What Can Functional Medicine Treat?
Functional medicine can be used to address dozens of health issues. Far too often, patients suffering from certain conditions who turn to conventional care are disappointed with the lack of progress or overall understanding of their particular situation. Our team of functional medicine practitioners at LifeSeasons Medical Clinic are prepared to provide a level of treatment and care you won’t be able to find anywhere else.
We’ll take a look at some of the most common health issues that functional medicine can treat below, but please contact our team if you have questions on any other conditions you’re struggling with.
Toxicity States
Whether you realize it or not, we are perpetually exposed to harmful chemicals, metals, and pathogens that can be severely damaging to our bodies. Environmental toxins, pesticides, viral and bacterial infections, heavy metals, and more can accumulate over time to create a toxic burden within many human bodies. While some levels of toxins are inevitable in our world, many people reach a point where they are no longer able to filter out excess levels of toxins.
In many cases, these high toxicity levels manifest in symptoms such as chronic fatigue, neuropathy, foggy brain dysregulation, migraines, gastrointestinal disorders, and more. Whereas conventional medicine will offer alleviation for those symptoms, it is rarely able to identify the toxins that caused the symptoms. By using specialized testing, we are able to identify certain toxins and help eliminate or remove the total toxic burden in the body.
Hormone Imbalance
Hormones affect our day-to-day lives more than you may realize, and because they are not something we can physically see, understanding how they interact with behavior, mood, and the body can be difficult. As part of our endocrine system, hormones help regulate metabolism, growth, development, sexual function, sleep, mood, and more.
However, common hormones such as thyroid, estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and cortisol fluctuate daily, and the change becomes more severe as we age. Because of that fluctuation, hormone imbalances can result in too much or too little of a certain hormone in the bloodstream. The results of these imbalances are seen in many symptoms, including:
- Irregular or painful periods
- Osteoporosis
- Breast tenderness
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Changes in sex drive
There are many more symptoms that can result from hormone imbalance, and by utilizing functional medicine to identify root causes of hormone imbalance, we can help eliminate common root causes like stress, poor sleep, and overexposure to toxins. We perform hormone testing to accurately assess your hormone levels and determine which of those root causes could be affecting them.
Weight Management
Now more than ever, obesity is an epidemic in our society. With constant reminders to eat food that is calorically dense and nutritiously poor, an increasing number of people struggle with weight management. From fast-food joints to foods loaded with artificial preservatives, eating unhealthy food has become the norm for many Americans. Paired with a decline in physical activity throughout the nation, many people are struggling to control their weight.
By examining an your lifestyle, environment, and nutritional choices, however, functional medicine can help you take control over your weight management. Healthy lifestyle practices, regular exercise routines, and nutrient-dense foods will all considerably impact overall health. Here at LifeSeasons Medical Clinic in Dallas, we can accurately assess your starting point using a state-of-the-art bioimpedance scale and implement a course of action that works well for you.
Type II Diabetes
If you have Type II Diabetes and are struggling to see the results you’ve worked for and desire, a functional medicine approach could allow you to accomplish your health goals. While many people look at the elevated blood sugar of type II diabetics as the cause for their syndrome, it’s actually a symptom of diabetes itself. Conventional medicine could result in medications that treat that symptom, but it doesn’t do enough to attack the root cause.
Using our functional medicine practices at LifeSeasons Medical Clinic, we can help you identify less renowned causes of the insulin resistance which leads to Type II Diabetes, including chronic stress, sleep deprivation, and microbiome health, all of which go along with poor diet. By addressing multiple potential causes, we are able to implement a plan that not only treats Type II Diabetes, but reverses it all together.
Arthritis
Osteoarthritis and Rheumatoid Arthritis affect millions of Americans every year, and more and more people are being diagnosed with the disease at an earlier age. Both forms of the syndrome cause pain and stiffness as tissue surrounding often-used joints becomes inflamed. When this happens, the synovial fluid inside the joint thickens, eliminating the slick and fluid movement between your joints.
Traditional medicine may mask that pain with pharmaceuticals, but identifying what really causes that inflammation and pain is key to successfully treating the syndrome. That’s where functional medicine comes into play. A functional approach to arthritis focuses not on the joints that are swollen, but on the immune system deficiency which causes that inflammation in the first place. Arthritis is a result of a mishap within the immune system that essentially causes the body to attack itself, and our approach to treatment can help identify that mishap and prevent it.