Functional Medicine / Nutrition Counseling

What is functional Diagnostic Medicine?

Functional Diagnostic Medicine is called The Future of Medicine.

It is a great leap forward in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease, and a modern clinical approach where you, the patient, are at the center of all decisions. Clinical tests can be done at home using hair, urine, stool, blood spot, and saliva samples. These simple tests can identify quickly which micro nutrients might be most effective, what neurotransmitters, natural chemicals, and hormones or hormone receptors are lacking, and more. They eliminate the need for guesswork when it comes to getting started.

When was the last time you felt healthy? Not sure, then join hundreds of monthly readers and see why so many people report amazing health improvements even though they thought they were well!

Or consider this: How long have you wanted to change something about yourself? Lose a few pounds, gain a little energy, adjust to seasonal allergies without resorting to drugs, or get better sleep at night?

Poor eating habits, daily physical and emotional stress, environmental and chemical toxins, lack of exercise and proper sleep, all take a toll on your body’s natural defense mechanisms. Not to mention, there is the things you can’t control —-or didn’t control because you didn’t know about them.

If you haven’t completed the Metabolic Assessment Form yet, do so, It is designed to deliver answers and help you decide which steps you should be taking next.

Doctors like me make educated and intuitive decisions with the information you provide. We study the small signals that your body is emitting. These are tiny indications of overall function. For instance, those small bumps on the backs of your arms, do you know what those are really about? Or strong body odor? Unusually glassy, itchy eyes? Extreme fatigue after you eat? Nails that flake, splinter, or have ridges?

The Missed Diagnosis - Why doesn't my Endocrinologist Tell Me This?

Traditional health professionals typically interpret symptoms as indicators of a specific illness and use diagnostic assessments to identify or confirm that condition. You tell the doc about your shortness of breath, she checks your blood pressure, prescribes a medication, sends you for a cholesterol test, and then for a chest x-ray or MRI to rule out heart disease, and you come back six months later because of digestive issues AND anxiety, in addition to shortness of breath.

While perhaps validating a suspected disease process, this approach often fails to identify the real cause of the condition, especially in cases of chronic illness and degenerative disease. Most treatments based upon this approach tend to be heavily dependent upon pharmaceutical drugs. Many drugs have toxic side effects and cover up symptoms, making additional attempts at diagnosis even less reliable.

In contrast, physicians who practice functional diagnostic medicine are delighted to discover that many diseases have a real simple underlying cause which when found and corrected, can have a dramatic impact on the health of their patients.

A Wellness Approach

Based on the results of our more modern methods and non-invasive testing, we are able to develop a personalized specific Neuro-Metabolic treatment plan with protocols and goals for you. The first protocol is usually a combination of macro and micro changes to your diet, the second: some type of cellular detoxification or liver/kidney cleanse. The third is perhaps a series of corrections designed to alleviate stress. Whatever the stress is: migraines, allergies, stiff neck, sleeplessness.

Traditionally, researchers and physicians have explored one component of various physiological systems without looking at the complexity of the whole individual. The physician typically isolates the problem to be Neurological, Endocrine, Immune, or Digestive among others. Rarely, is there acknowledgement of the interplay between different systems and attention to consequences of environmental influence. As you can imagine, most diseases are rarely the result of a single physiological breakdown localized to a single organ or system.

Noted author and researcher Jeffrey Bland PHD explains; "Health care is an enterprise focused on the alleviation of human suffering caused by disease and dysfunction. Disease has its start as a functional impairment (a dysfunction) that, left untreated, becomes a diagnosable disease that later can become the cause of death." Interpretation: Each disease has a past, a present, and a future tied to the progressive loss of function and vitality.

As you may notice, a major challenge for healthcare is to move away from the band-aid pharmaceutical model toward a thorough understanding of physiological mechanisms that underlie disease rather than just sticking a label on late stage effects. Today, 78% of all health care expenditures are spent on chronic disease which physicians are not well equipped to deal with.

Basic principles of Functional Medicine Approach:

1. Biochemical /Nutritional Individuality: Everyone is unique and responds differently to environmental input.

2. Support a patient-centered rather than a disease-centered approach to treatment.

3. The search for a dynamic balance among the internal and external factors in a patient's body, mind and spirit.

4. Understanding interplay between different systems in the body.

5. Identification of health as a positive vitality, not merely the absence of disease.

6. Promotion of wellness and expanding years of health not just life.

NEW PATIENT SPECIAL!!
ONLY $89.00!!

Includes an exam, any necessary x-rays, report of findings, and 2 adjustments (Normally over $600.00)

Please call (925) 829-8484 to schedule your appointment!


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