“Health is not just the absence of disease, but a state of immense vitality.” -William Cole, DC, IFMCP
Why Functional Medicine?
I could both bore you and blow your mind with statistics on our society’s chronic disease epidemic. Just a look around at the number of people (perhaps you are one of them) that are suffering with chronic disease conditions such as depression, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, asthma, arthritis, gut issues, etc. is alarming. While it is easy to blame genetics, these aren’t conditions passed from one person to the other. Most are a result of a combination of our genes with ineffective choices, modern diet, lifestyle, and our environment.
People are living longer than they did in the past so we must ask what is the QUALITY of that life? The later years tend to be filled with preventable, or at the very least, minimized disease and suffering. Our mission is to help you thrive and optimize your health in the truest sense. We want you to live a long life of years filled with health and vitality.
What is Functional Medicine?
Functional Medicine is the future of healthcare. It promotes health, aims to prevent disease from occuring in the first place, and when it does, seeks to find and treat the underlying cause, for good.
It is health-oriented rather than disease-oriented. It looks to the root cause of a person’s symptoms or condition for healing rather than merely masking symptoms. Drugs/medications have a time and place, but basing our entire healthcare system on medications is not the answer; and, truth be told, it isn’t working. Medications have side-effects, are incredibly expensive, and often leave you without answers. When the underlying problem is not taken care of, other symptoms and conditions eventually develop and lead to more suffering and more expense. It is truly a vicious cycle and it impacts so many lives.
Functional Medicine is cost effective and informative. When you have the answer to ‘why’ you are suffering, you don’t need to spend the rest of your life (and paychecks) suppressing symptoms. When it comes to chronic disease, our current healthcare model has proven to be inefficient and often ineffective and Functional Medicine is providing results.
Through individually personalized, patient-centered care, Functional Medicine is not a cookie-cutter approach. It is comprehensive and inclusive and investigates diet, lifestyle and environment and how they interplay with the patient’s genetic makeup.
It is holistic in examining the body as a whole, physical, emotional being. We have been conditioned to think of our bodies as broken up units each needing separate care. It is time to step into viewing ourselves as whole.
Functional Medicine is integrative in the truest sense. It works from least invasive treatment to the most.
This journey begins with discussion. You are validated in your concerns and need to be heard and respected in your desires to be a bigger factor in your own healthcare. Based on your goals and desires, initial diet and lifestyle recommendations will be made. Lab work is ordered in order to provide objective markers, which leads to accurate diagnosis and specific treatment plans. Lab tests (and treatment/supplement recommendations) include the latest and most advanced techniques and products available. Referrals for prescription medications and/or surgery are not ruled out, but made only if necessary.
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Seeing such a need for this in practice and in our current healthcare system, I chose to personally invest, enrolling in the Kresser Institute’s highly recognized Functional Medicine Practitioner Training Program. I am grateful to offer these services to our local community and would be happy to start you on this journey.
Contact our office to schedule your initial consult or visit our Functional Health page to get more information about this service.