Lauren has dedicated her career to helping facilitate wellness and empowering her patients’ to take an active role in their health. She has a particular interest in helping her patients’ get to the root cause of health problems by listening, asking detailed questions and understanding that the majority of health problems are in large part due to our past experiences. Through guidance and patient education she is able to give her patients the tools to heal, stay well and thrive.

Daughter of a Neuroscientist and Nurse, Lauren has always been interested in science and medicine, but quickly learned that laboratory based research was not well suited for her–she loved connecting and talking with people too much!

She received her undergraduate degree in Environmental Sciences from Washington University in St. Louis. She then earned her Nursing Degree, Master’s in Public Health Nursing and Family Nurse Practitioner from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a board certified Family Nurse Practitioner with prescriptive authority in the state of Texas.

Lauren devotes time to continuing her education in functional and integrative medicine; as well as continuing to stay up to date on current medical research and best practices. She received her Certification from the Institute of Functional Medicine.

Lauren lives in Austin, Texas with her husband Sam, an Attorney, and their three children Hazel (7), Harrison (3) and Holland (1). She loves anything outdoors– hiking in the mountains, around Austin or the beach, live music, cooking nourishing food, and dancing two-step with her husband.

Melanie, a Florida native, is a board certified PA with prescriptive authority in the state of Texas.  She grew up as a competitive gymnast, which is how her fascination for the human body began.

She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Florida with a Bachelors in Applied Physiology and Kinesiology. She received her Masters degree in Physician Assistant Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.

Her enthusiasm for functional medicine comes from her own personal health story. She was first exposed to the field of Integrative & Functional Medicine in 2014 while training in PA school. At the time, she personally saw how lifestyle changes could help heal the gut and regulate hormones.

She went on to practice in the field of surgical medicine for 4 years. This experience gave her a broad exposure to OBGYN, Stem Cell Donation, Orthopedics, and Oncology. Because of her experience, she sees the value and necessity of Western Medicine but her eyes truly opened to the healing powers of functional medicine after her own health crisis in 2019. After moving into a home with mold, her health rapidly declined. An exhaustive Western Medicine Work-up with no relief, had her searching for answers. In the end, Functional medicine was her answer to her journey toward healing and symptom improvement!

It is now her life’s mission to help other’s become the best version of themselves by helping them identify the root cause of their illness and work toward optimal health. She feels comfortable with complex cases and will work with your specialists and outside practitioners as needed.

In early 2020, she began formally training in functional medicine. She has done training courses with the Institute for Functional Medicine, CellCore BioSciences, and the Medical Academy in Pediatric Special Needs. She has been working exclusively in functional medicine since 2021 and has found great joy in seeing her patients recover! She is dedicated to furthering her education and staying up to date on the latest research and recommendations.

Melanie believes that healing is a journey and is a combination of physical, mental, and spiritual health. She feels honored to join the Alive + Well team and is dedicated to partner with you and our team of healers to help you toward your health goals!

Jana obtained her baccalaureate degree in Human Development and Family Sciences from the University of Texas at Austin. She then went on to obtain her nursing degree from UT Austin and shortly after began working as a pediatric hematology and oncology acute care registered nurse at Dell Children’s Medical Center.

She then returned to UT to  obtain her master’s degree in nursing with a pediatric nurse practitioner focus. She is board certified as a pediatric nurse practitioner from the Pediatric Nursing Certification Board.  After working many years in a primary care setting, her love for nutrition and health led her down the functional medicine path.  She helped open and own Neuronutrition Associates for many years.  She also co-wrote and published a book on a functional medicine approach to treating autism.  Jana is a fellow through the Medical Academy of Pediatric Special Needs and has been trained through the Institute for Functional Medicine.

She is passionate about providing holistic healthcare to children with chronic maladies through an integrative and functional medical approach.   She has a love for children with chronic complex issues- specifically autism, PANDAS/PANS, and learning challenges.  She aims to bring more healing modalities to her patients while at Alive and Well

Continuing a family tradition, at the age of thirteen Svetlana knew she wanted to be a physician. She is passionate and dedicated to the health and healing of her patients. Svetlana's goal is to find the root cause of your pain or illness. Her first objective is to treat the symptoms to gain relief while she works forensically to get to the root cause and heal from within to achieve long-lasting results.

Svetlana immigrated from the Soviet Union, where she received her MD degree from the 2nd Moscow State School of Medicine in 1986. She practiced as a General Pediatrician and later specialized in pediatric hematology. After that she went to work at the Moscow Regional Hemophilia Clinic for three years. After moving to California, she received her Physician Assistant Master's degree from Samuel Merritt College in 2006. Since graduation, she has been working in endocrinology/internal medicine practice seeing patients and conducting clinical trials as a co-investigator. In 2017, Svetlana discovered functional medicine as an alternative approach to providing comprehensive diagnostic and treatment care to patients.

She has been on a steep learning curve ever since and achieved the status of Functional Medicine Provider from the University of Functional Medicine in 2018. This field has helped her understand how to treat the body as a complex system and tackle the root cause to achieve optimal health instead of treating symptoms. Her special interests include Lyme disease and genetics predisposing patients to chronic conditions. She is ILDADS (International Lyme and Associated Disorders Society) trained provider.

The combination of her knowledge of Western medicine and Functional medicine allows her to better understand the root cause and gain greater healing. In March 2021, she moved to Austin to join the team at Oubre Medical, which merged with Root Causes Medical Clinic in early 2022. Working at this unique practice has brought complete professional satisfaction to Svetlana, and she enjoys collaborative teamwork.

Dr. Karla Mehlenbacher is a Board-Certified Chiropractic Neurologist, holistic autoimmune practitioner and founder of Take Root Brain & Body. Dr. Mehlenbacher uses Integrative Neurology and Functional Medicine to help people struggling with post-concussion syndrome, childhood developmental disorders, chronic pain and many other neurological and autoimmune conditions.

After developing an auto-immune disease as a child, and later a discovery of Lyme Disease, she was drawn to the field of holistic health and healing. Dr. Mehlenbacher received a Doctorate of Chiropractic from Parker University, Fellowships from the International Board of Functional Neurology and the American Board of Brain Injury and Rehabilitation and has degrees in human anatomy, biology and clinical neuroscience. She weaves perspectives from these disciplines to support full-body wellness. Her hope is to build a community where anyone suffering with chronic illness can seek wellness and feel supported by a wide variety of resources specific to the healing journey.

• Doctor of Chiropractic

• Board- Certified Chiropractic Neurologist

• Diplomate of the American Chiropractic Neurology Board

• The International Board of Functional Neurology

• Fellow of the American Board of Brain Injury and Rehabilitation

• Advanced Clinical Training:

  • Carrick Institute of Neuroscience and Rehabilitation: mTBI and Vestibular Rehabilitation
  • Institute for Functional Medicine
  • Medical Academy of Pediatric Special needs (MAPS)
  • International Board of Functional Neurology (IBFN): Childhood Neurodevelopmental Disorders
  • ICPA Webster Certified
  • Certified Autoimmune Paleo (AIP) Practitioner

Melanie Shafranek is a Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, certified through the Nutritional Therapy Association. After years of struggling with her own autoimmune journey, she found powerful tools to successfully keep her autoimmune in remission and maintain the lifestyle changes that saved her life. She loves sharing and offering guidance with others who are seeking optimized health.

She wants people to know that healing is possible and healthy food doesn’t have to be boring! Over the past decade she has healed from mold toxicity, SIBO, Epstein-Barr virus, and symptoms like chronic fatigue, bloating, and consistent pain. Since healing, she’s been able to help clients all over the world put their puzzle pieces together to find freedom from unwanted symptoms without sacrificing what they love about their life. She feels is if her experience with chronic illness has lead her down this path to be able to help others and that it is her true calling on this earth.

Outside of the world of nutritional healing, Melanie has immense passion and experience as a photographer - and has even had the honor of photographing pictures in Michelle Hoover’s AIP Comfort Food Cookbook! She also loves spending time recording her podcast (Sick & The City), making paleo travel guides for her blog, and taking her dog on long walks!

Kellye Ojeda is a National Board Certified Functional Medicine Health Coach. She completed her health coach certification through the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy, a partnership with the Institute of Functional Medicine, and achieved Board Certification through the National Board of Health and Wellness Coaching. Kellye is navigating the adventures of being a new mom to a precious baby boy and 2 dogs with her fiance. Having been raised on natural medicine, she continued to develop a passion for healing in a personalized way by understanding the individual as she completed a Bachelors in Psychology. Her goal is to help people make sustainable and impactful changes to their lifestyle that support their overall health goals and quality of life.

Alex’s philosophy of practice focuses on patient empowerment coupled with a collaborative, sustainable approach. As a Doctor of Nursing Practice, Alex combines evidence-based research with the latest approaches in integrative health to promote a proactive, well-grounded approach to medicine.

Having spent a large portion of her career in the Emergency Room and Urgent Care settings, Alex identified a gap in patient access to integrative health. She chose to address this gap and looks forward to focusing her career on providing equitable patient access to functional medicine.

Alex received her Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing from Texas A&M International University. She then earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. She is a member of American Association of Nurse Practitioners and is a board certified Family Nurse Practitioner with prescriptive authority in the state of Texas.

Finally, Alex first learned about Alive & Well as a client, and she has been one for several years. Alex is committed to the vision of Alive & Well and has seen the positive outcomes firsthand.

In her free time, Alex is an avid cyclist, intrepid traveler, and voracious reader. She lives in Austin, Texas with her husband, Jacob, and their three dogs.

Lindsay is a Colorado native but a Floridian at heart. Her journey in health and wellness began from a place of illness. After many misdiagnoses from 18 months, to suffering medication injury to suffering physical injuries due to an active lifestyle, Lindsay began researching ways to heal on her own. Lindsay has since healed her body and has come off more than 15 prescription medications over ten years ago. It was from this place that Lindsay’s complete devotion to health and wellness for herself and for others, began.

After earning her bachelor’s degree in business, and a master’s degree in education, Lindsay spent over 15 years teaching in the special education sector in Title One schools as one of the country’s highest-trained reading teachers. This is where she noticed a massive link missing in the chain between students and their success, it was nutrition.

Between her students, her own health and being a mother of a child on the autism spectrum disorder, she knew it was time to shift her focus from teaching reading to teaching nutrition. Ten years ago, Lindsay became passionate and completely devoted to healing on every level. She became obsessed with healing the gut, leveling blood sugar, and educating clients and their families on how to put the dimmer switch on the symptoms of diagnoses such as Crohn’s, SIBO, GERD, IBS, fibromyalgia, chronic pain, chronic inflammation, autism, ADD and ADHD.

For the last eight years, Lindsay has known it was about more than just what people were and were not eating. Education, self-esteem, confidence and lifestyle management are all important variables in the multifactorial system that is health and wellness. Lindsay operates from the philosophy that we are all unique, all things matter and everything is connected. It is important to Lindsay not just to fix the problem but to get to the root to figure out why there is something going on to begin with, beyond the food and into the heart.

Lindsay’s educational journey continued as she became a certified health coach, a certified personal trainer and graduated at the top of her class from the Functional Nutrition Alliance and is a certified functional nutrition counselor. Her goal is to provide a therapeutic partnership between herself, her clients and their practitioners. Lindsay believes in honest communication and collaboration from all parties involved in client care in order to move clients from heal to ideal in terms of their health and wellness.

As a certified health coach, Lindsay understands the intimate relationship we have with food, how it is created and how to become more objective within that relationship. She is a master at providing a variety of tools to help clients see a different perspective in creating a healthier relationship with food, therefore, leading to better nutrition. She knows the importance of meeting people where they are at and allowing their progress to move at a natural pace, breaking out of the diet culture and into long-term, sustainable lifestyle changes.

Lindsay continues to study herbal medicine and the world of nutraceuticals to further her education on how to best serve clients. She is an avid reader, reading one new book per week, always with a focus on self-help, self-development, mindset, spirituality, nutrition studies and alternative methods to healing. Lindsay is a solution-oriented health coach who is always seeking answers in an effort to keep everyone moving, growing and going forward.

Lindsay currently lives on a beautiful acre property in central Florida where three out of her four brothers live with their families as well as her parents. She enjoys hiking, camping, deep-sea fishing, boating, kayaking, riding ATVs, and growing her own food. You can always find her on adventures with her 12-year-old son Maclain, 12 and their Belgian Malinois, Casey. As a personal trainer, Lindsay is passionate about weightlifting and has started her journey into competitive bodybuilding. Lindsay maintains balance through meditation, kundalini yoga, and breathwork.