HAVE YOU HEARD OF FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE?
I’m about to embark on a journey with a Functional Medicine Physician that I’ll share with you as I move forward.
My first time seeing what I thought was a Functional Doctor turned out to be a Chiropractor who claims to be a Functional Doctor. After several visits, I wasn’t impressed and stopped seeing her.
Wasted my money since I wasn’t seeking a Chiropractor. But it was my fault because I knew she wasn’t a medical physician when I made my appointment.
After extensive research, I’d been unable to find any medical physicians in my community who are practicing functional medicine.
Then I found them. They aren’t in my area but they use the virtual model where we can communicate virtually.
WHAT IS FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE?
It’s where Clinicians use advanced diagnostic tools to look at things like your hormones, genetics, and the gut microbiome.
From there, they often find that several of the symptoms you’re dealing with are connected to a root cause. They then work with you to create a personalized plan to address that issue which includes nutrition, sleep, fitness, supplements, and mental health.
WHY DOES FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE WORK?
Because it looks at advanced testing, your genetics, and your lifestyle to get to the root cause of your symptoms and create a treatment plan that is unique to you (since no two people are alike).
The foundation of functional medicine is the use of food as first-line therapy.
The right nutrition, combined with lifestyle and behavioral interventions will help with your health.
If traditional medicine is found to be needed, then everything is incorporated into the plan using an integrative approach after the detective work is complete
I have various unrelated (in the traditional medical sense) medical issues that I talk about in other articles that include; skin, allergy, gastro, and thyroid issues, where I’ve been to Allergists, Gastroenterologist, Dermatololigists, etc. and without knowing what might possibly be the cause, I get prescribed pills and creams.
Pills and creams that can cause other medical issues. Then I have to get a pill for that issue and on and on…
Since I feel strongly that there must be a root cause for the various issues that I have, I researched and found that my environment and what I ingest play a big part in how I feel and how healthy I am.
I had a food sensitivity test done and it shows me to be sensitive to yeast (brewers and bakers), wheat, chicken, egg white, coffee.
Being sensitive to brewers’ yeast means being sensitive to things like pickles, soy sauce, condiments, etc.
When I removed these items from my diet during the elimination process, it was amazing how much better I felt.
But I need help from professionals to help me further.
This is where the functional doctor comes in.
I’m trying to find ways to reduce inflammation, reduce blood pressure, increase thyroid health and feel better overall without or with as little medication as possible.
Stay tuned to my articles as I share my functional/health experience.