What is Functional Medicine?
The functional medicine model of care offers a patient-centered approach to finding out the root cause of illness.
Have questions about functional medicine?
The Functional Medicine Lingo
Functional. Integrative. Holistic. Alternative. Complimentary and alternative medicine. These are all words that are often used interchangeably in the world of wellness. For simplicity, they all mean the same thing. There are technically subtle differences between each term, but the word “functional” is used throughout to make things nice, streamlined, and easy to read.
Alternatively, you have terms like traditional, allopathic, conventional, mainstream, and Western medicine. These are all used to describe our regular healthcare system and its practices where licensed doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals treat symptoms and diseases with medication, surgery, radiation, and other therapies and procedures. If that is what traditional healthcare system does then you might be wondering…
So, what is functional medicine?
Functional medicine is an alternate way of helping a person feel better outside what is considered traditional medicine.
About twenty years ago, many like-minded healthcare providers started an individualized approach to medical treatment.
They wanted to see better results for their patients and chronic illness management.
Their goal was to find a root cause of disease by understanding how that person’s unique body system worked, and what triggers were causing the imbalance. This became known as functional medicine.
What does functional medicine do for me?
The functional medicine model of care offers a patient-centered approach to finding out the root cause of illness. Don’t get me wrong, we need conventional medicine for acute issues, and it saves lives every day, but in the chronic illness arena, we need something more.
We need practitioners who have time, empathy, and purpose. We need practitioners who are going to look at all the timelines of change in our life, our lifestyles, our diets, our habits. We have access to those practitioners through the lens of functional medicine. These types of practitioners spend the time taking a thorough history to try and identify specific triggers that could be contributing to your health concerns. These triggers could be poor nutrition, stress, toxins, or allergens, to name a few.
Once we can identify the triggers, we can individualize a plan to get that person’s body system to its optimal state of health.
Why should I even care about having a functional medicine practitioner?
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The epidemic of chronic illness has been changing slowly since the 1970s. This is when packaging goods, increased use of plastics, and other toxins started to become mainstream. We went from living off the land, to living off of the factory. Nutrients are harder to find. Literally. Our soil is much more depleted than it was in the 1970s and the standard American diet (SAD) completely lacks nutrients.
As nutrients are depleted, illness increases. Household roles have changed, and the need for speed and productivity has increased, leaving our nervous systems in overdrive. Nearly everyone you know has a chronic condition they are on medication to treat. The trend points towards the need to change. A change where we start taking charge of our health by feeling empowered, listened to, and validated by the practitioners.
Where does Shore Integrative Health fit in?
Here at Shore Integrative Health, we want to give you the functional medicine care you deserve. We will take our time to go through your history, past medical treatment, potential triggers of your symptoms, nutritional deficiencies, and ways to get you feeling better. If necessary, we can use additional functional lab testing to identify specific pathogens (bacteria, viruses, parasites, etc.), food sensitivities, hormonal imbalances, and much more. We will also identify emotional, social, and physical barriers. When you are seen by us, you can be rest assured that we have your best interest at heart and truly want you to feel better. We are meant to thrive, not just survive!
Until next time. Be well!
The Shore Integrative Health Team
We’d love to be a part of your wellness journey!
Written by Virginia Conner, PA-C