Functional Medicine
Who is this for?
This is for those of you who have had health issues for years and while visits to doctor's offer some relief, the issue continues to resurface. This approach involves a comprehensive look at your current and past medical history along with an exam and comprehensive lab work. Once all of the information is gathered we become detectives and use patterns instead of single markers to find the systems that are dys-functioning. Once we know what is going awry we know where to begin.
What is Functional Medicine?
Functional Medicine is a different way of looking at medical history, lifestyle and evaluating lab work. Traditionally when doctors look at blood work, urine, stool, and saliva tests if you fall within the “normal” ranges, you get a green flag. If you fall in the pathological ranges, then you often get a medication to return your lab work to the “normal” range. While this all sounds good, there is a flaw in the system. You may be surprised to know that pathological ranges are simply the averages of all the people who have had blood work analyzed by that lab in the last year. This means the guidelines for diagnosing a condition are based on all the people who visited the lab, most of whom we can assume are in some degree of poor health to begin with. What’s worse, many of these folks are already taking some form of medication, which can skew their lab results even more.
What about that period between healthy and pathological? Is there a grey area? Yes, we call the grey area the functional range. Functional ranges assess risk for disease before it develops. For example, the functional range for fasting blood glucose is 85-100 mg/dL. The pathological range is 65-110 mg/dL. By using the functional range of many tests, we can often positively influence your risk of entering into the pathological range. The functional ranges have been determined over the years by health care professionals and researchers who embrace the principles of preventive medicine.
What are the fees?
While you may only spend a few hours with the doctor in the office, hours of research, review, and analysis are spent on your individual case. Fees therefore are not based solely on the amount of time you spend in the office, they include the behind-the-scenes work as well. To avoid any surprises, fees are standardized and available upon request. It is important to understand that Functional Medicine care is a cash service and will not be billed to insurance companies.
To best serve you, we have negotiated phenomenally low prices with several labs in order to provide you with the comprehensive lab tests needed. As these lab tests are an invaluable part of your care and assessment, the labs are not marked up*, our cost is passed on to you. Unfortunately we cannot rely on the insurance companies to run a panel comprehensive enough to supply us with the information needed.
* There is an 8% processing fee added to labs to handle expenses on our end.
What is the process?
When you decide this sounds like something you are interested in pursuing, please give us a call. We will fax or email you some paperwork to fill out and return at least 3 days prior to your appointment. If you have past lab work, please have that sent in a minimum of 3 days before your appointment date along with your questionnaires, which can be found on the Functional Medicine Forms page, and other paperwork. Once your information is sent in, it will be reviewed and analyzed before your visit. This gives the doctor a physiological picture of you to better guide your history.
Your initial visit will consist of an exam, a comprehensive history, review of your past lab work, and analysis of the questionnaires. Generally we need to run lab tests which will be discussed with you. No labs are done on premises. You will be given a requisition form to take to your nearest LabCorp location for a blood draw and/or urine sample. If you need to do a stool or saliva test, you will be given a kit and can do them at home. Lab reports take anywhere from 1-4 weeks to come back to the doctor at which time you will come in for a follow-up appointment.
The follow-up appointment will include review and analysis of your lab work and recommendation and instruction on the diet and supplementation program that will help correct the imbalances that were found in your physiology. As labs are not marked up, there is an interpretation fee for the lab work in addition to the office visit fee at this appointment.
After 2-3 weeks of your program it's important to run a follow-up set of labs. Generally fewer labs are needed to follow-up with your progress than to initially decide on the program. Labs along with questionnaires and your symptoms are used to monitor changes and progress. Your program will be tailored to your needs depending on how you progress.
What do you use to assist my body in making changes?
A diet and supplement program is put into place to help support the physiological pathways which are not functioning properly. As your body heals and begins working the way it was designed to your symptoms and risk factors tend to decrease and you usually feel great. The doctor's at Functional Health Chiropractic are Chiropractic Physicians and do NOT prescribe drugs or medication.
I feel pretty good but want to improve my health, will this help me?
Yes, especially if you are interested in an effective nutrition program. This is a great way to get a program that is not only targeting nutritional deficiencies, but also helps repair your physiology so your body functions like a well oiled machine.
Please call if you have further questions or to schedule your visit.
847-605-8835
This is for those of you who have had health issues for years and while visits to doctor's offer some relief, the issue continues to resurface. This approach involves a comprehensive look at your current and past medical history along with an exam and comprehensive lab work. Once all of the information is gathered we become detectives and use patterns instead of single markers to find the systems that are dys-functioning. Once we know what is going awry we know where to begin.
What is Functional Medicine?
Functional Medicine is a different way of looking at medical history, lifestyle and evaluating lab work. Traditionally when doctors look at blood work, urine, stool, and saliva tests if you fall within the “normal” ranges, you get a green flag. If you fall in the pathological ranges, then you often get a medication to return your lab work to the “normal” range. While this all sounds good, there is a flaw in the system. You may be surprised to know that pathological ranges are simply the averages of all the people who have had blood work analyzed by that lab in the last year. This means the guidelines for diagnosing a condition are based on all the people who visited the lab, most of whom we can assume are in some degree of poor health to begin with. What’s worse, many of these folks are already taking some form of medication, which can skew their lab results even more.
What about that period between healthy and pathological? Is there a grey area? Yes, we call the grey area the functional range. Functional ranges assess risk for disease before it develops. For example, the functional range for fasting blood glucose is 85-100 mg/dL. The pathological range is 65-110 mg/dL. By using the functional range of many tests, we can often positively influence your risk of entering into the pathological range. The functional ranges have been determined over the years by health care professionals and researchers who embrace the principles of preventive medicine.
What are the fees?
While you may only spend a few hours with the doctor in the office, hours of research, review, and analysis are spent on your individual case. Fees therefore are not based solely on the amount of time you spend in the office, they include the behind-the-scenes work as well. To avoid any surprises, fees are standardized and available upon request. It is important to understand that Functional Medicine care is a cash service and will not be billed to insurance companies.
To best serve you, we have negotiated phenomenally low prices with several labs in order to provide you with the comprehensive lab tests needed. As these lab tests are an invaluable part of your care and assessment, the labs are not marked up*, our cost is passed on to you. Unfortunately we cannot rely on the insurance companies to run a panel comprehensive enough to supply us with the information needed.
* There is an 8% processing fee added to labs to handle expenses on our end.
What is the process?
When you decide this sounds like something you are interested in pursuing, please give us a call. We will fax or email you some paperwork to fill out and return at least 3 days prior to your appointment. If you have past lab work, please have that sent in a minimum of 3 days before your appointment date along with your questionnaires, which can be found on the Functional Medicine Forms page, and other paperwork. Once your information is sent in, it will be reviewed and analyzed before your visit. This gives the doctor a physiological picture of you to better guide your history.
Your initial visit will consist of an exam, a comprehensive history, review of your past lab work, and analysis of the questionnaires. Generally we need to run lab tests which will be discussed with you. No labs are done on premises. You will be given a requisition form to take to your nearest LabCorp location for a blood draw and/or urine sample. If you need to do a stool or saliva test, you will be given a kit and can do them at home. Lab reports take anywhere from 1-4 weeks to come back to the doctor at which time you will come in for a follow-up appointment.
The follow-up appointment will include review and analysis of your lab work and recommendation and instruction on the diet and supplementation program that will help correct the imbalances that were found in your physiology. As labs are not marked up, there is an interpretation fee for the lab work in addition to the office visit fee at this appointment.
After 2-3 weeks of your program it's important to run a follow-up set of labs. Generally fewer labs are needed to follow-up with your progress than to initially decide on the program. Labs along with questionnaires and your symptoms are used to monitor changes and progress. Your program will be tailored to your needs depending on how you progress.
What do you use to assist my body in making changes?
A diet and supplement program is put into place to help support the physiological pathways which are not functioning properly. As your body heals and begins working the way it was designed to your symptoms and risk factors tend to decrease and you usually feel great. The doctor's at Functional Health Chiropractic are Chiropractic Physicians and do NOT prescribe drugs or medication.
I feel pretty good but want to improve my health, will this help me?
Yes, especially if you are interested in an effective nutrition program. This is a great way to get a program that is not only targeting nutritional deficiencies, but also helps repair your physiology so your body functions like a well oiled machine.
Please call if you have further questions or to schedule your visit.
847-605-8835