Both functional and conventional medicine are practiced by licensed medical professionals; both are evidence-based, employ advanced diagnostic tests, and use prescription medications.
Functional Medicine is a science-based approach that addresses the whole person, not just a suite of symptoms. This type of medicine aims to find and tackle the underlying causes of complex, chronic illness and/or hormonal imbalances in the body. It supports the normal healing mechanisms of the body rather than attacking disease directly. Functional medicine also examines the interactions between your genetics, lifestyle, and environmental factors that can all influence your long-term health and wellness.
Conventional medicine is a science-based approach that focuses on treating symptoms, and remedy is often aimed at turning off those symptoms. It is excellent at dealing with acute and urgent medical conditions, such as heart attacks, broken bones, physical trauma (health issues that are promptly diagnosed and treated quickly). When it comes to some chronic diseases (those where symptoms are recurring or ongoing), conventional medicine does not tend to address the root cause. Also, it focuses on managing illness once it has already taken place, usually by controlling symptoms with prescription medications.
When I was going through my pain disorder, none of the many physicians that I saw could tell me “why” I went from being an active person to someone who couldn’t get off the floor during my worst episodes. I knew that I needed to get to the root cause of my chronic pain to recover. Thank goodness I finally found the right professional that treated the imbalance in my body. This experience propelled me to founding my health coach practice and learning about functional medicine.
Am I opposed to conventional medicine? Absolutely not. It saved and extended my mom’s life as she has Multiple Myeloma. It has a place in helping people with acute and some chronic conditions. But, for me and others that want to get to the root cause of their chronic illness and fix imbalance to allow their bodies to heal—functional medicine is the way to go.
