By Dr. John Rees, DC, CFMP
Functional Medicine is the latest version of alternative medicine approaches. It is breaking away from traditional medical care in a variety of ways, but unlike other alternative approaches, it still has its basis in scientific research. It strives to constantly improve its delivery of health care so as to achieve the best and fastest results towards restoring health.
Traditional Medicine (TM) asks one basic question when evaluating a patient. That question is “WHAT”. What is wrong with the patient? The “what” Traditional Medicine is trying to classify is disease. TM uses a tremendous amount of resources in determining if the patient has one or more diseases. Expensive diagnostic imaging studies, laboratory procedures and diagnostic skills are utilized to determine if the patient has a disease. Once the disease is classified, and a diagnosis is made, the TM model then applies a remedy or a prescription (Rx). This prescription predominantly consists of drugs and surgery. The flow looks something like this.
Functional Medicine (FM) asks an additional question that is central to the essence of FM. Functional Medicine also starts out with the question of what is wrong. It seeks to understand, like Traditional Medicine, the diseases a given patient may or may not have. But, it then asks a different question that tragically is unique in its emphasis and often in its frequency in traditional medical care. That question is “WHY?” Why did the particular disease or condition show up in a given patient in the first place? Why is the patient’s body not recovering? Why has a machine that is designed to be self-replicating and self-healing lost the ability to do so? For you see, if the environment in which the person lives contains the source of their disease, treatment that doesn’t include removing or remedying the source can only manage a person’s disease or condition. It can never truly be cured.
Functional Medicine then directs its treatment (Rx) at not only helping the body fight the disease, but also at removing the why, the source of the disease from the patient’s environment. The FM flow would look like this.
I personally believe that disease starts in a human being from a combination of two reasons. There is something in a person’s environment that is poisoning them, or something vital for the human body to run correctly is missing. Of course, there are exceptions which are outside of the patient’s control. For example, trauma, injuries and/or a few genetic disorders that are not dependent on the environment to trigger their activation. But for the most part, this is what sets Functional Medicine apart from Traditional Medicine. We seek to know why. When you remove the poison from a person’s environment and restore essential elements that may be missing, the human body has truly amazing abilities to heal and return its state to one of optimal functioning.
Another vital difference is our definition of disease. Traditional Medicine’s operating definition of health is absence of disease or at times even well managed diseases. Functional Medicine’s definition is made using terms such as creativity, joy, energy, purpose, absence of pain, proper weight control, balance and resistance to disease. It is a definition of vitality and realized potential. It is a striving for living the life each of us is designed and created to live, not accepting anything less. It is the goal of a Functional Medicine practitioner, to help patient’s realize their personal potential and experience a sense of vitality, which they thought was long lost.
For further reading on this topic, I recommend the book, “The Disease Delusion” by Dr. Jeffrey Bland, one of the fathers of Functional Medicine.
In my next blog, we will take you inside a typical patient’s experience with Functional Medicine.
If you are struggling with your health, and feel frustrated with the care and support you are currently receiving, please contact us at Functional Chiropractic. (302) 684-1995.