When you feel sick, what do you focus on? Getting better is really about eliminating undesirable symptoms, but what if there was a way to heal on a deeper level? Holistic, or whole-body medicine, is a part of functional medicine, which addresses every aspect of a person’s life to help them heal, thrive, and support their overall well-being.  

Functional medicine aims to uncover the reason for illness and injury, to develop personalized care plans, and help patients heal and prevent future disease from occuring. 

By adopting this approach to healthcare, patients can gain a deeper understanding of their bodies and address underlying factors that may be contributing to ongoing struggles with their health. 

What is Functional Medicine?

The Institute of Functional Medicine describes this type of care as an “individualized, patient-centered, science-based approach that empowers patients and practitioners to work together by addressing underlying causes of disease to promote optimal wellness.”  

Conventional medicine adopts a reductionist approach, which focuses on alleviating symptoms and finding ways to eliminate them as quickly as possible. Although this can be helpful and work well in many cases, it lacks the insight of a holistic approach. 

Functional medicine strives to understand the underlying cause of every symptom or illness. A functional medicine practitioner never sees a symptom on its own; they look at every possible underlying cause, any conditions that may have led to the symptom or developed as a result of it, and all the potential treatment options. 

Personalized care is at the heart of functional medicine. Conventional medicine, on the other hand, draws from a standardized set of practices that more or less gives every patient the same treatments after accounting for their individual health risks. 

This is not to say conventional wisdom is ineffective; it provides relief and recovery to millions of people around the world each year. But there are many who feel as though something is missing when they see a traditional doctor—they feel as though they’re being prescribed a generic treatment that does not support their entire recovery.  

Functional medicine takes a biology-first approach to healthcare. Rather than solely looking at a presenting illness, the practitioner looks closer at all the potential ways that condition can affect a person’s health, as well as all the potential causes.  

Factors such as genetics, lifestyle choices, medical history, and the environment are all taken into consideration during assessment, diagnosis, and treatment planning. 

How Does Functional Medicine Work?

The assessment process in functional medicine strives to understand the individual and their health, not merely address their symptoms. The practitioner starts off with an interview to learn more about your background. They will strive to understand your life from a functional standpoint, and see how illness may have emerged as well as how it is impacting you today.  

By learning about each patient’s background, a functional medicine practitioner can make better treatment plans that fit into each person’s lifestyle. 

The practitioner works with each patient to create a Functional Medicine Timeline, which helps them understand your life before symptoms, identify potential causes, and pinpoint any factors that may be sustaining it in the present.  

Often, functional medicine includes bloodwork to get a deeper look at a patient’s nutritional levels. Vitamin deficiencies, even in small quantities, can disrupt the body’s natural processes. By addressing any nutritional gaps, the practitioner can help patients heal more fully and eliminate risks, rather than just manage symptoms. 

Benefits of Functional Medicine 

There are many potential benefits to a functional medicinal approach, including: 

Improved overall health. Because functional medicine addresses your entire well-being, the results of treatment and care plans can be more comprehensive and lead to greater results. 

Greater prevention and treatment of chronic disease. Functional medicine addresses chronic disease from the cellular level. Rather than merely treating symptoms, a functional medicine practitioner seeks to understand where the disease came from, how it affects your body now, and eliminate risk factors you may have for future illness. 

Lower healthcare costs. With both a responsive and proactive approach to health and wellness, functional medicine can reduce illness, eliminate symptoms, and help patients lead healthier lives without the need for chronic medical care.

More patient education. Functional medicine dissolves the traditional role of a doctor as the sole medical authority and views the patient as an expert in their own lives; with a collaborative approach, the practitioner helps the patient better understand their health and bodies, so they can become greater advocates for their own medical needs. 

Functional Medicine vs. Conventional Medicine 

Both functional and conventional medicine use science-backed, clinically supported approaches to diagnose and treat their patients. The greatest difference lies in the method of treatment.  

Conventional medicine focuses on addressing symptoms and prescribing treatments to eliminate them. Diagnosis tends to only go so far as to confirm the current cause of symptoms without looking deeper at other factors, such as environmental triggers or genetics.  

It can be said that conventional medicine seeks to understand the disease, not the individual, and functional medicine takes the opposite approach. The person is seen first, and their life is used to shape the context of the illness and why it’s occurring. 

This deeply personal layer of care ultimately renders functional medicine more holistic than conventional medicine. It seeks to relieve pain while addressing underlying causes, reducing future risks, and supporting total mind-body wellness in the future, respective of each person’s needs, abilities, and conditions. 

Conclusion  

With an emphasis on understanding the individual’s life and medical history, functional medicine digs deeper to uncover the underlying causes of illness. It also helps support people in their recovery from both physical and mental health disorders by mapping out the cause-and-effect relationship between their symptoms and their body.  

By embracing the whole person, not just their illness, functional medicine can lead to more meaningful health outcomes that support your total wellbeing at every stage of life. 

To learn more about the difference between functional and conventional medicine, contact Holistic Health Code for a free consultation with an expert.