I’m currently in training to become a Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach.
You might be wondering, what makes this form of medicine “functional”?
Functional Medicine is concerned with the systemic causes of imbalance within ourselves. I love the metaphor that Dr. Sandi Scheinbaum, the CEO of the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy uses. With normal plumbing, everything’s flowing healthy and in balance. Sometimes, though, depending on what we take in from our environments or our nutritional choices, the water can get clogged. It can even turn brown if those pipes are not cleaned out properly (yep, the poop chute is where I’m going here, folks!). Water can overflow or be deficient on either side of the sink, and the pressure can be faulty like in my apartment. You get it.
Think about our intestinal system like an intricate and interconnected plumbing system. You know, I’m not a fan of mechanical and scientific metaphors for biological and organic things, but they do have their uses in context! So, this snake-like plumbing system is responsible for keeping all of the healthy bacteria around so that they don’t become detrimental. In the right environment, bacteria can thrive. Just like humans, though, bad bacteria can form from the wrong environment, and even from the SAME good bacteria in the original good ol’ days.
It’s not just related to the intestinal system. I’m sure you’ve heard about how everything in the body and brain is interconnected, right? (And I would say spirit, soul, and mind/psyche too). Basically, if there is any imbalance within the body, the rest can get out of whack rather quickly.
So what does conventional medicine do for complex chronic conditions?
It prescribes allopathic treatments and crisis care. Let’s say it’s not a crisis, but it’s a hardship you face with your health that you can’t figure out. You go to see a doctor, and they evaluate your symptoms through a narrow range of questioning that gets tighter and tighter in that time-limited window. When the time is through, they either conclude or they don’t with a diagnosis and usually a prescription to boot. It’s time to boot you out the door and maybe refer you for testing or bloodwork if you’re lucky.
Otherwise, off to the pharmacy you go to take those pills and synthetic chemicals that might help alleviate these symptoms, and yet they come at more than a financial cost. They can cause many harmful and negative side effects in regards to how the body functions. And here’s the kicker: they don’t solve your problem. They only cover it up, like a bandaid. As soon as you stop taking the pill, you might get the symptoms again — or those and even worse, withdrawal symptoms from the pills!
Functional Medicine is different
A Functional Medicine doctor tries to figure out what the root causes were of the systemic imbalance you now face. This can take a bit of time and money — labs, bloodwork, an extensive chronological historical report, and some complicated paperwork, but it can work. So let’s say that you didn’t realize you had a sensitivity to a lesser known food-allergen and with the help of a doctor, you discover this and you can stop eating those foods.
If only it were that simple, right? It’s more complicated than that, usually. But slowly and surely, those faucets can start to work properly again. Your cells can focus on optimization, repair, and healing once they are done fighting the inflammatory cascades and triggers that are prolonging (perpetuating) the imbalance you face. You might not think it’s an imbalance, but you have chronic phlegm, or unexplained rashes, fatigue, bloating, and bowel issues. You could have insomnia with a physiological cause, and the list goes on.
Conclusion?
Functional Medicine doctors do prescribe pharmaceuticals in some situations, but usually, they try to help the patient be able to heal from the inside out in whatever means possible. It might sound crazy in our western medicine saturated world of pharmaceuticals and expectations, but it has worked for many! The indigenous healing traditions around the world have also used many forms of natural healing for thousands of years. The question then becomes up to you: if given the choice, would you prefer to heal your conditions or mask the condition with pharmaceuticals and wait until they get ineffective before seeking another method?
I’m not a doctor, of course, but I would personally recommend and trust Functional Medicine to help much more with complex, chronic conditions compared to the allopathic bandaid method. Functional Neurology and nutrition has helped me quite a lot with my concussions, even if I have a ways to go. Granted, the bandaid method can work! And for some people, it’s needed because they’re in a crisis of care, or every other option feels inaccessible or unsustainable. It’s wonderful that we have choices in the world. And the more informed that we are about those choices we have, and the true and authentic consequences that they have, the better.