Most people who feel constantly drained, foggy, or simply "not themselves" eventually hit the same wall: a full panel of bloodwork that comes back looking normal. Dr. Jennifer Burns, NMD — a naturopathic medical doctor at Burns Integrative Wellness Center in Phoenix, Arizona — spent this conversation with Mark Anthony making the case that normal labs don't mean nothing is wrong. They often mean the standard panel simply isn't looking in the right place.
Burns traced her own path into naturopathic medicine back to a difficult family experience: visiting her great-grandmother in an assisted living facility, on fourteen different medications, only five or six of which treated an actual underlying condition — the rest existed to manage side effects from the first five. Her great-grandmother didn't recognize her that day. "You do realize that wasn't your great-grandmother, right?" her father said on the drive home, and Burns has pointed to that moment as the one that sent her looking for "something better," eventually leading her to naturopathic school in Arizona. Today, alongside her clinical practice, she has also started a nonprofit called St. Michael's Med, a health clinic for veterans and first responders that was preparing to hold its first free clinic day — offering basic acupuncture, adjustments, blood pressure checks, and physicals — around the time this conversation took place.
Key Takeaways
- Burns treats what she calls "invisible" symptoms — persistent fatigue, brain fog, and hormone imbalance — that frequently look normal on a standard lab panel, tracing them instead to adrenal, thyroid, gut, and neurotransmitter function.
- She says roughly 95% of the body's neurotransmitters are produced in the gut rather than the brain, which is part of why gut inflammation so often tracks with anxiety, low mood, and brain fog.
- Post-COVID "long hauler" patients make up a significant share of what she treats, with symptoms she attributes to disrupted blood flow to the brain, adrenal strain, and reactivation of latent viruses like Epstein-Barr.
- She considers brain fog reversible in most cases — typically over roughly three to six months, sometimes up to a year — and is careful to distinguish it from Alzheimer's or dementia, which don't follow the same course.
- Because naturopathic doctors aren't recognized as insurance providers in Arizona, her practice runs cash-pay, with patients able to request a superbill for possible reimbursement; she offers both telehealth and in-person visits.
Why You Can Feel Awful and Still Test "Normal"
Burns estimated that around 80% of the people she sees present with some combination of adrenal fatigue, brain fog, hormone imbalance, and gut issues. Her explanation centers on the gut-brain connection: the two communicate through the vagus nerve — cranial nerve 10 — which she said innervates the stomach, colon, pancreas, spleen, and small intestine, and sits near the majority of the body's immune tissue. When the gut is inflamed, she explained, the "tight junctions" between intestinal cells loosen, letting toxins leak into the bloodstream for the brain to deal with — while the brain, in turn, signals back to the gut, keeping both organs in what she called a loop where neither one is happy until the other calms down.
To find what a standard blood panel misses, Burns said she relies on more targeted testing: stool testing to assess gut health and the microbiome, urine testing to check neurotransmitter levels, and organic acid testing to evaluate mitochondrial function — the cellular "houses of energy" that produce ATP. She also pointed to the endocannabinoid system, which she described as the body's homeostasis regulator, as another system that can be thrown off and worth investigating.
"Ninety-five percent of your neurotransmitters are actually produced in your gut, five percent is produced in the brain."
— Dr. Jennifer Burns, NMDLong COVID, Brain Fog, and the Timeline for Getting Better
Burns said post-COVID patients are a substantial part of her practice, describing a pattern where the virus disrupted blood flow to the brain and triggered the reactivation of latent viruses like Epstein-Barr, alongside new-onset thyroid and memory issues in patients who never had them before. She distinguished brain fog clearly from more serious cognitive decline: brain fog, in her view, is reversible, while Alzheimer's and dementia depend on the individual case and whether progression can be slowed or reversed at all. For brain fog specifically, she estimated an average recovery timeline of around six months — some patients feel meaningfully better within three months and are back to full-time work, while others need six months to a year depending on their underlying hormone and neurotransmitter status. "Can we get everyone back to 100%? Maybe not," she said, "but even if we can get you back to 70, 80%, that's better than nothing."
She also spoke candidly about the psychological side of long recovery — patients who, years after the initial lockdowns, are still hesitant to leave their homes or resume social routines. Her approach there is behavioral and incremental: short, deliberately uncomfortable exposures (a walk around the block, a longer stretch of time outside) built up gradually, paired with the idea that a flexible "system" that allows for setbacks tends to succeed where a rigid, all-or-nothing goal does not.
Inside the Toolkit: Peptides, IV Therapy, and Working With the Whole Person
Asked about the specific tools in her practice, Burns described a mix of conventional and complementary options. On the peptide side, she mentioned BPC-157 for tissue and injury-related recovery, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress; ARA-290 to support nerve-ending repair; and KPV, which she said is also used for brain support. She offers IV therapy — including vitamin C IVs, Myers' cocktails, and DMSO IVs — along with hormone replacement therapy, acupuncture, applied kinesiology, and Reiki (she is a Level IV Reiki master). She's also a certified life coach and incorporates that into working with patients on the psychological piece of recovery.
On supplements, she noted that not all brands are equivalent, describing many over-the-counter options sold at large retailers as lower quality than what she called "professional grade" lines — she named Fullscript, Thorne, Pure Encapsulations, and Designs for Health as examples she considers solid, while noting there's no single right answer and that different combinations work for different people. For patients skeptical of the more energy-based side of her practice — acupuncture and Reiki in particular — she offered a simple framing: acupuncture, she said, has been used for thousands of years to help reset the body's energy, and Reiki works on a similar principle, drawn from a different tradition, aimed at supporting a person's physical, spiritual, and energetic health together.
"Acupuncture's been around for over 5,000 years. It energetically helps to reset the body. Reiki is almost like that, except it's from Japan instead of from China."
— Dr. Jennifer Burns, NMDAccess, Cost, and What to Expect
Because naturopathic doctors are not recognized as insurance providers in Arizona, Burns said her practice operates on a cash-pay basis, though patients can request a superbill to submit to their insurance company for possible reimbursement. She sees patients both by telehealth and in person — for those who live several hours away, she said she'll coordinate outside providers for services like IV therapy or hyperbaric oxygen (which she currently refers out for, while working toward adding her own hyperbaric chamber), along with supplement orders, dietary guidance, and lab work as needed.
Her closing advice for anyone on the fence about trying an integrative approach was straightforward: interview the doctor first. Ask questions, see if the philosophy and approach feel like a fit, and treat that relationship as part of the broader team — medical, financial, or otherwise — a person builds around their own health.
