Functional Medicine Takes Its Place In Society
Western Medicine Failing?
Western Medicine, also called conventional medicine or traditional medicine, has made giant strides to help patients with a limitless list of diagnoses, pain, and suffering. Western medicine has proven successful in treating patients. Nevertheless, with all the good that western medicine has shown people worldwide, conventional medicine, in many patients, is sorely lacking in targeting and focusing on the underlying health conditions causing the signs and symptoms of these underlying health issues.
Thus, underlying health conditions remain underlying, and they never go away. For the most part, western medicine targets the signs and symptoms of this endless array of diagnoses but, in many instances, fails to identify or correct underlying health issues. Unfortunately, when traditional medicine fails to find the root causes of symptoms, the patient, in desperation, turns their attention to alternative practices as a last resort.
Functional Medicine
A Functional Health Assessment as seen by one such provider, Trivida Functional Medicine Colorado, an alternative treatment option finds much success in identifying and treating underlying health conditions which traditional medicine failed to accomplish. Successful treatment means that the Functional Medicine professional identifies the underlying health issues and addresses these diagnoses. When the root cause is identified and treated there are fewer if any signs and symptoms left to plague the patient.
It has only been within the last twenty years that traditional medical doctors have embraced and taken the hand of alternative medicine to work together to improve the health and wellness of millions of people. Nutrition plays a significant part in the patient’s healing process. According to Harvard University, students studying to be a doctor learn little to nothing about nutrition. This lack of nutritional studies is seen in the referrals of patients to dietitians. Traditional doctors do not have either the time or the training to address nutrition for their patients.
Why Functional Health Approaches?
A Certified Functional Health Professional must address the foundation of the patient’s physical and mental health. This professional can do this with,
- An examination of the patient’s history and current lab testing
- An in-depth look at the patient’s nutritional plan
- An examination of mood health impacting stressors and balancing the patient’s mental and emotional health.
- An examination of thyroid, adrenal, and hormone levels and bringing these levels into balance.
- An examination of microbes in the patient’s body for the sole purpose of assessing friendly and unfriendly microbes
This professional takes the time to understand the patient’s health concerns while assessing and discovering the functional causes of these diagnoses. Only then can this professional demonstrate the appropriate treatment plan. In time, this professional can restructure the patient’s plan of care as needed.
What Can the Patient Expect from A Functional Practioner?
- Works with the patient’s primary doctors
- An initial health consultation that takes approximately 60-minutes
- A review of personal health history
- Performing a physical examination
- Explanation of diagnostic testing
- Education about the patient’s responsibility in the healing process and answer questions
- Structured individualized lifestyle changes, nutritional supplements, traditional medicines
- Explain the prognosis and the time it will take for healing.
- Follow-up for testing and evaluation. Follow-up appointments are determined according to the severity of symptoms and adherence to treatment plans.
Diagnosed or Undiagnosed the Functional Practioner Can Help Heighten Health and Wellness
It makes no difference if the patient’s primary doctor has found or not found an underlying cause for specific symptoms. The fact remains that many times the primary doctor finds no concrete reasons for the specific symptoms that plague the patient. Thus, the pathway towards wellness for the patient is not possible.
Unfortunately, due to the reliance on traditional healthcare by the populace, including prescribed medicines and treatments, alternative medicine for disease management is largely overlooked. However, functional medicine continues to gain the public embrace slowly due in part to referring primary care providers.
Those patients who do embrace Functional Practitioners worldwide, in collaboration with traditional health doctors, find that functional practitioners find underlying diagnoses not otherwise found and can remove the obstacles to possibly eliminating underlying diagnoses, so true healing can take place. As with all traditional or alternative medicine approaches, there are no guarantees for recovery from certain diagnoses.
