Why functional medicine might have not worked for you?
You might have already tried a functional medicine approach without good results. There have been several patients claiming to have consulted with a medical doctor specialized in functional medicine, spent a lot of money on expensive labs and treatment, and ended up back where they started. This would be something that would discourage anyone, especially if you’re living with a chronic condition that has not been targeted accurately with conventional medicine and the regular treatments are not doing anything for you.
There could be several reasons why you might have not gotten results. A Functional medicine approach has been used by several practitioners and their numbers have grown in the past several years, but it has also been accompanied by what happens on every industry. The commercialized use of labs, supplements and nutraceuticals have started to be used quite often. An example of this is would be when a potential patient would like to schedule an appointment with a health care provider that offers a functional medicine approach. They would have to sign up for a subscription or pay a package that includes a certain number of labs, visits, and maybe, a prebuilt treatment. That already takes away the effort of promoting an individualized approach. I do agree there has to be a minimum number of appointments to achieve progress with a patient, but not have to apply the same type of labs, limit a certain number of appointments, or start with the same treatment. This is one example of many I will be addressing, based on my experience, on what could have affected your last visit with a functional medicine provider.
· Not an actual individualized approach:
As I had mentioned before, many practices that offer functional medicine have standardized their way of practice by offering packages, subscriptions, and treatments. This model could work well for patients who are aiming to improve their health overall but not for someone who has been dealing with a more complicated condition and has already been through many doctors. These patients need mostly an approach that has a practitioner that will spend more time talking with them, asking the right questions on when their issues began and start building a timeline of what could have caused it. This is something that cannot fit into a package since you do not know how many visits you may need to address all problems. Also, the treatment might be different depending on the persons location, who they live with, economic status, type of job, accessibility for treatment etc. What would be recommended is to look for a provider that offers more hours of their time and not prebuilt treatment packages with limited visits.
· Might still need conventional treatment:
One attractive thought of trying a functional medicine approach is to have been given a different option when initially diagnosed with a condition. Sometimes, we were just given one or several prescribed medications, but our doctor did not provide more information on what we could have done to improve our health or did not direct us to someone that could guide us. There are now many ways for us to participate in our own treatment, learning what type of lifestyle changes can improve our overall health and even make a difference on how we deal with our day to day problems battling an unknown condition. Even though this is an option, it would still be no reason to leave our current treatment. There might be some occasions on where patients might need to take less of their medication but in order to suspend or change treatment altogether, it would always be recommended to do it with the knowledge and consent of your head doctor.
· Not removing first what is causing harm:
“Before you heal someone, ask him if he’s willing to give up the things that make him sick.”
Many patients begin their new treatment taking supplements and nutraceuticals without seeing results or still feeling the same. One important step in healing or getting better is to first identify what is causing harm to your body. This can be done with an extensive medical history and complementary labs. For example, a patient can have a chronic infection that can be treated first or, have a food intolerance that can be handled by assessing their current diet and provide guidance on what to eat instead and what to avoid. None of these would need a prebuilt treatment plan. There is no need to start taking a whole lot of supplements until you can start with the basics. This may take someone a few weeks, but it may take others a few months. And there is no need to rush into keeping count on how many appointments they have left or meeting a deadline. This should be the least of their worries and should focus on what is their own individual goal as they slowly start to feel better.
· Meeting someone else’s expectations:
When beginning your own journey of finding out what is causing your health problems, and when you start to treat them, you should always track your own improvements. Sometimes you might feel persuaded by having read a blog or a social media post of someone who was facing similar issues and they were able to resolve their problems 100%. Then, when trying this new approach, you felt you have not succeeded in the same way or expected a whole lot more. In these situations, we must understand that success is measured always individually. We as doctors can track improvement by measuring some lab values but what really counts is how an individual truly feels. There are some parameters that cannot be measured objectively, and we must rely on what a patient can tell us on how they feel day to day. Small changes that you can notice as improvements from how you felt initially are a big win. That is how you start, and then move towards your next step. Don’t be discouraged because you do not see results right away. “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”
· Procrastination:
We have all probably heard this word many times before but to put it in layman’s terms, it would be, delaying or postponing something. In this case, we are postponing trying to get better or improving our own health. For most of us it does not mean we are doing it intentionally but sometimes we prioritize other things or other people instead of our own health. We might feel that we have not gotten to that complicated area yet or that it does not bother us to the extent of starting our own treatment. We sometimes must be selfish and think about investing in ourselves. You may think that you will be missing out at the beginning but in the long run you will be receiving more as you are able to regain control of your life and experience so much more with a good quality life.
This would also apply when you have started an effective treatment but see no results immediately. You start seeing other methods on social media or on others, that claim to work faster or better and you decide to try those instead. This leaves you with a feeling of having constantly tried everything, but, you have not really started or accomplished much. Staying true to a method takes time and determination. Do not be discouraged by how long it takes but rather pay attention to the small improvements you start to notice.
Not looking at the environment that affects us
While it is important to make the necessary changes on what could be causing a problem on our environment, like mold toxicity, psychological stress at work and home or exposure to light before going to sleep. Sometimes there are other factors that could impact treatment and we do not take into consideration. Many treatment instructions are given and sometimes we forget the situation or the reality of a person and the difficulties they can face on trying to apply these to their daily routine. I will always recommend for a patient to seek the help of a health coach. They are agents of change and experts in human behavior, health, and motivation. They can assess a person’s current situation and provide them the tools and necessary changes needed for a successful treatment. Other patients might do well on their own, but everyone is different, and it is worth the effort to invest in this type of help.
Conclusion
We can conclude that many things can sometimes get in the way of us trying to achieve the goal of improving our health. The reason for this article was to merely provide an insight on what I have seen based on my personal experience and my thoughts on what has affected most of the patients I’ve treated. Most chronic conditions creep up on us and inadvertently start wearing us down. We have grown accustomed to mask our symptoms and look for temporary relief.
