About
HummingBird Health
Located off the
beautiful shores of Little Traverse Bay in Northern Michigan, HummingBird Health
is dedicated to helping those who wish to take an active role in their health,
achieve their health goals. We offer a variety of alternative and complimentary
healing modalities as well as classes in natural health options. The office is
fully "handi-abled" accessible and has some excellent lodging and eating
establishments nearby.
Dr. Bridget 'Bird'
Houston, ND NHE was the driving force behind HummingBird Health. She had a Doctor of Naturopathy from Trinity College of Natural
Medicine and a degree in
Natural Health Education from the Naturopathic Institute of Therapies and
Education.
She had additional training and certification in Homotoxicology, color therapy, sound therapy,
environmental toxins, and
holistic fertility, conception and childbirth.
Bridget's daughter, June Houston, CN has taken over as the paramount practitioner of the of Hummingbird Health in her mother's honor and continues to see clients with all the knowledge Bridget had entrusted to her throughout her life. She completed
high school early and is a graduate of HINT, attaining her Holistic Health Education degree in 2013 (at just age 17) and finishing with her Certified Naturopath degree in 2017.
June also has a remarkable passion for animals. She started rescuing and
healing sick and injured horses at the tender age of 13. With plenty
of hands-on experience from working with her own animals, she loves seeing
people as well as their pets and teaching them all about the holistic health options
for themselves as well as their furry friends. She is also a Neuro-Acoustic Therapist and offers this remarkable therapy in our offices.
Dale Houston is our
General Manager and Chief Financial Officer. After many years of managing a number of companies, he
does his best to keep our overhead low, so we can offer services and products as
inexpensively as possible.
More About Bridget and How HummingBird
Health Came to Be
"In
the fall of 1997,
I was diagnosed with idiopathic systemic necrotizing vasculitis. A
fancy medical way of saying that for unknown reasons my capillaries
and veins were exploding... and I was dying. The Allopathic model called
for chemotherapy and steroids. However, I was already on steroids on a regular basis
for controlling a chronic case of asthma and they were doing nothing to control
the vasculitis. The outlook was pretty grim. At best, maybe six months. I had
watched my mom suffer through chemo for breast cancer just a few years before and had no desire to die that way. I decided that if I was dying anyway, I had nothing to lose by
trying the so-called 'alternative' route. I'm glad I did! I no longer have a vasculitis and the asthma that once
required multiple inhalers, regular nebulizer treatments and rounds of steroids
has been gone for nearly 20 years as well. The sinus and allergy problems have also
been corrected. I still have a ways to go. It took me thirty years to destroy my
body to the point it almost killed me, if it takes me thirty years to fix it,
that's okay. At least now, I know how.
I
made some mistakes along my road to recovery. One of the first people I saw was
a Master Herbalist who decided that since vasculitis was heart related, I should
take lots of red clover, which I was told was good for the heart. A day later I
was bleeding worse than ever and called the herbalist back in a panic. I was
told if it wasn't working for me, just stop taking it. I found this shocking,
frustrating and mostly frightening. Still unwilling to surrender to chemo and
death, I started researching herbs for myself. The herbalist was right about the correlation between red clover and SOME types of heart problems.
There was
plenty of information out there touting the benefits of red clover for people with heart issues, but very little
explanation of how it worked. Then I learned it was loaded with coumarins, as in
the drug coumadin... it's an effective blood thinner. Great for those heart
folks that need thinner blood, but not so great for a vasculitis person that is
already bleeding! And so began a quest to learn HOW things worked. I was
completely fascinated, not only by herbalism but the whole realm of naturopathy
from acupressure to sound therapy. As I became healthier and stronger, others
with serious illnesses began knocking my
door asking for my help. I knew plenty about dealing with vasculitis and my many other health problems,
but little about other serious ailments. With plenty of encouragement from my
wonderful husband, school followed and HummingBird Health Consultants, llc was born.
A health food store and a school of our own to teach
others, eventually followed.
Education
continues to be a large part of my life. The more I learn, the more I realize is
out there. I will no doubt be a life-long student of natural healing. I have
been blessed to learn from some of the best in their fields. They have my
deepest appreciation for sharing knowledge that one would likely never find in a book.
I also thank my mother, an RN for over 40 years who, despite
her training, was willing to take a brave leap off the Allopathic merry-go-round
with me. She is now a 30-year cancer survivor!"
~Bridget, 2024
More About Bridget's Passing
In the fall of 2025, a CT scan revealed a growth appeared on Bridget's pancreas. The biopsy revealed a highly aggressive form of cancer with "an acquired genetic mutation", meaning something, most likely a virus (like CoVID), added a gene to these already aggressive cancer cells that makes them 100 time more rapid growing and resistant to any kind of potential treatment. It is considered 100% fatal. Although we caught this early and before she even had symptoms, she only responded favorably to all our efforts for a short time. As a family, we had decided to remain quiet as she fought the good fight before making it public, hoping to announce by spring that she beat this. Unfortunately, the genetic mutation kicked into hyper drive and the cancer was everywhere. She passed away February 15, 2026.
Before her passing, Bridget wanted to share these last parting words with everyone:
"Hello all.
I am sad to be leaving you. My love and gratitude to every one of you. I feel so very blessed to have so many cherished clients who gave me the opportunity to help with their health goals over the last 25 years. There are truly so many of you!
I hope that this loss will not shake your faith in holistic medicine. 29 years ago, I was given 3 to 6 months to live. Alternative medicine gave me these extra 29 years. And despite the loss, I still believe that holistic medicine has much to offer in the vast majority of cases. I have been training my daughter, June, since she was a child. And with this last decade, she has acquired skills and knowledge beyond my own and became my teacher and mentor as well. June has been absolutely amazing through this final journey. I am so blessed to have her and Dale in my life. I am certain I'm leaving you all in excellent hands. Thought I have no doubt she'll feel my loss keenly for the rest of her life, it gives me comfort to know that she will be carrying on my legacy.
God Bless you all!"
Bridget
