What is functional medicine and how is it different from conventional allopathic medicine?
Functional medicine is medicine that aims to find the root cause of diseases through
a systems biology approach.
So, in the view, to heal, to find the imbalances and to rectify them, to effect healing and
enhance.
Restoration of health and wellness.
In conventional medicine, the contrast are this, while functional medicine looks at the
root cause.
In conventional medicine, we are taught to start with the signs and symptoms and find
a diagnosis, fit them into a box called a diagnosis.
In functional medicine, we don't even need to know a label.
We want to know the imbalances.
We want to find the root causes, root cause versus symptom and a diagnosis.
The second difference is in functional medicine, we have a systems biology approach.
We want to look at the systems and the imbalances in the systems, and we know that the system
are not isolated.
These systems bodily systems are interconnected with circulation and innovation, such that
one affects the other.
They are in conversation with each other, whereas in conventional medicine it is peace
meal, as I said, is organ to organ rarely, or we don't see them as a whole.
That's why we have the specialties one that deals with the head, one that deals with the
heart and circulation, the different specialties neurologist gastroenterologist to endocrinologist
and having 15 minute consults.
And that leads me to the other difference.
In functional medicine, we take time to listen to the patient and to trace the story, the
timeline of the patient, how all this has developed.
So it takes time and minimum for the first timeline, a minimum of 30 minutes to 40 minutes.
It depends, and it can take hours.
Depends on how you structure contrast to five to 15 minutes consults for chronic diseases.
In functional medicine, we look the entirety, the whole holistic approach, the mind, the
body and the spirit, whereas in conventional medicine we look at the physical body alone.
So it's a big difference.
We are not just physical beings, we have a spirit, we have our minds, and these are big
influences.
In functional medicine, the end result is healing, restoration of the dysfunction in
the systems and in the body.
You aim for wellness.
So its aim is health and wellness creation, whereas in conventional medicine it is the
symptom control mostly, which leads me to the armaments.
The next difference is we still use the conventional medicine of Pharmaceuticals and surgery if
it's needed.
However, we have a lot more things in our toolkit.
We may employ herbs, herbal medicine, nutritional medicine, supplementation, meditation, massages,
acupuncture, Ayurvedic medicine we're open to so many things as long as they don't harm
us.
In conventional medicine, it's mostly a drug, a pharmaceutical, so it's a culture of a pill
for an ill.
In functional medicine, you forge a listening, emphatic relationship where you engage the
patient, you listen, there's a partnership you are not telling the patient what they
need to do.
You are facilitating them.
And it leads to a very personal connection in conventional medicine because it often
times it's commercial.
It is time based is five to 15 minutes, very, very short.
And that's not you can't, we can't, I can't decipher a chronic long standing.
You can't do this in functional medicine, and that limits it.
Actually, it speaks of the nature of conventional medicine, but it's very much what is this,
this and this, and oftentimes as well, we dictate or we are the experts and we tell
them what to do.
We want a change.
Conventional medicine is not coping.
It's not addressing the demands of the increasing incidents of chronic degenerative diseases
with its principle.
Just as we mentioned, it has to be this holistic, open mind systems approach and looking at
the root cost.
If I was to summarize in a visual way what functional medicine is, a conventional allopathic
medicine is, Let's look at a tree, a tree.
So we have the roots, we have the trunk and the branches and the fruits of the tree.
Functional medicine starts with the root cause down below upstream, they would say, whereas
in conventional medicine starts at the fruits, the signs and symptoms manifestations of the
disease.
If you deal with the root cause, which under the story of your life, your genes going upwards,
you will see that most of the symptoms here are generally coming back to one root cause.
If you dig in and address all these things down below or upstream state rather than downstream,
then when you address this, this becomes healthy.
All the signs and symptoms fall off rather than in conventional medicine.
We start with this.
If you're having a headache, bobbled pains or got abdominal pains, you have fever.
This is where we start and we put rushes and all the signs and symptoms.
Often times we look at this and we don't know what's causing it.
We don't even care about what is causing it.
We deal with this.
We give a pill for the headache, we give something for the tummy aches and don't go down here.
What are we doing?
We're just patching the symptoms.
It's a Band aid solution, and that's why they keep coming.
Symptoms pathology are not identified in that address.
So this is what you see in functional medicine.
We are upstream or down into the root cause, such that if we address the bottom problems,
then the manifested symptoms just fall off.
So allopathic medicine, conventional medicine that I have learned in school, we concentrate
on this, and so that's why they keep coming back, because we're not dealing with the root
cause.
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