Is Functional Medicine Effective?
Is functional medicine effective?
To me, the answer seems pretty obvious. I wouldn’t be doing this job or be able to keep food on the table if it wasn’t extremely effective.
Something is deemed “effective” when it produces a result that you want.
What kind of results do you want?
In most cases, people choose functional medicine when they are looking to restore their health in the most natural way possible. Unfortunately, a lot of these patients have already hit rock bottom. They’ve seen all the specialists and tried “all the things” – and for some reason, functional medicine is their last resort.
So functional medicine CAN be effective, but we need to recognise the challenges that a functional medicine practitioner might face.
“If we are the patient’s last resort, then we are the ones responsible for a steep uphill climb starting from rock bottom. We also have to heal the chip on the patient’s shoulder, which (understandably) occurs from years of betrayal and dismissal from every other health care provider that’s gone before us.”
– Dr Kate Smith, DC CFMP
Despite these challenges, functional medicine STILL works and can achieve remarkable results with the right practitioner and the right patient. Healing is always a two-way street.
Let’s explore the question a bit deeper:
When someone asks if functional medicine is effective, there’s an element of disbelief threaded through the question. I think what they’re really asking is this:
“Is it possible to help my chronic illness or autoimmune disease, by ONLY using natural methods?”
The answer is yes.
The human body has an incredible ability to heal itself, without us doing anything. If you’ve ever cut your finger, you’ll know this for a fact. Your skin cells know exactly what they need to do to make new skin. Your immune system comes in to create just the right amount of inflammation and will help ward off any infection. Your vascular system works effortlessly to control excessive bleeding. 2 weeks later and hey presto – you wouldn’t even know you had a cut.
Our body has been programmed with a blueprint – the recipe to make new cells. Unfortunately, sometimes things happen in our life that interfere with this healing process. It might be a few ingredients that go missing, or there’s a page that’s been torn from the recipe book. That’s where we come in. We figure out what the body is lacking, and more importantly WHY.
Doubters, skeptics and cynics:
When something sounds too good to be true, there will always be doubters. To be perfectly honest with you, doubters just fuel our fire. If you’re a competitive person, you can use the doubters to drive you.
I love this quote by Ronald Reagan:
“Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things. …It is the understanding that allows us to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions.
It is the right to put forth an idea, scoffed at by the experts, and watch it catch fire among the people. It is the right to follow your dream, or stick to your conscience even if you’re the only one in a sea of doubters.”
How does this apply to functional medicine?
Functional medicine was born out of questioning the way things have always been done in traditional medicine. We recognise the shortcomings of the medical system. We know that dependency is the greatest form of control, and it’s not health care – it’s sick care.
Functional medicine is about optimising health. We go after WHY the body has become sick, instead of masking symptoms with a medicated band-aid. The idea that the body can heal itself, given the right environment and tools to do so, is of course going to be scoffed at by the folks running big business at the big pharm.
Functional medicine is catching fire amongst health practitioners and patients who know there must be a better way.
Here’s the good news!
Whenever there are doubters, you will always find believers.
Here’s just a few examples of people who have believed in our methods.
I’ll leave these at the door.
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