REDEFINING CHRONIC CARE
Kids, Teens & Adults
Nutrition
Counseling
Your medication has a job. So does your
plate.
And They Don't Have to Compete
If you or your child has an autoimmune or rheumatic condition, chances are you've been made to feel that half your pantry is causing inflammation. And your rheumatologist probably told you diet has nothing to do with it or your disease.
​
So you're stuck between two extremes: cut out everything, or don't bother. Neither one is true, and neither one helps you. What you need is someone to tell you what actually matters, what you can stop stressing about, and how to make it work around school lunches, busy workdays, picky eaters, and the occasional birthday party.
Our Registered Dietitian, Kellie Blake, RDN, LD, IFNCP, cuts through the noise with a plan grounded in research and built around your diagnosis and your real life.
Part of your Care Team
Nutrition that talks to the rest of your care
At Rheum to Grow, nutrition is one of our four core lifestyle pillars, alongside movement, sleep, and nervous system regulation. Kellie works within our integrative rheumatology model, so if you're also a patient of Dr. Singla's, your care is coordinated. And whether or not you see Dr. Singla, Kellie always works alongside the treatment plan from your rheumatologist, never against it.
​
You don't need to be an established Rheum to Grow patient to see Kellie. Families and adults can book with her directly.
Not a magic one.
Use Food As A Powerful
Tool
What Food Can Actually Do
What Food Can't Do
-
Support your medication, not compete with it. Some nutrients affect how your medications work or what they deplete. Methotrexate and folate is the classic example. This is a real, measurable place where food and treatment intersect.
​
-
Help with the side effects you're living with. Nausea on methotrexate. Appetite and blood sugar changes on prednisone. Constipation, reflux, and the stomach issues nobody warned you about.
​
-
Protect your bones. Steroids are hard on bones, and kids and teens are building the bone mass they'll carry for life. Calcium, vitamin D, and protein matter here.
​
-
Lower your heart risk. Inflammatory conditions raise cardiovascular risk on their own, and steroids can push cholesterol and blood pressure up further. Diet is one of the strongest tools you have for this.
​
-
Address fatigue that has a fixable cause. Low iron, low B12, low vitamin D, skipped meals, and blood sugar swings all drag on energy, and all of them respond to change.
​
-
Keep growth on track. For kids and teens, appetite loss and restricted eating can quietly affect growth and weight over time.
​
-
Take some pressure off joint pain and stiffness. Research on Mediterranean-style eating in inflammatory arthritis shows modest improvements in pain and function. Modest is not nothing, but it's not a replacement for treatment either.
​
-
Give you your relationship with food back. After enough elimination diets, this matters more than people expect.
-
It can't replace your medication. Nothing in your kitchen stops joint/organ damage the way your treatment does. Stopping medication to try a diet is how people lose function they don't get back.
​
-
It can't cure your disease or make it go away forever. Anyone promising that is selling something.
​
-
It can't stop a flare on its own. Food can support you through one. It can't end one.
​
-
It can't undo genetics. Nothing you fed, or didn't feed, yourself or your child caused this. Autoimmunity is complex, and there isn't one fix. What you eat is one lever among several, and it's one of the few you get to control.
​
-
It doesn't work overnight. Most of what matters here shows up over months, not days. The diets that make you feel incredible for two weeks usually aren't the ones that last.
​
-
There's no one autoimmune diet. What helps depends on your diagnosis, your medications, your labs, your symptoms, and your life. That's the whole reason this is a visit and not a printout or protocol.
Meet Kellie Blake, RDN, LD, IFNCP
A dietitian who knows the science and lives the reality.
Kellie is a Registered Dietitian with more than 20 years of clinical experience. Her career has spanned acute care hospital nutrition and psychiatric nutrition, which gives her a deep understanding of how closely food, mood, and stress are connected. She was named one of Today's Dietitian magazine's Top Ten Dietitians, serves as faculty and a mentor with the Integrative and Functional Nutrition Academy, and has authored three books on autoimmune nutrition, including two cookbooks. Her writing has appeared in Integrative Practitioner and other industry publications.
​
There's one more thing Kellie brings to every session: she lives with an autoimmune condition herself.
​
She knows what it's like when your body doesn't cooperate, when fatigue wipes out a day you had big plans for, and when every source seems to give different advice about what you "should" be eating. That's the bridge Kellie builds for her patients. She can read the research, and she knows what it takes to make it work on a Tuesday night when you're tired.
​
Follow Up Visits​
​
-
You'll go over what's working and what isn't, and adjust from there. Nobody follows a plan perfectly. The goal is to figure out what to change, not to start over.
-
This is also where you handle what changes along the way: a new medication, a flare, weight or growth shifts, a new school year, a sport season, or labs worth a closer look.
-
How often you come back is up to you. Some people check in monthly while they're building new habits. Others come back a few times a year, or when something changes.
During the Visit
​
-
Kellie reviews the whole picture with you: diagnosis, medications, labs, symptoms, energy, digestion, sleep, and what mealtimes actually look like right now.
-
She asks what makes food hard at your house. Long workdays. A kid who lives on three foods. Flare weeks, sports schedules, four people who all want something different for dinner.
-
You'll sort through what's worth changing and what you can let go of, so you walk out knowing which advice applies to you and which you can stop worrying about.
-
For kids and teens, parents are part of the conversation. Kellie keeps food talk positive and pressure free, because how anyone feels about eating, at nine or at forty, tends to stick.
​
You leave with a plan you can start that week. A few specific changes, built around adding food rather than taking it away, that fit your schedule and your budget.
How to Book:
​
-
Submit your booking request. It takes a minute.
-
We'll call you. We'll take payment and walk you through logging into the patient portal.
-
Complete your intake paperwork. This includes a food intake form so Kellie knows your eating patterns before you sit down together, plus a release so we can gather your medical records and labs.
Step 1
Book An Appointment
(All visits are virtual)
Step 2
The Initial Nutrition Assessment
(60 min)
Step 3
Follow Up Visits: Frequency based on individualized needs.
(30-45 min)
What Happens At Your
Visits
Pricing
Initial Consultation (60 minutes): $225
Follow Up care (frequency based on individualized needs) (30-45 min): $125
Frequent Asked
Questions
Where is Kellie licensed, and are visits virtual? Kellie sees patients virtually in Texas, West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky. Virtual means no drive, no waiting room, and no missed school or work.​
Do I have to be Dr. Singla's patient first? No. You can book with Kellie directly, whether or not you see Dr. Singla.
Is she going to take away everything I like? No. Kellie works by adding, not subtracting. If a food really is a problem for you, she'll help you figure that out properly instead of banning entire food groups on a hunch.
Can food replace my medication? No, and Kellie won't ask you to choose. Your treatment does something food can't, which is protect your joints from damage. What food does is work alongside it: supporting your energy, your digestion, your bones, and how you feel day to day. It's also doing quieter long-term work, lowering the risk of the conditions that travel with autoimmune disease, like heart disease, high cholesterol, and osteoporosis.
My child is really picky. Is this going to be a fight? No. Kellie keeps food talk positive and pressure free, and she works with what your child will actually eat rather than handing you a list they'll refuse.
How many visits will I need? That's up to you. Some people check in monthly while building new habits. Others come back a few times a year, or when something changes.
Can I use my HSA or FSA? Yes. HSA and FSA cards are accepted.
Will I get a superbill to submit to my insurance? Yes. We provide a superbill after your visit that you can submit to your insurance for possible out-of-network reimbursement. Coverage depends on your individual plan.
Why isn't this covered by insurance directly? Most plans only pay for nutrition counseling once you already have a qualifying diagnosis like diabetes, high cholesterol, or high blood pressure. Autoimmune conditions aren't on that list. We'd rather help you now than wait until you qualify.​​
