Dr. Melissa Barber

Hi! It's time I introduce myself 👋💓

✨️ Dr. Melissa S. Barber, ND, MSc, E-RYT 500, NTP
I help patients move beyond symptom management to true healing. 🌿

I take a whole-person, multi-system approach🔍—connecting the constellation of symptoms to diagnose and treat root causes 🧩 so you can restore function, return to activity🤸‍♀️, and live with vitality🌟

Clinical Focus:
• Musculoskeletal pain + sports performance 🏋🏽‍♀️
• Hormone, immune & gut health 💓
• Cardiometabolic + neurological conditions (incl. migraine)🧠
• Healthy aging & longevity medicine (incl. MHT)🌻

In addition to conventional & integrative testing & treatment, Restorative Therapies I Offer:
💉 Trigger point + ultrasound-guided regenerative injections (PRP, prolotherapy)
🧍🏾‍♂️ Traction therapy
👐 Craniosacral & visceral manipulation
🫶 Soft tissue + yoga therapy
💡 Red light therapy
💧 IV nutrient therapy

✨ I am:
🧬 Evidence-informed | 🎯 Results-driven | ❤️ Patient-centered | 🌍 Bilingual (English + Español)

With nearly 20 years in healthcare — from 🔬 research at institutions like the NIH to 🌱 service in the Peace Corps & community clinics, to 🩺 integrative clinical care — I bring science, heart, and innovation💡 together to address the chronic pain epidemic🌀 and beyond.

Come see me in person 🏫 or virtually💻 at Wild Oak Medicine!

I sat in the garden🌱 and ate my breakfast🍳 and my body thanked me. Eating is a parasympathetic process which I constantly remind patients (and myself 😉) about. If we are busy, stressed, distracted... digestion doesn't go so well, as we are in sympathetic mode.

The sympathetic division of the automomic nervous system, the "fight or flight" mode, diverts blood to our skeletal muscle, releases cortisol to increase blood sugar levels, and gets us ready to mobilize🏃🏽‍♀️. Therefore, blood is diverted away from digestive organs (and reproductive organs), salivary👅, pancreatic, and gastric secretions slow, and peristalsis/the migrating motor complex (MMC) doesn't function optimally.

Being in a parasympathetic mode, or the "rest and digest" state, while eating is step 1 to facilitate digestion and absorption of nutrients🥑. I think eating outside/in the garden🌻 can definitely facilitate entering a parasympathetic state.😊