Stop the Supplement Graveyard: How to Choose the Right Supplements for Your Body

If you’ve ever opened a drawer, cabinet, or Amazon box and thought,
“Do I really need all of these supplements?”...you’re not alone.

Nearly every woman who joins my practice brings me what I lovingly call a supplement graveyard: half-used bottles, expired powders, capsules they started but never finished, and products they bought because a podcast, influencer, or practitioner told them to.

And when I ask the most important question:

“Why are you taking this?”

The answers are almost always some version of:

• “I heard it was good for gut health.”
  
• “Someone on Instagram swears by it.”
  
• “My last practitioner told me to take it.”
  
• “I figured it couldn’t hurt.”
  
  

But here’s the truth nobody selling supplements will say out loud:

• Supplements are not a wellness strategy.
  
• More supplements do not mean better results.
  
• Supplements are exogenous molecules, not magic.
  
  

Supplements can play a powerful role in healing — when they are individualized, targeted, time-limited, and based on data.

But without a framework, they quickly become:

• Expensive
  
• Overwhelming
  
• Stressful
  
• And sometimes harmful
  
  

Yes — harmful.

The wrong supplement (or the right supplement used at the wrong time) can worsen bloating, deplete minerals, inflame the gut, strain the liver, throw off hormones, or keep the nervous system stuck in fight-or-flight.

And to make things worse?
Not all supplements are created equal. There are documented cases of:

• Counterfeit supplements
  
• Incorrect dosing
  
• Heavy metal contamination
  
• Rancid oils
  
• Fraudulent claims
  
• And products containing zero of what the label promises
  
  

So instead of asking “Which supplements should I take?” — the real question is:

“How do I decide whether a supplement is worth taking at all?”

Below is the exact framework I use with every single client.

No two patients in my practice ever leave with the same supplement protocol — and this is why.

The 5-Question Filter: 

Before You Take Any Supplement, Ask:

This is the exact filter I use with every single client, because no two people in my practice ever leave with the same protocol.
(That’s one way functional medicine gets it wrong — but more on that in a minute.)

1️⃣ What is the objective?

Is the supplement meant to:

• Improve physical health? (ex: reduce inflammation, repair gut lining)
  
• Improve cognitive health? (ex: support focus or neurotransmitters)
  
• Improve emotional regulation? (ex: support the stress response)
  
• Target a known deficiency? (ex: low ferritin, low magnesium, low potassium)
  
  

If you don’t know the why, you don’t have a therapeutic strategy; you just have very expensive urine.

2️⃣ Is there data or a physiological reason for using it?

This is where most people get misled.

• Do you have labs showing a deficiency?
  

• Do your symptoms match what the supplement addresses?
  
• Is it treating the root cause — or just patching a symptom?
  

Example:
Taking ashwagandha because you feel “stressed” is not the same as using ashwagandha after confirming low morning cortisol on a DUTCH test, supporting minerals first, and ensuring the nervous system isn’t in a freeze response.

Because adaptogens do not work when the body is under-fed, inflamed, or in survival physiology.
The supplement isn’t the solution unless the body is prepared to use it.

3️⃣ Is this the right supplement at the right phase of healing?

One of the biggest reasons supplements “don’t work” is not because they’re the wrong supplement, but because they’re taken at the wrong time.

Healing doesn’t happen in one step. It happens in phases, and each phase requires different tools.

For example:

• You don’t start probiotics when someone’s still constipated and not digesting food.
  
• You don’t jump into pathogen-killing herbs when minerals are tanked and the nervous system is in fight-or-flight.
  

Just like you wouldn’t build a house while the foundation is still wet, you don’t want to throw supplements at a body that isn’t physiologically ready to receive them.

4️⃣ Is it high-quality, tested, and in the right form?

Quality isn’t a marketing claim, it’s a paper trail.

A supplement is only as safe and effective as its:

• Manufacturing standards
  

• Ingredient sourcing
  

• Testing (purity, identity, potency, contaminants)
  

• Storage + temperature control
  

• Bioavailability of the form used
  

Most people assume supplements are regulated like medications.

They’re not.

The FDA does not test supplements before they hit shelves, which means:

• They may contain less — or more — than the label claims
  

• They may be contaminated with fillers, heavy metals, or rancid oils
  

• They may be completely inert and still legally sold
  
  

This is why the supplement aisle at Costco, CVS, Amazon, or even Whole Foods is not the same as purchasing from a professional-grade dispensary.

So what does “high-quality” actually mean?

• Third-party testing (not “trust us”)
  

• Batch-specific COAs (not generic PDFs)
  

• Bioavailable forms (glycinate > oxide, methylated > synthetic)
  

• GMP-certified facilities
  

• No unnecessary fillers, dyes, or proprietary blends hiding under-dosing
  
  

A brand that models this level of transparency is FullWell, which publishes lot-specific third-party COAs — the gold standard.

Why I use Fullscript with my patients

Fullscript only carries professional-grade brands that meet strict manufacturing, purity, and testing standards. 

That means:

• Therapeutic dosing based on research, not marketing
  
• Bioavailable forms that the body can actually use
  
• 3rd-party laboratory verification
  
• Temperature-controlled storage and shipping
  
• No counterfeit or expired product risk (a real issue with Amazon sellers)
  
• No ingredient substitutions or fillers hidden in “proprietary blends”
  
  

When someone tells me, “Supplements never worked for me,” the answer is almost always:

You were taking the wrong thing,
the right thing at the wrong time,
or a low-quality version your body couldn’t use.

Retail supplements are created for mass appeal and profit margin.
Professional-grade supplements are created for clinical outcomes.

That’s why I don’t hand my patients “a list” — I create a strategy.

5️⃣ Is a supplement being used instead of foundational healing work?

If you’re taking…

• Magnesium instead of prioritizing sleep
  
• Ashwagandha instead of regulating stress
  
• Digestive enzymes instead of addressing stomach acid
  
• Motility supplements instead of fixing constipation triggers
  
• Probiotics instead of repairing the gut terrain
  
  

…then supplements have become substitutes, not support.

Supplements should enhance healing — not replace the conditions required for healing.

Case Study: 65 Pills a Day — And Still Sick

A woman joined my practice recently taking 20 different supplements — 65 pills per day.

She was still dealing with:

• Severe bloating
  
• Abdominal pain
  
• Food reactions
  
• Fatigue
  
• Anxiety
  
• And could only eat 15 foods without symptoms
  
  

Here’s what we did:

1. We stopped all supplements to calm down her overloaded system.
2. We added back only what would immediately reduce pain and bloating.
3. We ran an HTMA and found significant mineral depletion from years of stress and restriction.
4. We rebuilt minerals and digestion before touching gut pathogens.
5. Six weeks later, we ran a GI-MAP and designed a short, targeted 8-week protocol.
6. After that phase, we removed most supplements and focused on food, nervous system work, and long-term reinoculation.

Today?
She is off 80% of the supplements she came in with, eating a wider diet, has less bloating and pain, and finally feels like her body is responding — not reacting.

That is what intentional, phased, individualized supplementation looks like.

Not random bottles. Not guesswork. Not overwhelm.

Where Functional Medicine Gets This Wrong

Most functional medicine practices swap pharmaceuticals for supplements — one pill for every symptom.

That’s still outside-in medicine.
It’s not root-cause healing.

I wrote an article about this if you want to go deeper:

 ➡️ The 5 Ways Functional Medicine Gets It Wrong — And What I Do Differently
(You can read it here if you're curious.)

🌱 The Foundation Comes First

Supplements should never come before:

• Nervous system regulation
  
• Enough real food + blood sugar balance
  
• Gut motility + stomach acid + digestion
  
• Mineral rebuilding
  
• Detoxification pathways working
  
• Emotional + stress resilience
  
  

Supplements are the refinement layer — not the foundation.

Which means if you’ve tried “all the supplements” and nothing changed…
You were never the problem.
The strategy was.

Ready for a Different Approach?

If you are done guessing — done wasting money — done wondering whether supplements are doing anything at all…

You don’t need more bottles.

You need a framework, data, and a strategy that works with your physiology, not against it.

I help women heal gut dysfunction, nervous system dysregulation, and burnout using a personalized, lab-informed, root-cause model — not supplement overload.

🔗 Book a Discovery Call Here ⬇️

Let’s get you out of the supplement graveyard and into a phase of healing that actually moves the needle.