Week of August 25: HEALTH BITE 

TREATING FUNCTIONALLY:

This week, I want to introduce you an approach to medicine that I'm passionate about:  It's called functional medicine, and to describe it, I'm going to use the graphic on the left.

It is one of my favorite graphics in medicine.
The branches are a reflection of how we treat patients now, and how fragmented patient care has become. Do you have acne? Oh, go see a dermatologist. Digestive issues? See the gastroenterologist. Something going in your heart? Oh I'll pass you on to the cardiologist. The problem is, these specialties often see you in terms of that organ system in isolation. But we're not just hearts, skin, or intestines are we?  No, we're a combo of all these and more. What if the skin problem is due to your digestion? Or the heart issue from something with your teeth? We need practitioners that see the bigger picture. Now look at the root of the tree on the graphic. Most signs and symptoms one experiences are a dysfunction of at least one of the roots: sleep, exercise, nutrition, stress, relationships, trauma, microbes, and environmental toxins. When was the last time your provider asked you how your relationships were? Or what kind of toxins you may have been recently exposed to?
If you or a loved one want feel like there must be something deeper to your medical condition than what what you've been told, or you would like to spend more time exploring the root of your medical conditions, I encourage you to find someone that has the time and skills that can treat you with a functional approach. After all, the "pill for the ill" approach is "branch" medicine and functional medicine is "root" medicine.

RESOURCE to find a functional practitioner: Click HERE