Before You Self-Diagnose, Read This

In conventional medicine, some diagnoses are accurate, but many are not exact, and this can lead to treating a condition incorrectly. Most diagnoses also focus on just one organ or body system. For example, with rheumatic arthritis, the conventional approach is mainly to treat the pain in joints. But in reality, diet and removing the pathogens are very important keys to addressing this problem.

In functional medicine, we treat the whole person, taking into account their preferences and lifestyle. The client is the most important, and they are the one who makes the final decisions. The idea of “doctor’s orders” does not exist in functional medicine. It is client-centered, and the doctor is there to support.

It is important to watch for signs and symptoms and to know when something is an emergency, such as a stroke, heart attack, or severe allergic reaction. For these situations, you need to go to the hospital right away.

Functional medicine is best for chronic illnesses. For chronic and acute illnesses, the key principle is to look at the signs and symptoms first, then use diagnostic tests for confirmation. Whatever the signs and symptoms are, most of them are caused by pathogens and toxicants. You can begin healing by changing your diet, because everything starts with gut health. Then you work on removing these pathogens and toxins, and replacing nutrient deficiencies through supplements, especially for chronic illnesses where the body is very deficient and cannot get enough nutrients from juicing or eating fruits and vegetables alone. In my experience, I did not heal just from eating good food. I recovered more fully by taking supplements, and once I improved, I slowly stopped taking them. This is what I did with my many years of dysmenorrhea.

In other words, know the signs and symptoms, understand whether it is an emergency or not, remove pathogens and toxins, start healing in the safest way through gut health, and then move on to more advanced approaches.