Betsey Neddermeyer

Physician Assistant Betsey Neddermeyer practiced primary care in a traditional setting for nine years, but after going through her own difficult health journey she knew she needed to make a change. 

She faced a variety of challenges including being diagnosed with a genetic mutation and having a bilateral mastectomy at a young age. 

“As a patient, I just wasn’t as educated as I probably should have been,” she said. “Some of that could have been because I was a provider and they assumed I knew things, but I personally feel like my care was crappy.”

Wanting to do more as a provider, Neddermeyer began to look beyond the scope of traditional care and discovered functional medicine. 

Traditional vs. functional

In traditional medicine, the focus is on diagnosing and treating specific diseases and symptoms, often with a focus on pharmaceuticals and surgery. It is usually more focused on short-term symptom relief, especially for acute conditions. 

“You come in and you’re already sick or there’s a problem, and we’re just throwing a Band-Aid on it, an antidepressant or a blood pressure pill,” Neddermeyer said of traditional medicine. “We’re not telling you lifestyle-wise, you should be doing all these things.” 

Functional medicine is a personalized, science-based approach to health care that focuses on identifying and addressing the root causes of a disease. Unlike conventional medicine, it emphasizes the interconnectedness of the body’s systems and considers how factors like genetics, diet, lifestyle and environment impact health over time. 

“The functional, or integrative, health region of medicine is 100% for the patient,” she said. “We’re constantly improving things, changing things and it’s always about the patient and how we can improve longevity.”

Feeling she could no longer practice in the traditional space, in 2023, Neddermeyer opened True Body Medical Aesthetics and Wellness in Cody with the vision of creating a healthy person inside and out. 

“In the functional wellness space, it’s the whole picture and how to optimize that as best we can,” she said. “We want to provide the best care possible, the care that they deserve. Any new service, any new medication, anything we bring on, we look back at that mission. Is this going to help the patient? That’s what we’re all about.” 

The whole picture

Functional medicine providers like Neddermeyer use advanced lab testing and diagnostics to create tailored treatment plans that may include medications, natural supplements, therapeutic diets, detox programs and stress management. By taking the time to understand a patient’s full medical history and life context, they aim to prevent illness and promote overall well-being by targeting the underlying issues rather than just the symptoms.

“Rather than looking at someone’s labs and saying, ‘Oh, your labs look normal,’ it’s diving into it,” Neddermeyer said. “OK, your labs look normal based on those reference ranges, but you just came in here saying you’re tired, you can’t get up in the morning, you’re gaining weight and you don’t know why. Those are symptoms, and we know that XYZ hormones can actually help fix those. So why don’t we start with the natural thing first? And a lot of times it works.”

Neddermeyer says the goal for each client is to give them small manageable goals to reach optimal wellness.

“The majority of our clients that are coming in say, ‘I just don’t feel good, and I want to feel better,’” she said. “It’s getting their lives back on track one step at a time and meeting them at where they’re at. We’re not overloading them with everything because it can get super overwhelming.” 

At True Body, Neddermeyer offers many functional wellness services including:

• Hormone Replacement Therapy

• Peptide Therapy

• Medical Weight Loss

• Biological Age Testing and Optimization

• Gut and Allergy Testing

• Nutritionist Counseling

• Multi-Cancer Early Detection Screening

• Genetic Marker Screen and Counseling

• Sexual Wellness

• Inbody Composition Scanning

• Micronutrient and Antioxidant Testing

• Genetic Wellness Testing

• Primary Care

She said genetic testing provides personalized insights into your health, nutrition, fitness and risk factors for certain conditions. By analyzing an individual’s DNA, Neddermeyer can provide tailored recommendations to optimize lifestyle, prevent disease and enhance overall quality of life.

“Once you have your genetic genome, you literally can go anywhere with it and be like, ‘Oh, my blood pressure is going up. OK, based on my genetics, it says that these medications won’t be good for me, but these will be good for me. Also, this lifestyle is going to be the best for me to reduce my blood pressure,’” she added. 

And if a genetic test shows a risk for certain chronic conditions such as diabetes, osteoporosis or Hashimoto’s, they can work out a preventative plan.

“So if you’re at risk for diabetes, we don’t want to wait until you become a prediabetic to treat you,” she said. “We’re going to optimize your A1C and get your blood sugars as dialed as we possibly can so you never even get there.”

Hormone replacement therapy also is available and can improve a variety of issues including depression, anxiety, mood, weight loss, libido, energy, sleep, acne, PCOS, muscle mass and hair loss.

“We try to use purely natural hormones if we can, we try not to do a lot of synthetics,” Neddermeyer said. 

Peptides, meanwhile, can lead to faster recovery, increased muscle development, fat loss, improved skin quality and better sleep.

“A peptide is a short chain of amino acids,” she said. “If you build a bunch of amino acids, you get proteins, and proteins are the building blocks of life.”

There are many options out there and Neddermeyer herself can feel overwhelmed by all the information available. That is why True Body offers free consultations before anyone commits to services. 

“I just wanted people to feel like it’s a place where you can come ask questions and we can hash them out so you feel like there are opportunities to make things better and there are options,” she said. “I want people to leave here feeling empowered and educated.” 

A recent addition to the True Body team is the product and service specialist, who sits down and goes through every service so clients can determine which best applies to them.

“You don’t know what you don’t know,” Neddermeyer said. “So we’ll help guide you down the path. We offer those free consultations on purpose, because we don’t want to be scary. We want to be very welcoming.” 

Continuing to grow

In its first year True Body was open just one day a week. Two years later it has grown so much it’s open every weekday and Neddermeyer is looking to hire a second provider because her schedule is booked out for months. She started with weight loss and body composition, before adding women’s and men’s health, followed by peptide therapy. 

“People are thirsty for it and want the care, so we’re adding onto that,” she said. “We also have other departments like skincare, aesthetics and injectables.”

Neddermeyer also tries to do events to educate the public, including monthly webinars. 

“I also did a movie night at the theater where we watched a film on hormones so people could come and empower their own mind,” she said. “We’ve really taken off. I wasn’t expecting it, but I’m very grateful. I hope it continues to grow and evolve and change people’s lives.”

Most functional medicine treatments are not covered by insurance but Neddermeyer does her best to make it affordable, offering payment plans and a VIP program. 

“I try to make it really streamlined,” she said. “Care doesn’t need to be complicated. It also doesn’t need to be a financial burden.” 

To learn more go to truebodymedispa.com.