How is Our Approach Unique?
Unlike traditional clinicians, we always focus on the root cause of illness isolating the key imbalance in your body that is responsible for virtually all the symptoms you are experiencing. This approach, also known as functional medicine, addresses the whole person rather than an isolated set of organs. We seek to give you long-term solutions for restoration of your health and vitality and not another “band-aid” to cover up the symptoms.
About Functional Medicine
Functional medicine is one of the newest branches of medicine that seeks to identify and address the root causes of disease. It views the body as one integrated system, not a collection of independent organs divided up by medical specialties. It treats the whole system, not just isolated symptoms.
Functional medicine addresses the underlying causes of disease engaging both patient and practitioner in a therapeutic partnership. It shifts the traditional disease-centered focus of medical practice to a more patient-centered approach. Functional medicine practitioners spend time with their patients, listening to their histories and looking at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease. In this way, functional medicine supports the unique expression of health and vitality for each individual.
Conventional Medicine vs. Functional Medicine
Looking at conventional medicine side-by-side with functional medicine gives you a clear sense of their differences and how they’re used today.
| CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE | FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE |
| Â Reactive: Focused on managing disease and treating symptoms, well after a disease has manifested. | Â Proactive: Focused on resolving the root cause of illness to reverse and prevent disease. |
| Â Palliative: Suppresses the symptoms; manage the disease. | Â Restorative: Restores proper function of the body to reverse disease, prevent illness, and promote optimum function. |
|  Disease-Centered: Treats the disease without giving attention to the bio-individuality of the patient. |  Patient-Centered: Treats the patient and modifies treatment for each individual’s personal needs. |
| Â Limited Options: Relies almost exclusively on pharmaceuticals and surgery, regardless of negative effects and risks. | Â Unlimited Options: Combines the best of conventional and natural medicine into an intelligent hybrid to provide unlimited treatment options. |
| Â Profit-Driven: Heavily influenced by parties with a vested interest, including pharmaceutical and insurance companies. | Â Evidence-Based: Based on the latest research and clinical observation. |
Conventional Medicine certainly has its place. It provides excellent emergency health care and life saving interventions. It is most appropriate for accidents and trauma like broken bones and severe illnesses which have not responded to proactive care. However, it’s designed to manage symptoms – not to restore health and maximize function.
While conventional Western medicine focuses on dealing with the symptoms of illness, Functional Medicine aims to understand its causes, and it uses that knowledge to treat the roots of chronic disease.
Addressing the root causes of chronic conditions often solves many problems at once. And therein lies the greatest value of Functional Medicine.