What is Functional Medicine?

Instead of asking what prescription can be written to mask symptoms, Functional Medicine asks, “Why did this problem occur, to begin with?” and “What can we do to restore function?”

The surgery and prescription drugs that conventional medicine has to offer can be life-saving in some instances! If, heaven forbid, I needed my appendix out—you can bet I’d be on my way to the nearest hospital as fast as I could get there. However, acute care measures like drugs and surgery are not the best solutions for chronic health issues like digestive problems, hormone imbalance, or autoimmune disease that can impact your quality of life for the long-run.

Functional Medicine uses science-backed, clinically proven methods.

Using advanced diagnostic testing and treatments that might include nutrition/diet, lifestyle changes, supplements and herbs, hormone replacement, and emotional/spiritual coaching, Functional Medicine aims to restore optimal function both at a cellular and body system level, with the goal of inspired, optimal health throughout your entire life.

These concepts characterize Functional Medicine:

• The belief that your body is intelligent and has the ability to heal itself when proper nutrients are provided and impediments to healing are removed. By supporting the healing mechanisms of the body, and addressing the complex web of interconnected body-systems, the physiological function is restored and symptoms disappear.

• That health is not defined by lack of disease or symptoms, but rather by optimal vitality.

• That we are treating the individual patient, not the disease. Each of us is genetically unique, and no two patients with the same disease or symptoms will have the exact same underlying causes. When forming a diagnosis for a your symptoms, Functional Medicine acknowledges that chronic illness is often the result of more than one cause.

• Functional Medicine is science-based. Practitioners use the latest research in combination with time-tested clinical strategies to help their patients achieve lasting results.

• That your Timeline matters. Taking an in-depth look at your personal health history, chronologically, helps to identify factors that predispose and contribute to pathological changes. This can illuminate cause-effect relationships that might otherwise be overlooked. Identifying contributing factors along the whole lifespan helps clients to connect these triggers to their current health, and empowers them to motivate changes and participate in their treatment.

Functional Medicine Doctors are revolutionizing the healthcare system.

I am honored and grateful to be part of a “Functional Medicine army” of practitioners whose numbers and influence are growing by the day.

Using Functional Medicine to restore health from the root prevents chronic disease, saving thousands and thousands of medical dollars potentially spent over the course of a lifetime, by keeping people out of the hospital and off years of expensive prescriptions.

You don’t need to wait until you have a disease diagnosis to use Functional Medicine.

So many of my patients tell me that prior to working with me, they told their doctor about symptoms they were experiencing, and had testing run, but were told that there was “nothing wrong with them”, or that they should “wait and watch” to see what happens.

There is a famous Chinese Medicine proverb that says, “If you wait until you are already thirsty to dig a well, it is too late”.  If you wait to treat, until you have a nameable disease, the disease process will have already progressed.

If the tool you have is to prescribe a drug when a disease has worsened to the point that the drug is warranted, there isn’t much you can offer the patient to help themselves avoid getting to that point.

The earlier we intervene, the more likely you are to get full recovery.

Health is not defined by a lack of symptoms; our objective is optimal vitality and inspired wellness!