Fremantle Herald
Most chronic illness isn't a mystery. It's a sequence problem.
When you've been unwell for a long time, the advice piles up. Remove gluten. Add a probiotic. Try this adaptogen. Balance your hormones. Each piece might be reasonable on its own. Stacked together, with no order and no map, they overwhelm a system that has already lost its ability to respond.
There's a point where your body stops responding the way it used to. The same inputs that once helped now do nothing, or make things worse. I call that the Sensitization Threshold. Once it's crossed, more interventions don't help. What helps is stepping back, mapping what's actually going on, and rebuilding in the right order.
That mismatch between effort and result is not a motivation problem and it isn't in your head. It's a sign that the order of the work, not the work itself, is what needs to change.
Understand the Sensitization Threshold →The Healing Hierarchy: order creates outcomes
Healing isn't random. It follows a sequence, and the sequence matters as much as the treatments themselves. There are four levels, and each one has to be stable before the next can work.
Crisis stabilisation
Settle what's keeping the body in alarm.
Gut restoration
The gatekeeper everything downstream depends on.
Biochemistry & detox
Methylation, nutrients, and clearance.
Hormones & optimisation
Downstream, and the wrong place to start.
Each level has to be stable before the next can hold. It's the framework my whole practice is built on, and the one the book walks through in full with eight real patient cases.
The Functional Medicine Solution online program
The most comprehensive self-paced functional medicine program available, with over 25 hours of recordings, handouts, and step-by-step direction. Learn how to read your own data and apply the Healing Hierarchy to your own health, in the right order.
Explore the programThe areas I work in most
I work with complex, chronic, and unresolved cases, the people who've been told their tests are normal while everything feels like it isn't. These are the areas I see most often. Each one is part of the same sequence, and each has a deeper guide on this site.
Anxiety that won’t lift: the biochemistry behind how you feel
You feel anxious, wired, on edge, and you have been told it is stress, or your circumstances, or simply how you are made. Maybe you were offered an antidepressant. Maybe talk therapy helped a little but never resolved the underlying hum. And through all of it, a quiet question persists: why does my body feel this way when, on paper, my life is fine?
Autoimmune conditions: why your immune system is responding, not malfunctioning
An autoimmune diagnosis usually comes with a particular message: your immune system has turned on you, the cause is unknown, and the plan is to suppress it for life. Whether it is Hashimoto's, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, an inflammatory bowel condition or one of the many others, the framing is the same. Your body is attacking itself, and there is nothing to do but manage it.
Exhausted with normal blood tests: why chronic fatigue is a production problem
You are tired in a way that sleep does not fix. You rest and wake unrefreshed. Good days cost you the next two. You push through on caffeine and discipline, and the people around you assume you are coping because you look like you are. Meanwhile your blood tests come back "normal" and you are left wondering whether it is in your head.
Gut problems that won’t resolve: bloating, reflux, IBS and the search for a cause
If your gut has been a problem for years, you have probably been told one of two things. Either every test came back clear and you were left with a label like IBS and a shrug, or you were handed a long list of things to remove and supplements to add that helped for a while and then stopped. Bloating, alternating constipation and diarrhoea, reflux, cramping, food reactions that seem to multiply rather than settle.
Hormone problems that won’t resolve: why hormones are downstream
Your hormones feel off. Maybe it is fatigue and low libido, maybe irregular or difficult cycles, maybe perimenopausal symptoms that arrived early or hit hard, maybe low testosterone. You may have been offered replacement, or told your levels are "normal," or handed a supplement aimed at the hormone in question. And whatever you tried may have helped briefly before the problem drifted back.
Longevity and healthy ageing: how to age differently, measured not guessed
You are not sick. There is no diagnosis, no medication, nothing a doctor would flag. But something has shifted. Recovery from exercise takes longer than it did a few years ago, your focus drifts in the afternoons, your energy comes in waves where it used to be steady, and you have started noticing you do not bounce back the way you once did. Your bloods came back "normal." And yet you know you are no longer functioning at your best.
Mould illness and CIRS: when the cause is the building you live in
You have been unwell for a long time, in ways that do not fit a tidy diagnosis. Fatigue, brain fog, strange neurological symptoms, sensitivities that seem to multiply, and a sense that your body is reacting to everything. You may have done test after test, tried protocol after protocol, and got nowhere, because the problem was never only inside your body. It was in the air you breathe at home or at work.
MTHFR and methylation: what your genes actually mean for your health
You took a genetic test, or your practitioner mentioned it, and now you have a label: MTHFR. Maybe a single variant, maybe compound. You have read that it affects everything from energy to mood to miscarriage, and you have probably also read enough conflicting noise to be thoroughly confused about whether it matters at all.
SIBO that keeps coming back: why treatment fails and what actually stops the cycle
You were diagnosed with SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. You did the treatment, maybe an antibiotic or herbal antimicrobials, and you felt better for a few weeks or months. Then the bloating, the distension, the reaction to almost everything you eat, all came back. Perhaps you have been around this loop two or three times now, and each round works a little less well.
Thyroid problems that won’t resolve: why treating the gland is rarely enough
If you have a thyroid problem that will not settle, you have probably had one of two experiences. Either your tests came back "normal" while you felt anything but, or you were put on thyroid medication that moved the numbers on paper while your symptoms barely budged. Fatigue, weight that will not shift, cold hands and feet, hair thinning, brain fog, low mood, irregular cycles. The label said the thyroid was being managed. Your body disagreed.
Test, don't guess
Symptoms point in a direction. They don't tell you what, or how much, or in what order to address it. That's what testing is for. Not certainty. Clarity.
Advanced blood panel
Read against optimal ranges, not just normal.
Advanced stool test
The gut picture standard panels miss.
Organic acids test
Cellular energy, methylation, clearance.
I built my practice around three tests that together map the whole system: an advanced blood panel, an advanced stool test, and an organic acids test. I call them the Essential Trilogy.
Learn about the Essential TrilogyStart with the free webinar
The foundational steps to reverse chronic illness, explained simply. The clearest first step if you're not sure where you sit.
Real stories of transformation
I was in a frustrated place with my health when I sought help from Jarrod. After working with other practitioners and not getting answers, I was relieved to start working with him. I always believed there was something deeper going on. He took a holistic approach, and after targeted testing he revealed the root cause of many of my problems. He has even helped me conceive my first child. It has been a transformational experience.
About Jarrod Cooper ND
I'm a degree-qualified naturopathic doctor and functional medicine practitioner. I hold a Bachelor of Health Science in Naturopathy, I'm a Fellow Member of the Australian Natural Therapies Association, and a member of the Institute for Functional Medicine, with more than a decade in clinical practice.
My own health is part of why I do this work. In my thirties my health slowly declined while I was running a business and raising a family, and it was functional medicine, finding and addressing the root causes rather than managing the symptoms, that turned it around. That experience shaped the framework I now use with every patient and wrote into The Healing Hierarchy.
Common questions
Not sure where you fit? Start here, then the webinar or the book.
Your path forward
Read the book
If you're ready to start, the book is the best first step. It lays out the whole framework, the testing, and the sequence, with eight real cases.
Get The Healing HierarchyDo the program
If you'd like to work through it with guidance, the online program walks you through applying it to your own data.
Explore the programWork with me
And if you have a complex case and want to work with me directly, I take a small number of telehealth patients each year.
See consultation optionsStay in the loop
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