What Is Functional Medicine?

Functional Medicine

Functional Medicine is an individualized approach that focuses on finding the root causes of illness rather than just masking symptoms with drugs. Practitioners specializing in this type of medicine believe that the body has an incredible ability to rebalance itself and restore health. A growing number of patients are turning to this type of care because they want true healthcare instead of the symptom suppression and quick fixes that are often offered by the mainstream medical community.

Unlike traditional allopathic doctors, functional practitioners focus on finding the root cause of their patients’ problems, which may include digestive issues, hormone imbalance, food allergies, inflammation and more. They also use a patient’s medical history to determine what types of lifestyle changes and diet interventions are needed to help their patients achieve optimal health.

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Practitioners of this type of medicine utilize a unique tool called the functional medicine Timeline to organize a patient’s past health history into a chronological timeline that helps identify patterns, enabling them to better understand what is driving their current condition. While all clinicians take a patient’s history, the functional medicine Timeline allows them to see these histories more clearly by highlighting relationships between events and exposing the impact that these have on the patient’s current condition.

Functional medicine doctors also use a variety of specialty labs to get a full picture of how the body is functioning. These labs may include blood, urine, saliva, breath and stool tests to help a practitioner assess how the body is working at the cellular level.



417 Integrative Medicine & Housecalls
1335 E Republic Rd D, Springfield, MO 65804, United States
Phone: +14173633900

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