After years of trial and error, and frustration with the traditional health care system, I started moving over to more holistic and functional medicine practitioners.
I noticed the visits were longer, there were questions about my lifestyle, food choices, sleep schedule, and more. Rather than just treating symptoms, there were labs to explain WHY those issues existed.
When my thyroid was off, and I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, I wasn’t told to take thyroid medicine. We dug deeper and realized it was due to a toxic overload from living through a home renovation, and having a massive mold exposure. I just needed to detox, and my thyroid returned to its normal function.
Chasing symptoms, and putting bandaids on them (pharmaceuticals) is like playing Whack-a-mole. The drugs may help that one symptom, but then they create another, then over time, they don’t even work on the original symptom they were prescribed for. Pharmaceuticals always have diminishing returns, therefor simply don’t work long-term. People end up upping their dosage, and changing around to other drugs while the root cause is never addressed, and their bodies go further into dis-ease.
As a Functional Diagnostic Nutritionist, and Health Coach, I’m well versed in the latest tests, and ever-evolving strategies to obtain optimal health. Through my affiliations, I’m able to connect you with the latest testing and analysis for gut health, toxin loads, food sensitivities, hormones and more. After examining your results and learning more about your lifestyle and concerns, I’m able to offer an actionable plan involving nutritional suggestions and supplements to move you toward your goals. It can be intimidating to ask questions of your doctor, or bring new ideas to them. As a lawyer, I’m quite comfortable working as your advocate to make sure you have the best care.
We will look for hidden stressors, and check gut permeability, hormones, pathogens, environmental toxins, food sensitivities, and whatever else it takes to get to the ROOT cause. You could have 20 people in a room with similar symptoms, but all for different reasons, that’s why it’s so important not to treat the symptoms, but look for the actual cause.
I often get asked about different diet choices, whether it’s a fad diet (Keto), or a fad food (Kombucha), but without running labs there’s no way to know what’s right and for whom.
For example, take a look at this food sensitivity test:
This poor guy thought eating blueberries, pineapple, and grapefruit was part of a healthy diet, and for many people it is, but not him, not today.
And there’s more to it beyond this seemingly straight forward test. Each of those items has certain properties, and are indicators of how different systems and pathways in his body are, or are not functioning properly. In addition to removing the offenders, we would look at his supplements. Digestive Enzymes for example, can be highly beneficial to someone dealing with immune and digestive issues, but many contain bromelain (an enzyme in pineapple), and that would be detrimental to this particular person……….at this time.
Food sensitivities come and go, and change over time (as do our bodies) so periodically testing for a number of systems and issues is crucial. I’ve been vegan, paleo, keto, you name it – I’ve tried it. What I’ve come to realize is there’s no one way of eating that’s right for everyone. There’s also usually not just one way of eating that’s right for the same person during the span of their entire life. We change, our bodies change, and our nutritional requirements change.
This is all very exciting, and life changing information provided by functional medicine testing, however, most of it sadly is not covered by insurance.
To say it’s disheartening would be an understatement. I know many people who want to live a more holistic lifestyle, but they feel as though they can’t afford it.
Sick care is covered by insurance. This however is TRUE healthcare. My first choice is to have a client run as many labs as possible to get the big picture, but we can prioritize and start slowly as well.
So many people feel overwhelmed and discouraged by traditional medicine, but this holistic method of looking at individuals is highly effective, and usually greeted as a welcome change with actual results.
There’s no one magic bullet, rather definite changes in lifestyle and nutrition, with supplementation. It takes motivation and dedication, but it’s life-changing, and totally with it……and so are you!
I’m hopeful this will change overtime as we are starting to see Functional Medicine becoming more mainstream. Even The Cleveland Clinic has a Functional Medicine Department through the wonderful Dr. Mark Hyman. Although I’m not affiliated with The Cleveland Clinic, I’ve included this video to help you further understand what Functional Medicine is about.
The Cleveland Clinic Functional Medicine Department video