Functional Medicine FAQs

Functional medicine is a type of medicine that considers the whole person. It looks at the underlying causes of illness or disease, not just the symptoms. Functional medicine seeks to rebalance the body’s systems to restore health. Practitioners of functional medicine promote healthy lifestyles, instead of relying on drugs and surgery. It’s a model of care that evaluates your body as a whole and recognizes each system affects another system.

A functional medicine specialist is a medical professional who concentrates their care of patients on the diagnosis and treatment of the root causes of health problems, instead of focusing solely on symptoms. This type of medical profession can provide their patients with a variety of services such as: nutrition and diet consultation, stress management, specialty test and supplementation to help with nutrient deficiencies.

Functional medicine is a holistic approach to managing chronic illness. And in the past, if someone had chronic illness or disease, they would be given medications or procedures, which were focused on treating their symptoms. With functional medicine the focus is on the individual’s lifestyle and what factors have led to their health condition.

This means that functional medicine practitioners consider the person’s genes, environment, diet, nutrient deficiencies, emotional component and physical activity.

It’s important to understand the difference between functional medicine and conventional medicine.  Functional medicine is a natural proactive approach, either to keep you healthy or to handle the root cause of chronic health issues.  Conventional medicine is more of a reactive treatment and deals with symptoms.   When patients are struggling with chronic diseases they can choose a conventional approach, functional approach or blended approach.  Functional medicine believes chronic disease is the body’s reaction and warning that it needs help.

Many chronic and autoimmune diseases, such as thyroid, hashimoto’s, and irritable bowel syndrome can be treated using functional medicine.  Functional medicine is an approach to healthcare that focuses on identifying and treating the root causes of illness rather than masking symptoms. It emphasizes individual treatment methods, such as specific nutritional support, diet and lifestyle changes, evaluations of specialty testing, which are driving root cause of disease, supporting genes, and reduce inflammation.

Functional medicine helps greatly with chronic conditions because it considers pathophysiology that has driven this condition which looks at the contributing factors driving the disease.  Functional medicine is a methodical approach at addressing each root cause until the person’s health is regained.