About PrimeLife
Our team at PrimeLife takes a more holistic approach to hormone health and all the factors that impact hormonal balance. We help our patients regain their energy, balance and self-healing with over 25 years of experience and training in integrative and functional medicine.
Our Core Values Of Care
An Integrative Approach
At PrimeLife we believe in taking a holistic approach, not only to your hormonal health, but to your health as a whole. This is why we, first, take a deeper look at all the factors that impact your hormones, including diet, lifestyle, and gut health, before we create a personalized healing protocol for you.
We also believe in empowering patients with a variety of tools to avoid many of the pitfalls that created their illness or hormonal imbalances in the first place. No matter where you are right now, with our expert guidance, you can be free of your symptoms and lead a vibrant life!
Dedicated Attention
Do you feel like you're not being heard? Are you tired of dealing with doctors that don't seem to understand that you still don't feel well, even though you are on hormone replacement?
During your in-depth new patient consultation, we take the time needed, one-on-one, to conduct a thorough review to understand everything with your case. This review includes your past medical history, which hormonal symptoms you are struggling with, past and present diet, environment, stress levels, and gut health. Next, we proceed to discussing the best plan for testing, so that we can unravel why you are still dealing with symptoms.
Personalized Care
Not only is each patient biologically unique, but their hormone challenges are too. There are so many factors that may be to blame for your imbalances ranging from gut health, to lifestyle choices, food choices, allergies and even toxins in your immediate environment. Plus, let's not forget stress, which plays a big role in your health and well-being! After your initial appointment, we may recommend further specialty lab tests that your current doctor may not even know about. We also use other assessment tools to get the full picture of your health so that with a precise diagnosis, we can come up with a precise "healing prescription."
Innovative Treatments
Did you know that it takes, on average, 17 years for clinical breakthroughs to make their way into your conventional doctor's office? Unfortunately, many health practitioners do not know about advanced hormone or gut testing that is necessary to understand where your real imbalances lie.
At PrimeLife, we are trained in up-to-date medicine – including the best, most advanced hormone and gut testing and we pair that with current nutritional science so that you can balance your hormones the most natural way.
Root Cause Resolution
Many people suffer from a long list of symptoms related to hormonal and gut imbalances that aren't always identified as such. We know how to identify these symptoms and also do the testing to discover why you are experiencing virtually all the symptoms you have right right now. We use functional medicine testing, a more advanced and complete type of hormone testing, so we can get a detailed look at imbalances that may be beyond just your standard hormone replacement. Areas that may impact your health include toxicity in your home or workplace, potential food intolerances and allergies, gut imbalances, along with mindset issues.
Co-Creating Health
Changing your lifestyle may seem daunting, but we teach you how to use mindset tools to overcome stubborn habits that aren't serving you any longer. We make the prospect of getting healthy "fun" and have a wide range of tools in place to support you during your health transformation and beyond. We also teach your easy, "no-brainer "ways to detox your life for better hormone balance that require very little work.
Guided step-by-step by our care team, you will implement an integrative approach to your wellness, drawing from the most up-to-date nutritional science and lifestyle medicine, to significantly improve your health and alleviate symptoms.
The Philosophy That Drives Us
The philosophy that motivates everyone on our team at PrimeLife is pretty simple:
“We strive to help our patients meet their health goals by being the most efficient, effective, and comprehensive functional medicine clinic in Central Iowa. Our goal is to help our patients not only regain their energy but also create optimal health.”
Melanie L. Spencer, PA-C, founded PrimeLife on the belief that everyone deserves to thrive and have balanced hormones. She believes that each patient can work in partnership with their team to return their body back to health or keeping it healthy, simply by following the right balancing protocol, upgrading their lifestyle habits, and benefiting from functional medicine testing to get the proper help through targeted nutrition, medical supplementation, or bio-identical hormone replacement. It’s more important to fully understand a patient’s unique situation and empower them with the tools to stay healthy after their initial therapy and keep their hormone balance on track.
That’s why the care team at PrimeLife follows a comprehensive, two-pronged approach of helping patients first heal their imbalances and then teaching them what can cause future imbalances, so that patients can take a very active role in their own health. Teaching patients to care for themselves is a natural part of the process. Focusing on gut health, the core of you immunity and a major player in hormonal health, is also a key component.
We will integrate findings from the most recent research along with literally decades of knowledge that our team has accumulated. As it is stated in our “Core Values of Care,” you will always be first in line for innovative, integrative treatment methods that combine the best of Western and Eastern Medicine.
About PrimeLife
PrimeLife was founded by Melanie L. Spencer, PA-C, an integrative medicine specialist with more than 25 years of medical experience more than 15 years ago. Drawing on the various treatment modalities she encountered throughout her career, Ms. Spencer focused her practice on providing integrative hormonal and GI health based on the concept of root-cause resolution.
Since its inception, our team has empowered hundreds of patients to take charge of their health and hormones. We also help patients dealing with chronic symptoms, who aren’t currently finding resolution with their primary care professional. Many of the chronic conditions, that are often linked to untreated GI issues such as IBS, Crohn’s, colitis, and other autoimmune conditions, are easily identified and treated by our staff who have years of knowledge helping people rebalance and free themselves from life-draining symptoms.
About Melanie L. Spencer, PA-C
Melanie L. Spencer, MSPAS, PA-C, graduated from Iowa State University with her undergraduate degree in Exercise and Sport Science and went on to study medicine at Des Moines University obtaining her Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies.
She has completed her Integrative Medicine Fellowship with Dr. Andrew Weil through the Arizona Center of Integrative Medicine. She also has advanced training in Functional Medicine and Hormone Replacement.
After practicing full-time Emergency Medicine and Family Medicine, she became overly aware of the limitations that “conventional” medicine posed. As a response to this, Melanie began studying integrative medicine and mind-body-spirit healing methods, along with herbs and supplements that are known to improve health and balance hormones naturally. PrimeLife encompasses 25 years of specialty training, including integrative and functional medicine, exercise physiology, massage, and wellness-based practices that we teach you how to incorporate into your life to support your own self-healing.
The root cause of her philosophy for diagnosing and treating hormone imbalance lies in a comprehensive approach that combines both physical and mental-emotional, and relational treatment methods. In addition to utilizing these treatments effectively, she also strives to teach patients that their hormone health and general well-being is dependent on:
- A well-functioning GI system and hormone axis.
- A healthy body that is pain-free, creating a balanced emotional state in the process.
- A supportive network of relationships with friends, family, and medical practitioners.
She is proud to bring her decades of medical knowledge to her own clinic, PrimeLife. She is equally honored to be joined by such an exciting and experienced team as the one she has recruited to work alongside her at PrimeLife.
“Couldn’t sleep, foggy brain, constantly tired…”
Couldn’t sleep, foggy brain, constantly tired, weight gain, cry at the drop of a dime and no sex-drive. Thought I had to live like this…that it was NORMAL. This is how I felt before my Simpatra HRT therapy. Three days after my first insertion I was free! It wasn’t normal to feel that way…WOO HOO. I found a new normal. It was a total GAME-CHANGER for me and my life. All those symptoms went away and I feel like a new woman.
“I thought I was going crazy…”
I have always been a happy, ‘over the top’ person with lots of energy, and then I had a total hysterectomy. After my hysterectomy, I went from energetic and positive to depressed and hopeless. My sex drive was gone, I was irritable all of the time, and I couldn’t remember anything. It was like I’d lost my mind.
“Call PrimeLife today and make an appointment…”
A year ago I decided to seek treatment for the menopausal symptoms that you don’t want to discuss like memory loss, lack of or no sex drive, no energy and the dreaded vaginal dryness. Primelife was the answer! I only wish I would have done it sooner. I feel 20 years younger. All of the staff are easy to talk with, so kind and very understanding. And so FUN. Make this new year your time to live your best life. Call PrimeLife today and make an appointment, you won’t regret it.
"I found PrimeLife and received hormone replacement therapy"
My wife noticed a drop in my sex drive when I was in my mid-20s. Two years ago, I found PrimeLife and received hormone replacement therapy. Within the first six months, my testosterone doubled. My wife was finally feeling loved because I was now initiating intimacy and sex. Our marriage has improved greatly, my wife now feels wanted, desired, and loved. PrimeLife helped bring us closer together as a couple.
