knock on the next door in the suite and chances are one of her teammates can help. “Everyone here is really informed and educated on the whole life cycle. The midwives specialize in menopause, too. They can do hormone replacement. The studio has space for small yoga and movement classes,” she says.

With a peaceful space for massage and energy work and regular ways for women to connect with each other and themselves, Carestio emphasizes that, “Everyone on the team can help!”

Yoga instructor Brandi Leonard is one of those teammates. “I love the niche that this space is filling,” she says. “There are many, many options for holistic healthcare. It feels more like community care than just ‘healthcare.’ It feels more personal and compassionate.”

Leonard says she enjoys leading yoga at Sage because she can spend more time giving client’s individual care. “We have a huge range of people in the small groups. Yet, everyone is able to come into the space, be in a community and get what they need. You can walk in the doors here and curate a day of wellness for yourself,” she notes. You can go to yoga, get a Pap smear, have a massage, visit a midwife and sit in a women’s circle to find support, validation or motivation.

Rebecca Wilson-Nagy decided to bring her therapeutic massage skills and energy work to Sage Center for Women’s Health for similar reasons. She says it’s an “amazing collaborative space to work in.” She, like Leonard, likes the “one-stop” aspect to the space where multiple needs can be met.

“What I think is really cool about it is how we each bring an essence of ourselves to this place. We each bring our own approaches to our modalities. I have a subtle approach to bringing bodies to a natural healing phase. We are all working with each person as a whole, addressing each person’s physical body, their energies and their emotions,” she says.

“When Julie [Carestio] reached out to me about joining the Sage team, it felt like such a natural fit. To be part of a center with diverse, yet complementary practitioners is exciting. It gives us an opportunity to easily collaborate with each other so that we can be in service to our clients in an even richer, deeper, impactful way,” Wilson-Nagy explains.

For more information about Sage Center for Women’s Health and its practitioners, call 540-327-2012, check out the center’s website at www.sageptva.com or email [email protected].

Or attend the center’s grand opening on Saturday, April 5. A schedule of events is available on the center’s website.