The warning signs were all there, but Stephanie Tesch, a Point Loma resident, couldn’t do much to overcome the debilitating migraines that she had once a month for six or seven years ” and they were getting worse.
Her mother and grandmother also suffered from migraines, so Tesch thought she just had to schedule her life and career as a social worker around the two days she lost each month due to the severe headaches.
“The medication I took for them was effective, but it was a very heavy dose of medication, and I wanted to try something else,” Tesch said.
Then one day on a neighborhood walk, she visited Remember to Breathe, 3653 Voltaire St., a center for natural health. There she met owner Nicole McInerney, a Point Loma native and a licensed acupuncturist, herbalist and natural fertility management counselor. After discussing her health history, Tesch began weekly acupuncture treatments with McInerney and quickly saw the results.
“It’s still early in the process, but it’s made a pretty substantial improvement in my life,” Tesch said. “After generations of women in my family have dealt with [migraines], I might have found something that gives me that piece of my life back.”
Helping her clients improve their health is why McInerney has focused her career on nutrition, exercise, massage, acupuncture and Chinese herbs.
“I was always interested in alternative medicine . . . I was never a big ‘go-to-the-doctor’ person,” McInerney said.
Originally an advertising major, she developed neck pain working her way through college as a waitress. When she turned to a holistic practitioner for relief, McInerney changed her career path and earned a Master of Science in oriental medicine.
“When I started studying it, I really began understanding the benefits,” she said.
While McInerney gained experience at other studios and spas doing mainly massage, she always wanted to create a clinic with other professionals in complementary disciplines. She also needed to balance work and her own family. When she saw the “for rent” sign at a former antique shop on Voltaire, not far from her own home, she knew she’d found the right location, and opened the center on March 18.
Working for herself, McInerney is now free to spend more time offering the modality she finds most interesting ” acupuncture.
“People always envision a head with all these needles sticking out,” she said. “It’s not like that at all. I use maybe 10 to 15 tiny needles and focus my treatments on finding the most powerful points.”
McInerney sees clients for arthritis, menopause and even infertility.
“A couple may come in and they’re stressed, overworked and not eating right,” she said. “I work with them on diet and nutrition, charting the woman’s cycle and getting their health in balance.”
Dreams of having a baby drew Valerie and John McShefferty, former Point Loma residents who now live in Oceanside, to McInerney.
Valerie McShefferty said she had already undergone two unsuccessful In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) treatments when her hairstylist told her about “fertility guru” McInerney. The couple began seeing McInerney for natural fertility counseling, including nutrition, acupuncture and massage. Anxious about their age, they decided to have IVF for the third time while continuing to see McInerney, and nine months later, gave birth to a son.
“I said that no matter what, however I got pregnant, I wanted to bring the baby into the world in the healthiest way we could,” McShefferty said.
Treating children is another of McInerney’s interests. She worked for mroe than 15 years in childcare and is trained and certified in Japanese-style pediatrics. In the clinic, she uses Chinese herbal formulas, massage, acupressure (no needles) and nutritional counseling to relieve ear infections, allergies, digestive problems and other childhood ailments.
“Children are much easier to treat,” she smiled. “They haven’t had 30 years of stress or bad diet.”
McInerney has formed her own work family by sharing the space with several other professionals. Catherine Parker is a certified massage therapist and birth doula. Deborah Strauhal is a holistic health practitioner and certified pre- and post-partum massage therapist. Shannon Zgrzemski, Reiki practitioner, is a student and practitioner of the Usui System of Natural Healing. Stephanie Miller is a professional photographer, specializing in weddings, children and pregnant moms.
Remember to Breathe is also joining efforts with participating hair salons to get 500 ponytails donated to children through Locks of Love. Now through December, participating salons will give a free haircut for donations of ponytails 10 inches or longer.
For more information on the health center or the Locks of Love ponytail donation, visit www.remembertobreathecenter.com or call (619) 224-1190.