Meet the Doctor

Dr. April Vukelic, D.O. — CIRS, mold illness, and osteopathic physician
April Vukelic, D.O., FMCP-M, Quadruple Board-Certified Physician

Dr. April Vukelic is one of a small number of physicians in the country with deep, hands-on expertise in CIRS and biotoxin illness. She is quadruple board-certified by the Institute for Functional Medicine, the American Board of Family Medicine, the American Board of Preventive Medicine, and the American Board of Addiction Medicine. In 2022 she was named Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor at the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine — and she brings all of it to bear on some of the most complex, misunderstood cases in medicine.

Most of her patients have spent years being told their symptoms are vague, stress-related, or "in their head." They've often seen a dozen specialists before they find her. Dr. Vukelic's work begins with the premise that their suffering is real, measurable, and treatable — and that the science to explain it already exists. Her job is to connect the dots.

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Expertise in CIRS and Biotoxin Illness

She is a founding member of the CIRS Academy and certified in the Shoemaker Protocol, the peer-reviewed gold standard for treating biotoxin illness from water-damaged buildings. She authored one chapter and co-authored seven others in Nutrition and Integrative Medicine for Clinicians, published by Routledge Press — the largest textbook publisher in the world — alongside Dr. Shoemaker and other leading researchers in the field. In 2023, Dr. Vukelic received the CIRSx/Shoemaker Book Award for her work on the textbook. Her published case study appears in Dr. Shoemaker's own reference text, The Art and Science of CIRS Medicine.

She also holds certification in Dr. Dale Bredesen's ReCODE 2.0 program for reversing cognitive decline — a critical tool given that the vast majority of CIRS patients experience significant neurological symptoms, from brain fog and memory loss to word-finding difficulty, along with debilitating fatigue.

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The Osteopathic Dimension

As a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, Dr. Vukelic trained directly with two of the most respected figures in the field — Dr. James Jealous and Dr. Ed Stiles — in cranial, biodynamic, and key lesion osteopathy. This hands-on dimension of care sets her apart. For patients living with the physical toll of chronic inflammation — pain, tension, poor circulation, and a nervous system stuck in overdrive — osteopathic treatment offers a kind of relief that medication alone cannot provide.

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Specialized Expertise in Low Back Pain

Dr. Vukelic is one of only two physicians in the world certified by Dr. Stuart McGill, the internationally recognized authority on spine biomechanics and low back disorders. She has completed Dr. McGill's full course sequence and has pursued advanced in-person training with Dr. McGill in 2023, 2024, and 2025. For patients who have been told their only options are injections, surgery, or "learning to live with it," the McGill Method offers something different: a precise, evidence-based approach to understanding exactly what is driving the pain — and a path forward that most clinicians have never been trained to provide.

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An Integrated Approach

Dr. Vukelic draws on environmental medicine, functional medicine, osteopathy, nutrition, and preventive medicine, tailoring her approach to what each patient needs and is seeking. She is equally passionate about two dimensions of her work: the detective work of diagnosing and treating CIRS and other complex chronic illnesses, and the hands-on healing of osteopathy and manual medicine.

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Her patients come to her for biotoxin illness, chronic fatigue, cognitive decline, immune dysfunction, and a long list of conditions that have not resolved through conventional care. Many have Lyme disease and co-infections such as Bartonella and Babesia, Long COVID and post-viral illness, Epstein-Barr reactivation, or parasites. Others carry diagnoses that tend to travel together: Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and hypermobility, POTS and dysautonomia, mast cell activation syndrome, cervical instability, chronic sinusitis, small fiber neuropathy, interstitial cystitis, and PANS/PANDAS. She also treats patients burdened by heavy metals, organic toxins, glyphosate, and microplastics, and the gut, hormone, and autoimmune problems that so often come with them. She also treats the symptoms that come without a clear diagnosis: tinnitus, vertigo, and dizziness; rashes, hives, and itching; chronic headaches; poor sleep; and multiple chemical sensitivity with severe food intolerance. Whatever the diagnosis, she is comfortable caring for very sensitive patients, the ones who react to everything and cannot tolerate usual doses, and every plan she writes is built for the person in front of her.

Her functional medicine training covers the problems that run underneath many of these illnesses: candida and yeast overgrowth, gluten sensitivity and celiac disease, nutrient deficiencies, MTHFR and methylation problems, adrenal and HPA axis dysfunction, insulin resistance and blood sugar swings, chronic inflammation and mitochondrial dysfunction, and oxalate, histamine, and salicylate sensitivity. She also treats the hormone changes that complicate recovery, including perimenopause and low testosterone, and the nervous system dysregulation that keeps so many patients stuck, drawing on vagus nerve work and limbic retraining where they fit.

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Medicine is only part of recovery. Dr. Vukelic is also a personal trainer, and she works with patients on the lifestyle and dietary changes that make treatment hold: what to eat, how to move, how to sleep, and how to rebuild strength without flaring. For patients whose bodies hurt, her hands-on osteopathic work and her training in low back disorders with Dr. Stuart McGill let her address the mechanical side of pain directly, so that feeling better and functioning better happen together.

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What ties it all together is a simple conviction: complex illness deserves a doctor willing to do the work of understanding it. That's the care she offers — and it's why her patients, many of whom had nearly given up, find their way back to their lives.