What Is Functional Medicine?

Have you heard of the term functional medicine? Do you feel unsure if it is for you if you should be listening to friends or family when they make recommendations about it? Or do you simply want to learn more? All of those reasons are valid. That is why we are here to explain exactly what functional medicine is and talk to you about the many benefits of it. Keep reading to learn more.

Functional medicine is for people that are trying to address the root cause of what is going on with their bodies. With traditional medicine, the symptoms are in many cases simply covered up. That means that people take way more medication than they need to. They start taking higher doses and not figuring out with a trained professional what is really going on in their body. In many cases, if you work with a functional medicine doctor, they will work with you to figure out the causes which will help you to either minimize your medication or get off of it completely.

Although the route of functional medicine can be a little longer than grabbing a prescription, it also can end up being a lot healthier over time. Can you imagine what all of the medication is doing to your body? Many people end up getting side effects from the medication they are taking. This causes them to have to take other medications for that side effect. It ends up being a vicious cycle and it’s hard to know where it ends.

There can be more than one cause for a specific disease. For example, inflammation can cause a lot of various diagnoses from different doctors. Some of these can include depression. The cause may have been from something completely different like genes, environment, lifestyle, and so many others. Instead, a traditional doctor is only going to try and suppress the current symptoms the patient is having.

Functional medicine truly is a form of healthcare. It is different but one that works to both prevent and well treat the disease the patients are experiencing. It’s a new type of medicine and hopefully the future of medicine.

Many people look at traditional healthcare as managing the disease whereas they look at functional medicine as treating the disease. A functional medicine doctor does not want to suppress anything. They want you to get back to the way you used to live.

Research has shown that over half of all Americans are taking at least one prescription drug regularly. In fact, in a recent study, the group that was being interviewed, 70% of them took over 2 medications every single daily.

So, why does functional medicine actually work? Functional medicine can stop and actually reverse the symptoms and issues associated with chronic disease. When it comes to dealing with a functional medicine doctor, they look at your diet, your lifestyle, and your environment as a place to start to actually get to know more about you and what you need. This is because these areas of someone's life are the biggest factors when trying to figure out more about the person and what is happening in their body.

There are many amazing benefits of functional medicine. Here are a few of our favorites.

The first is that There is a much more caring approach. With traditional medicine, you typically are just a number. You are a patient to them. They are the ones getting paid for prescribing you specific pills sometimes and it is not actually in their best interest to completely heal you. That is why when you go the functional medicine route, you are being looked after.

The second is that the condition and disease are being healed. Not in every case, but in many more cases than general medicine. When you are working with a functional medicine expert, they are trying to get to the root of the problem instead of covering it up.

The third is that your overall health will improve. When you work from the core issue, it is like building a home. You are fixing the concrete and the foundation. If they have cracks in it, the entire roof will be off. If you are able to repair the foundation then everything will start working a lot better and may actually heal itself.

The fourth is that it can prevent issues from arising in the future. Like we said before, some prescription pills can end up causing other issues within the body. This means that because of those issues, you need to end up taking another prescription pill for it. It is a never-ending cycle. That is why if you are able to truly heal the first problem, you can stop the training effect from going through your body and even save yourself a lot of money.

The fifth and final benefit that we want to share is that it can become both your primary as well as specialty care that you are seeking. For general concerns, you can see a functional medicine doctor. For specific issues that you may be experiencing or ones that may not be quite as extreme and severe, you also are able to see this same doctor. You no longer need to jump around from doctor to doctor in order to get the answers you are looking for.

As you can see, functional medicine can truly help you. It can truly give you the results you are looking for. It can also do it in a very modern and healthy way. Research has proven that functional medicine really does work and it really will help you relieve aching joints, help you to lose weight, help you to have more energy, and help you to be an overall healthier person. What are you waiting for? We hope that you learned more about functional medicine and are excited about the possibilities it has for you.