Bringing Clarity to the Invisible.
And Compassion to the Healing Journey
Supporting sensitive systems with understanding, trust, and a path forward.
Clarity. Compassion. Results.
Healing begins the moment we feel seen.
For those navigating CIRS, biotoxin illness, or environmental sensitivities, the experience is often one of dismissal, misunderstanding, or misdiagnosis.
This isn’t just stress.
And it’s not all in your head.
Here, clarity replaces confusion.
Science meets compassion.
And each step forward is shaped around your unique story, grounded, thoughtful, and true to you.
Insight That Honors Complexity
Healing requires nuance.
Each person holds layers: biology, memory, sensitivity, resilience.
CIRS Wellness draws from the pioneering work of leaders in CIRS and environmental medicine, translating research into clear, actionable insight.
You deserve more than generalized advice.
You deserve answers that reflect the whole of who you are, your body, your history, and your lived experience.
A Simple, Grounded Framework for Recovery
Healing doesn’t have to be overwhelming.
This approach rests on three steady pillars:
Evidence-Based Solutions
Rooted in clinical research and emerging science, dependable tools for lasting change.
Compassion & Understanding
Healing isn’t just a protocol. It’s a relationship with your body, your story, and the process itself.
An Integrative Perspective
True recovery honors both modern medicine and ancient wisdom: the nervous system, emotional intelligence, and whole-being alignment.
Clarity Empowers Change
When you understand what’s happening in your body and how to support it, everything begins to shift.
Recognize hidden links between your symptoms and your environment
Identify overlooked root causes
Discover personalized, science-based solutions
Move forward with confidence, peace, and renewed vitality
Melissa Katsakos
NBC-HWC | CIRSx Level 1 Coach & Consultant | HHP
Meet Melissa Katsakos
Practitioner. Guide. Fellow Traveler in Healing.
Healing is a return to what was lost, to what's always been possible, to the quiet wisdom your body never stopped offering.
For 30 years, Melissa has devoted her work as an integrative wellness guide to woman-centered healing. A Holistic Health Practitioner, Massage Therapist, Medical Aesthetician, Nationally Board-Certified Health Coach, and CIRSx Level 1 Coach and Consultant.
Her career bridges clinical understanding and embodied awareness. She has worked alongside leading medical professionals, including over two decades supporting patients in craniofacial plastic surgery, seventeen of those years with Dr. Steven Cohen at FACES+, a pioneer in regenerative medicine and a world-renowned craniofacial surgeon.
That work deepened her understanding of inflammation, nervous system intelligence, and the connections between craniofacial lymphatics, brain health, and whole-being healing. She helped women recover from surgery and chronic conditions with greater ease, comfort, and self-trust.
From 1997 to 2008, Melissa served on faculty at IPSB College, an Esalen-based accredited school of integrative psycho-structural bodywork, where she developed and taught a signature massage therapy course and helped shape a generation of healers through instruction in touch therapy, anatomy, and somatic awareness.
She has also guided students and clients through yoga, Pilates, tai chi, and somatic movement therapy, bridging the intelligence of the body with the science of recovery.
Earlier in her career, she helped open a MediSpa, served as Lead Massage Therapist and Department Manager, and contributed to the early integration of wellness practices within clinical and aesthetic environments.
Beyond her professional path, Melissa's life has been a living study in compassion. As a caregiver and Health Care Proxy for loved ones facing chronic, acute, and terminal illness, she witnessed firsthand how environmental exposures contributed to their suffering, often unrecognized and misdiagnosed as something else.
These experiences gave her a profound respect for the emotional and practical realities of healing, for the quiet courage it takes to keep moving forward, and an even deeper resolve in her mission: to end silent suffering and bring clarity to conditions too often overlooked.
A Path Shaped by Lived Experience
Like so many, Melissa spent years searching for answers to her unexplained health challenges, the uncertainty, the misdiagnoses, the quiet knowing that something deeper was being missed. Looking back, she can trace symptoms to infancy. But it was decades of living in and renovating older homes, making every mistake and absorbing every exposure, that compounded her illness. What should have been fresh starts brought mysterious symptoms instead.
Twelve years ago, a cascade began after eating contaminated shellfish: gastroparesis, nerve pain, vertigo, acute chemical sensitivity, and an exhausting rotation of specialists who never fully connected the dots. Six years later, another wave arrived, this time targeting her brain and nervous system with inflammation, pressure, and unbearable pain.
Over the years, she navigated environmental sensitivities with increasing awareness, living mindfully, choosing clean products, and working with leading EMF and indoor-air professionals to create safe spaces for recovery.
When, finally, the right diagnosis came, everything changed.
Science offered a map. Her symptoms finally made sense. Confusion gave way to clarity.
At that moment, the hard-won understanding of a CIRS diagnosis became the turning point in her life and work. She knows what it costs to be unheard, and what becomes possible when someone finally understands.
Today, Melissa extends that same clarity and compassion to others navigating CIRS and environmental sensitivities, conditions so often misunderstood or overlooked in conventional care.
Because when patterns are understood, movement becomes possible. When support is steady, healing deepens. And when we are seen, we remember who we really are.
Create Your Unique Healing Strategy
Healing is never one-size-fits-all.
Your body is unique, and your path should reflect that.
Personalized Healing
Your plan evolves with you, honoring your rhythms, history, and needs.
Collaborative Support
With the right team, integrating medical insight, holistic tools, and compassionate guidance, transformation unfolds naturally.
Empowered Decision-Making
When you understand your biology, your environment, and your options, you make choices that feel aligned and clear.
A Commitment to Whole-Being Wellness
A compassionate approach blends lived experience, clinical research, and heart-centered care to support true, lasting healing.
Empowered Recovery
Becoming your own best advocate- resourced, resilient, and attuned.
Whole-Being Resilience
Supporting the nervous system, emotional intelligence, and mind-body connection as essential elements of recovery.
Precision-Based Healing
Evidence-guided care tailored to you, not just your symptoms.
Training & Credentials
CIRS & Environmental Health
• CIRSx Level 1 Coach & Consultant (CIRSx Institute)
• Advanced BioGeometry Foundation Certification
Coaching & Health
• NBC-HWC (National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach)
• Dr. Amen Licensed Brain Health Trainer
• Coaching Mastery & Gut Health (Institute for Integrative Nutrition)
• Founding Member, Foundations of Woman-Centered Coaching at Evolving Wisdom
• Accredited Practitioner in Hypnotherapy
Bodywork & Somatic Healing
• Holistic Health Practitioner (HHP) — IPSB College
• ABMP Certified (Associated Bodywork & Massage Professionals)
• Manual Lymphatic Drainage Therapy I (Dr. Vodder School International)
• Certified Energy Healing Professional (Cyndi Dale / The Shift Network)
Medical Aesthetics
• Licensed Medical Esthetician (CA License Z39671)
• ASCP Member (Associated Skin Care Professionals)
Education
• BS Interior Design, Florida International University (Cum Laude)
• Diploma, Holistic Health Practitioner — IPSB College