What is Functional Medicine?

When it comes to addressing medical concerns some practitioners target individual body systems with the goal of helping the patient receive relief from symptoms manifested by these issues. Here at Freedom Functional Medicine, we believe in uncovering and addressing the underlying causes of chronic illnesses, focusing on the whole person and understanding the relationship between different parts of the body. This allows us to target the problem at the source and provide comprehensive solutions specifically tailored for you. So, what is functional medicine? Continue reading to learn more:

Functional Medicine

Functional medicine is a necessary approach to health care that focuses on identifying and then appropriately addressing the root causes of a disease. Functional medicine practitioners believe that a diagnosis can be a result of multiple different causes rather than just 1. Similarly, the same cause can be the reason for several different medical conditions.

For instance, depression can be caused by a number of factors like inflammation, a Vitamin D or Omega-3 deficiency or a low thyroid. Meanwhile, inflammation can cause a number of different diagnoses like depression, heart disease, diabetes and arthritis.

We understand that no 2 patients are the same, each reacting differently to individual treatments. That’s why we don’t believe in the cookie-cutter approach of many conventional medicine practitioners!

Causes of disease can manifest depending on a number of factors including individual gene expression, environmental factors and lifestyle choices. That makes it of utmost importance to provide treatments that address the correct concern in order to have a lasting impact beyond the suppression of pesky symptoms.

This individualized approach to disease causes allows Freedom Functional Medicine to use low-risk methods to modify different bodily systems to actually reverse what is causing your medical issues.

Functional vs. Conventional Medicine

Conventional medicine involves doctors for each part of your body: cardiologists for the heart, neurologists for the brain and nervous system and ophthalmologists for your eyes. It focuses on individual body systems, identifying symptoms in order to give a diagnosis and find the corresponding drug to prescribe.

Functional medicine focuses on the entire body, understanding that many medical conditions can be closely related with each part interconnected to the others in some shape or form. In order to treat one part of the body, functional medicine practitioners consider all other parts of the body. Functional medicine uncovers the underlying phenomena that occur across specialties (inflammation, oxidative stress, toxicities, cellular energy problems, etc.) in an effort to understand what is causing the disease and what individualized treatments are appropriate to reverse course.

In functional medicine, the focus is placed on the patient, offering holistic, cost effective treatments that address underlying causes often ignored in conventional medicine. While conventional medicine believes in early detection of disease, functional medicine offers a preventive approach to address potential issues before they ever develop.

Functional medicine is a comprehensive approach that places your well-being first by addressing the body as a whole to discover the true causes of your medical concerns! Are you ready to see how functional medicine can help improve your health? Schedule a consultation with us today to learn more!