Functional Medicine and What I love about it
I love functional medicine because it is rooted in science, but also understands that we are all uniquely wired and that our body systems are not separate. They are constantly communicating and responding to the environment in which we are asking it to live in. The human body is incredible and is miraculously designed to detoxify, nourish, sleep, move, grow, fight off invaders, think, create and achieve amazing things but in order for it to do this, free of disease or illness, you have to meet your body’s unique needs with healthy choices. The Functional Medicine model is an individualized, patient-centered, science-based approach that empowers patients and practitioners to work together to address the underlying causes of disease and promote optimal wellness.1 In other words it looks at WHY disease is happening in the body in the first place and takes into account a person’s individual stories to restore health based on what we scientifically know about how the body works. It treats the whole person, not just the symptoms of disease. All systems are connected and not a collection of independent organs. Functional medicine looks at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors on an individual basis and values the mind body connection.
You know what else I love about functional medicine science? It focuses on wellness, health and views symptoms as gifts from the body to explore and listen to. Symptoms are not to be suppressed and told to go away with drugs that merely mask what your body is working hard to give you. Listen to them! Your body is so intelligent. It takes your body energy to give you these gifts of symptoms so listen to them. Your body’s ultimate goal is one of survival and wellness and it does everything it can to promote this. Yes, it is certainly easier to open a bottle and pop a few pills then it is to make a green smoothie and support your immune system by going to bed at 9:30 instead of choosing to mindlessly watch TV until one in the morning. What you choose to do with your lifestyle will create a state of wellness or one of dis-ease in your unique body! You do have the power to feel good and functional medicine is a powerful, scientific tool to create wellness in your body by getting to the root of YOUR dis-ease. Come on you can do this it’s time to CHOOSE AMPLE HEALTH!
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Functional Medicine vs. Conventional Medicine
Where conventional medicine shines is in the case of acute injury or illness. Believe me, if I was to break my leg or have a life threatening event I would want to have conventional medicine intervention. Where conventional medicine doesn’t shine is in the management of chronic illness or disease. Conventional medicine generally treats chronic illness by masking symptoms with prescriptions, rather than getting to the root cause and healing the body as a whole. Rather it looks at each organ or body system separately, hence all the different “specialty” doctors we have in the conventional model of care. It is impossible to get to the root cause of somebody’s chronic health issue when the body is not looked at as a whole. Our world is suffering with chronic health conditions and our current conventional medicine practices are not curing disease or helping people to thrive but rather just masking symptoms and creating more ill health with prescription medications. Chronic health conditions affect about 50% of all American adults 2 and in fact, it’s our nation’s leading cause of death and disability.1 Many people with chronic disease have an autoimmune disease. And if you have one autoimmune disease you are three times more likely to develop another. Beginning autoimmune conditions range from having symptoms like constipation or acne, to having fatigue, gut issues or joint pain to the full-blown autoimmune conditions such as hashimoto’s thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis or lupus to just name a few. Sadly, our current healthcare system offers very little to combat autoimmune conditions or chronic illness. It relies heavily on prescription drugs that come with side effects that are even worse than the problems they are supposed to be helping. This bothers me to my core and motivates me to be an advocate for functional medicine. HEALTH is possible but our current healthcare system doesn’t empower people to understand that. Although there can be a genetic component to many autoimmune diseases as well as chronic illness your genes are NOT your destiny! Your choices do matter because environment, diet, and lifestyle are 75% of the cause of autoimmune disease. This means you have a lot of control over your health. Exciting! But this also means that a magic pill isn’t going to do the trick.3 And this is where functional medicines shines by getting to the unique root cause of a person’s disease. There is hope when you combine education, inspiration and the desire to make changes so you can feel vibrant, happy and well. It’s time to seek real solutions that can improve and influence your long-term health. Fortunately, functional medicine offers many solutions. Come on it’s time to be a healthy deviant and I am here to education, inspire and partner with you on your journey. You have everything to gain and nothing to loose.
