Functional medicine is an all-encompassing approach to medicine. Find out what it really looks like.
As we learn more about the human body and the many complex systems within it, we learn how everything works together. Functional medicine is a school of medicine that focuses primarily on these complex interactions and the ways that they can manifest in our bodies and minds. In this article, we will explore what the functional medicine process is.
Functional Medicine in a Nutshell
Functional medicine is a fairly new approach to medicine that is designed to treat common ailments. Like other approaches to medicine, it is all about improving, maintaining, and understanding health—but there are some areas where it differs. Let’s look at this process more closely.
Your Whole Health
The entire functional medicine process is built around the concept of whole health. This idea supports the belief that our whole health influences every aspect of our bodies. With this school of thought, it is common to focus on your entire body, not just one specific problem. However, we still focus on those problems—just in a broader way.
Exploring the Causes
Though the functional medicine process focuses on whole heath, it is also specific to conditions. With this approach to medicine, we look for root causes rather than treating the symptoms alone. The idea is that our health problems all have a specific cause—even one that we might not expect. Functional medicine looks at everything in order to determine where certain problems are coming from.
Looking for Relationships in Your Health
Every system in our bodies is connected, and this is important. It means that not everything that manifests is directly related to the impacted system. Sometimes, the actual cause comes from instances in other systems. Functional medicine explores these relationships to find the true cause rather than just focusing on the area that is impacted.
Treating the Cause, Not the Symptoms
A lot of modern medicine specifically focuses on symptoms. While symptoms can be troublesome and make us experience unpleasant effects, the fact is that they are also a warning sign. Though symptoms can be treated with medications in many cases, the functional medicine process focuses on treating the cause instead. The symptoms will still lessen or go away, but the need for ongoing treatment or constant medication use becomes unnecessary.
The Takeaway
Denver functional medicine practitioners are working hard to help their patients better understand their bodies. With this process, we can work to help you truly understand the cause of your symptoms and treat it at the source. Though medications and other common processes may be involved, the ultimate goal is to figure out why something is going wrong and fix it right where it starts. To learn more about how we can help you to better understand and improve your health, feel free to contact us today. In just one short appointment, we can help you to learn more about your body.
