Functional Medicine

Functional medicine is a different way of approaching both illness and health.

Conventional medicine focuses on diagnosing a disease, followed by prescribing a drug to either cure the disease or manage the associated symptoms.This is brilliantly effective in acute situations, but for developing or chronic health problems or areas where there is no diagnosis to be had, an evolution on this approach is needed.

Functional medicine is a science-based approach to health and healing that looks at the origins, the underlying causes, of the illness or symptoms. It is a comprehensive approach that emphasizes not just restoring health, but also prevention of disease in the first place.

The underlying premise of Functional Medicine, is that every person is biochemically unique, and each approach to treatment should be as individual as the person being treated.

We aim to “treat the person who has the disease, not the disease itself”.

• Functional Medicine constantly seeks to understand why?
• Why does this person have this illness or these symptoms?
• What is it about this person’s unique genetic make-up and their individual experiences during their life that have resulted in the health problems they are experiencing?

Traditional medicine tends to view the body as a series of compartmentalised organs or body parts. If you have a problem with your gut, you see a gastroenterologist, if you have a problem with your skin you see a dermatologist.

Functional Medicine looks at the person as a whole. Very often, for example, major problems with the skin are actually rooted in the gut. Problems in the gut may be coming from poor nerve activity in the brain.Examining and understanding how the different biological systems work, and how they all impact on each other allows us to intervene upstream, at the cause of the problem, rather than just trying to manage the symptoms.