I know what it feels like to want answers and not get them.
Thirty-one years of clinical practice. A lifetime devoted to asking why. And two health journeys — one my own, one my daughter's — that made this work personal in ways I never expected.
ABOUT DR ALLEN ASHFORTH, D.C.
WHERE IT STARTED
I have been obsessed with health and human performance my entire life.
It started in high school — working in health clubs while most of my friends were doing anything but. Something about how the body worked, how it responded, how it could be optimized — I couldn't stop thinking about it. That led me to an undergraduate degree in Exercise Physiology, then to chiropractic school, and then into 31 years of clinical practice in Raleigh, North Carolina.
From the very beginning I was wired differently than most clinicians. I was never content to treat what was in front of me without asking what was behind it. Not what do we call this symptom — but why is it happening? Not what do we give it — but what is the body trying to tell us? That question has driven every clinical decision I've made for three decades.
It also put me a little outside the mainstream of conventional medicine. I've always been comfortable there. Because the mainstream wasn't asking why. It was watching and waiting.
MY STORY
Four years of fatigue. Normal labs. And a diagnosis nobody thought to look for.
Early in my practice — building a business, raising a family, doing everything a young doctor does — I started feeling exhausted. Not tired the way busy people get tired. Exhausted in a way that didn't lift no matter how much I slept.
I went to the doctor. He looked me over, told me I looked fine, and said get some rest. I was building a practice and raising a family. Made sense. I chalked it up to having a lot on my plate and kept going.
Four years went by. I kept pushing forward thinking it will go away when things slowed down.
By then the fatigue was brutal. I was taking naps at lunch just to make it to the end of the day. Something was clearly wrong — and I had been told everything was fine for years. So I knew nobody was going to come save me, and I was done waiting for things to get better on their own, so I started digging, learning , going to seminars, asking questions and finally discovering the answers. I went back to my doctors and demanded they run specific labs that started looking in places they don’t typically look.
“I demanded they run specific tests — tests they don’t typical run - including thyroid antibodies. Tests they had never ordered. Because my other labs were in the normal range.”
Standard thyroid lab testing runs a TSH and T4 value to assess thyroid function. The thyroid is a potential issue with fatigue so they ran those tests. My tests were normal — trending higher on the TSH, but technically within range. Nobody had ever tested my antibodies. When they finally did, the answer was right there: Hashimoto's thyroiditis — an autoimmune condition that had been destroying my thyroid tissue for years while my labs stayed 'normal’.
The consequences of that delay were real. When the thyroid is struggling, it doesn't stay in the thyroid. It affects the gut and digestion, the adrenals and your ability to handle stress, it alters your metabolism, and raises your cholesterol — all a cascade of downstream effects across multiple systems. Instead of asking why my cholesterol was shifting higher or why my gut felt off, they just wanted to treat the labs that were not in normal range. It was easier to want to put me on a statin then figure out what was driving it. They were looking at a number. Not connecting the dots.
I had to dig deeper to find the answers. That search led me to a deeper understanding of the body, what symptoms are trying to tell us — and it has changed everything about how I practice since then. There was now enough destruction of my thyroid gland that I needed not only thyroid medication, but I needed to support my body with missing micro nutrients. I had to make significant changes to my lifestyle. All of this created the environment that allowed me to recover.
I still have to take medication for my condition. I want to be clear about that — this isn't a story about rejecting medicine. It's a story about digging deeper, trusting your gut, supporting the right things, asking the right questions and being willing to put in the work to heal. Today I'm functioning optimally. But I got there by refusing to accept 'normal' when I knew something was wrong and digging deeper for the answers I knew where there.
SKYLAR’S STORY
She was 19 and desperate for relief. The system was out of answers and ready to remove a healthy organ. I had seen enough — I was going to have to step in.
Teenagers don't tell their parents everything. So when my daughter, Skylar started developing digestive issues in her teen years, she did what teenagers do — she kept it to herself. By the time she got to college, things had gotten worse. Bad enough that she finally mentioned it.
We sent her to the doctor. They diagnosed SIBO — small intestinal bacterial overgrowth — and prescribed an antibiotic that cost $1,000. She felt better for about two weeks. Then it came back. Another $1,000. Same result.
They changed her diet to a low FODMAP diet. No improvement. Things kept getting worse.
A gastroenterologist ran an upper GI study and a gallbladder study. Both came back normal. Their recommendation? Remove her gallbladder. She was over 18, desperate for relief, and ready to say yes.
At this point I had to step in. I said — before you do that, let's get a colonoscopy and do some additional testing. That’s when everything began to change.
The colonoscopy showed microscopic colitis an auto-immune reaction in her colon. Their response? We have a diagnosis, but there's not treatment for this, she will have to learn how deal with it. Meaning she would suffer with gut issues her whole life.
Nobody had tested her gut health. Nobody had looked at her microbiome. Nobody had investigated what was actually not functioning right, what imbalances she might have. They never asked about her diet, never tested for food sensitivity. Nothing. They were willing to remove an organ — based on normal test results — because they had no other answers.
We have since run advanced GI testing on Skylar that revealed the root causes of why this started in the first place. We are actively working on restoring her health — and while that journey is still unfolding, for the first time in years we finally have the right answers. Not just the right questions — the actual answers.
HOW I PRACTICE
Every symptom is a signal. Every signal has a source.
My approach is a culmination of experience and observation -of all I have seen in practice over 31 years. Better testing. More time with patients. A framework built around the same question I have been asking my entire career.
What makes this practice different is not just the labs we run or the protocols we build. It is the willingness to sit with complexity — to look at the full picture instead of one number, one symptom, one organ system at a time.
Your symptoms are not separate problems. There is typically a pattern. And patterns have causes.
Every symptom is a signal — not something to manage, but something to investigate
The body's systems are interconnected. What happens in the gut affects the brain. What happens with blood sugar affects inflammation. Nobody heals in isolation.
Normal ranges and optimal function are not the same thing. We are not looking for disease. We are looking for what is actually driving your symptoms.
Time matters. Every year spent waiting is a year of unnecessary decline. We act on what we find.
You deserve a doctor who is as invested in your health as you are. That is not a tagline. It is how I have practiced for three decades.
WHY ASCENDANT
This practice exists because I lived what you are living.
I built Ascendant Health and Longevity, Allen Ashforth DC, PLLC because I know what it feels like to want answers and not get them. I know what it feels like to be told your labs are normal when you know something is wrong. I know what it feels like to watch someone you love struggle while the system keeps missing what's actually happening.
I am also in my late 50s — and even with a lifetime devoted to health and human performance, I've had to do my own deep dive to find solutions for my health concerns. Getting to the why is often hard. That's exactly why I built this practice.
Ascendant is built for people who are done waiting. People who can feel themselves slipping and refuse to accept that this is just how aging works. People who want a doctor who will actually dig — who asks why, who connects the dots, who builds a plan around who they actually are.
If that sounds like you, I'd love to have a conversation
LET'S TALK
You've read my story. Let's talk about yours.
The Ascendant Clarity Call is a free 20-30-minute video conversation — no obligation, no hard sell. Just an honest discussion about where you are, what you've been through, and whether we're the right fit to help you find out what's actually going on.
No cost. No obligation. Just clarity.