Medical professionals use various tests and procedures to diagnose and prescribe medications, procedures, or surgeries to treat problems.

The body is viewed as different organs that work separately, and there are doctors that specialize in each organ. Conventional medicine focuses on treating symptoms rather than identifying the root cause of the disease. Emergency medicine, diagnostic procedures, and surgical interventions are experiencing tremendous growth, but chronic disease management is failing overall. People are living longer, but they have a poor quality of life.

It starts with a detailed understanding of a person’s genetic, lifestyle, and biochemical makeup through in-depth history taking and questionnaires. Visits are usually longer due to the fact that practitioners have to dig deep into the past as to why, when, or how the symptoms have come about. Functional Medicine practitioners tend to do a lot of different types of functional laboratory tests and diagnostics to find the root cause of symptoms and treat the whole person and not just the disease. For example, comprehensive stool analysis, organic acid testing, nutritional evaluation, genetic SNP testing, heavy metal testing and different types of specialized testing may be used to find the true sickness, and treatments are personalized and individualized based on the patient’s background, lifestyle, and genetic factors. Practitioners empower patients to work on their diet, environmental toxins and uses labs as a motivator and diagnostic as it tries to get patients to optimal range and not just the “normal” lab range.