Jennifer Sosnowski, MD, endured years of personal health struggles that eventually led her to become an expert in Functional and Integrative medicine, and the area’s leader in brain health — and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Originally from the East Coast, Jennifer fell in love with the Southwest during a medical school rotation to Arizona, so she applied for residency at University of Arizona and never looked back. While in residency she met her husband, Larry, with whom they’ve two beautiful boys, Kyle (13) and Sean (11).
Jennifer originally started in Family Medicine so she could participate in all facets of her patients’ healthcare journey. She practiced both Urgent Care and Family Medicine prior to launching her own, concierge practice, and in 2017 re-launched in Scottsdale with an emphasis on Functional Medicine.
Between 2004 and 2010 Jennifer struggled with her own heath challenges – namely chronic, debilitating daily migraines. She exhausted all options searching for solutions, until she discovered Functional Medicine. In short, Functional Medicine uses the latest, science-based research to diagnose and address the true, underlying cause of disease and dysfunction. As an example, Jennifer’s approach for a patient with high cholesterol would be to test to determine why they have high cholesterol, rather than write a prescription to artificially lower their markers (a symptom of dysfunction). “In many cases that would be like placing tape over your car’s check engine light”, she says. Something is happening and addressing just the numbers doesn’t fix the underlying problem.
In Jennifer’s case, applying Functional Medicine allowed her to resolve her migraines and have natural, healthy pregnancies at the ages of 43 and 45! This inspired her to become certified both in Functional Medicine and Integrative Medicine so that she now brings a broader perspective – and toolkit – to her clients’ problems – helping resolve Type 2 Diabetes, cardiovascular disease risk, autoimmune disease and many other chronic illness which regular medical doctors don’t have the tools to actually resolve.
Because of her own experience Jennifer is passionate about brain health and knowing how our bodies support it. To that end in 2020 she became Arizona’s first licensed provider of Magnetic e-Resonance Therapy (MeRT)SM — a groundbreaking approach to jump starting brain health. MeRTSM starts by obtaining a QEEG image of how your brain works currently, and then uses that to personalize your therapy protocols.
The military’s go-to therapy to treat TBI, PTSD and depression, MeRT SM is also extremely successful treating anxiety, insomnia, Autism, brain fog, and cognitive impairment Other areas we’re finding success is post-stroke brain dysfunction, Parkinson’s disease, Autoimmune brain disease like MS, and ALS. An off-label area where MeRTSM patient outcomes exceeded Jennifer’s expectations is Autism. “Almost all ASD patients benefit measurably”, Jennifer says, “but I’ve had non-verbal children start speaking for the first time to their parents & siblings – you can’t put a price on that!”
As the nation’s first Functional Medicine physician to implement MeRTSM , Jennifer combines these approaches to maximize patient outcomes. Jennifer is now working with other integrative providers of MeRTSM to collect additional biomarkers with the aim of boosting MeRTSM neurotherapy outcomes for all conditions.
When not changing lives, you’ll find Jennifer mountain biking the Granite Mountain area or hiking Tom’s Thumb with her therapy dog Gizmo or enjoying activities with her two beloved boys!
