One big question that you’ve probably asked your doctor is how functional medicine assess your health and address your health issues differently than conventional medicine? Two big words in the above question are functional medicine and conventional medicine. Worry not, as we will give you an insight of what the two terms mean as well as how they differ from each other.
What is functional medicine?
In 1990, a biochemist known as Jeffrey Bland created the concept of functional medicine. Several definitions of functional medicine have since been stated since the birth of the name. In one way or the other, other people couple functional medicine with holistic or integrative medicine.
Based on Institute for Functional medicine, functional medicine, such as Functional Thermography, addresses the cause of disease by using a system-oriented approach that identifies and fixes the imbalances in the body.
In functional medicine, practitioners and patients tend to work together to address the cause of disease through the evaluation of biological systems.
Since there are several definitions of functional medicine, functional medicine may look different depending on who’s using it. However, on a general note, it can be summed up by the following traits;
Characteristics of functional medicine
The primary concern in treating the cause of disease to promote healing rather than treating the symptoms to provide temporary relief. It is patient-centered instead of disease-centered as it aims at promoting health that goes beyond the absence of the disease. The health practitioner evaluates clinical imbalances within the body systems and identifies points that show a relation or the underlying cause of the dysfunction.
Changes in lifestyle are heavily emphasized in the treatment and prevention of chronic diseases.
There is a therapeutic partnership between the patient and practitioner which allows them to work together to achieve goals.
What is conventional medicine?
Conventional medicine basically identifies the symptoms experienced by a patient and then uses those symptoms to identify the disease and lastly come up with a treatment plan for treating the disease. The treatment plan often involves finding the appropriate pharmaceuticals that can reduce the symptoms.
The approach is outstanding for some conditions; however, at times it can miss out on the underlying cause of the disease. However, on the bright side, conventional medicine focusses on diagnosing, acute care, and treating trauma such as broken bones or heart attack.
Where conventional medicine is not up to the task
When it comes to treating chronic problems, conventional medicine seems not to be enough. The acute-care approach used by conventional medicine is not sufficient enough to deal with chronic diseases because it doesn’t consider a patient’s genetic makeup and lifestyle.
That simply means how you can treat a patient without identifying the ‘root cause’ of their problems. For instance, how can you treat exhaustion in someone’s body without knowing why that person is tired. That’s where conventional medicine comes in short.
How functional medicine differs from conventional medicine?
Before going to how they differ, functional medicine and conventional medicine are similar at some point. It’s because both are evidence-based, practiced by licensed medical professionals, employ advanced diagnostic tests, and may use prescribed medications.
For you to understand how functional medicine differs from conventional medicine, let’s take a look at the following example.
Let’s say a patient is suffering from an autoimmune condition like eczema. In the conventional approach, the physician will focus on the symptoms and look for proper medications to reduce the symptoms. In this case, the medication can be antihistamines to help in suppressing the inflammation.
On the other hand, a functional medicine physician will first investigate the root cause of the autoimmune condition. That is, he or she may look for triggers such as allergens or toxins that could be causing the condition. Of course, the functional medicine doctor will prescribe the antihistamine, but that would only be a temporary fix while the doctor is looking for the underlying cause.
Final thoughts
Both functional and conventional medicine is applied in the medical world due to their effectiveness in treating diseases. Fortunately, more and more physicians are learning about the importance of functional medicine and applying it in almost all treatments. Functional medicine is safe and promotes healing rather than masking up symptoms.
