Functional Medicine in Woburn, MA
Functional Medicine: Find and Treat the Root Cause of Your Symptoms
Often a functional medicine patient is one who has exhausted what conventional medicine has to offer.
They have seen five to six other doctors without finding an answer to their health issue. The missing puzzle piece is usually one of the following stressors: Immune challenges, heavy metals, foods, chemicals and environmental issues.
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A Biology-Based Approach
Functional Medicine is a biology-based approach that focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of disease. Functional Medicine does not treat symptoms but rather sees symptoms as one of many contributing factors to an individual’s illness or disease. The manifestation of each symptom depends on the individual’s genes, environment, and lifestyle.
Functional Medicine Tools
In Functional Medicine, we can use an array of tools to help us find the original cause of inflammation (for instance, gastric reflux). Lab testing, stool sampling, and Heart Rate Variability tests may be ordered. At Whole Health and Wellness Office, we often use Nutrition Response Testing (NRT). It is simple and lower-cost than other tests and can provide all the information we need to map out your treatment.
Long-Term Benefits of Functional Medicine
The treatments that address the right cause will have lasting long-term benefits beyond symptom suppression. Medicine that helps only the symptoms can have lasting negative consequences.
Example Problem:
A patient presents with chronic gastric reflux. The patient has been in pain for over five years and has been taking a proton pump inhibitor (i.e. Prilosec or Omeprazole) to alleviate their pain. They also were recently diagnosed with osteoporosis (bone thinning).
The medicine they took relieved the reflux pain. But it was not intended to be used indefinitely without consequences, one of which is bone thinning. The medicine is meant to be a band-aid for an eight to twelve-week period. So now we have a patient with two problems — chronic gastric reflux and bone thinning.
Example Alternative Solution:
Often times the inflammation (gastric reflux) patient has hypochlorhydria or a small intestinal bacterial or fungal overgrowth or a combination of sorts. The root cause is found, and a treatment plan is formed. This helps the patient truly heal and be symptom-free!
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