What is Functional Medicine?

Functional medicine uses scientifically-proven methods to address the root cause of a patient’s symptoms. It treats the patient as a whole instead of looking at symptoms in isolation.

When working with functional medicine we ask many questions about a patient’s symptoms e.g.:

  • Why did this happen?

  • When did this happen?

  • What are the factors that contributed to the diagnosis?

  • How can we bring the body back into balance?

We always look for what may have triggered the symptoms in the first place (e.g. a virus) and what may still be driving the symptoms (e.g. autoimmune reaction). We work on understanding the patient’s unique health profile e.g. genetics, biochemical imbalances, lifestyle and dietary triggers, toxic exposures, gut health, to name a few. It is a whole body approach looking to find what tipped the balance and how can we bring the body back into homeostasis.

Functional Medicine is a science-based approach to health and healing that looks at the body as an integrated system and follows some basic principles:

  1. Each individual being unique - Different genetics, different lifestyle and different environment

  2. It focusses on preventing disease and restoring health by looking at the person as a whole and not a series of individual parts - and looking at how these parts fit together and impact each other to establish the root cause and drivers.

  3. Looks to find the individuals ROOT CAUSE for the chronic conditions they are experiencing. Why do they have the symptoms that they do? What is triggering those symptoms and what keeps driving the condition?

  4. Once the triggers and drivers have been understood a treatment plan can be devised to disable them. Also looking at what the FUNDAMENTAL needs of the body are (nutrition, nutrients, mindfulness, movement) and giving it to the body.

  5. SUPPORT and EDUCATE  the individual to optimal health. By educating and understanding the process makes for good compliance to the plans and change as its EMPOWERING.

'Functional Medicine is medicine by cause, not by symptom. Practitioners don't treat disease. We treat your body’s ecosystem. We get rid of the bad stuff, put back in the good stuff, and because your body is an intelligent system - it does the rest' 

– Dr Mark Hyman MD

The tree diagram below illustrates the Functional Medicine approach and the areas that will be looked at during the consultation.

functional medicine tree.png

Any imbalances have to be addressed by looking at the roots of the tree and supporting it as it is the foundation of good health.

Every client plan is different. The dietary advise, supplements, lifestyle and testing suggestions will all depend on what you, as an individual requires.

My work uses cutting-edge laboratory testing to get the clues we need to target the right areas of health.

Here are some of the lab tests I regularly use:

Functional Blood Chemistry
This is blood testing looking for biochemical imbalances that we can rebalance with the right nutrients. It’s the foundation of the work I do.

Stool Testing
Up to 80% of the immune system is in the gut and looking at stool test gives us a window into what could be going on in the gut and what support would be most suitable. For some people it’s a pathogen, for others it’s having to build up the gut microbiome which may have been stripped from medications.

Cyrex Testing for Autoimmunity
This looks at what could be causing autoimmunity and is also predictive autoimmunity. This testing not only can pick up autoimmunity up to 10 years before symptoms appear but it shows different areas where your body has created an immune response to self.

DUTCH Testing
This looks at your hormones in detail, including how you are metabolising your hormones.

If you’d like to know more about how I use Functional Medicine to help restore the health of my clients, please book in a free call to discuss below.