Functional medicine has been on the rise in the last decade, and for good reason. Maybe you have even heard of it, but aren’t quite sure what it entails. Well, functional medicine is a patient centered approach in which the root cause of disease is actively sought out then and addressed. It is commonly used to help treat cancer and chronic illness, although you don’t have to have these things to see a functional doctor. These physicians attend traditional medical school, but often take courses after this to be certified in things like nutrition or acupuncture. Unlike traditional doctors, functional medicine doctors use alternative treatments and look at your health history as a whole picture rather than solely focusing on the diagnosis.
Functional medicine is centered around lifestyle, genetics, and environment in finding the root causes of disease. During your first appointment the physician will gather information about all three of these areas. This includes things like diet, activity level, stressors, work life, family history, exposure to toxins, allergies, and past trauma. As patient centered care, appointments are often longer, but much more thorough. Functional medicine doctors also take your concerns and feedback into consideration when choosing the best treatment options. They will help you identify health goals, assess and potentially change diet, order lab testing that is necessary, and discuss follow up care. The use of this multidisciplinary approach results in more personalized care and often incorporates alternative treatments to address symptoms as well as root causes.
The goal of functional medicine is to combine science and practice. This is why the functional medicine model was created and centered around an individual approach addressing nutritional science, the biology of genomes, and genetics. It takes into practice using low-risk therapies (diet, herbal medicine etc.) to modify cellular systems in an aim to reverse disease. As this approach became more popular, it was made into a more systemized way. These new tools are the Functional Medicine Matrix, Timeline, and GOTOIT. The matrix is a form that consists of gathering the patient’s story including past triggering events and perpetrators. It also collects information about nutrition, sleep, exercise, stress, and relationships. It takes into consideration your mental, physical, and emotional physiology and function. The timeline helps the physician get the whole health picture by documenting current symptoms as well as traumatic events and a generalized timeline of their life. GOTOIT is an acronym that stands for “Gather, Organize, Tell, Order, Initiate, and Track.” This teaching tool helps practitioners complete the matrix and timeline by identifying unhealthy patterns, assessing the root cause of their problems, and proposing action.
Intrigued by functional medicine? It may be right for you if you have a chronic illness, want more personalized care, or are open to alternative medicines. Oftentimes in American health care the patients opinions and concerns are unfortunately often ignored or dismissed. It also is so refreshing to give a clear picture of your life’s events, stressors, sleep patterns, and nutrition and address them as a whole. Everything in your body starts on a cellular level, and approaching care this way is monumental in not only getting symptoms to subside, but addressing the root problem as well. This individualized multifaceted holistic approach to care benefits the patient in the long run and is what medical was meant to be. Check it out for yourself, and thank me later!
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