What is Functional Medicine and What is a Functional Nurse?

Functional medicine is root-cause medicine. This means that disease or dysfunction is all caused by something, and functional medicine has created a framework to help practitioners investigate a patient's history and symptoms to help determine the root cause of their health problems. It is all about restoring function to the body and recognizes that the body works together as a whole. It is science based and rooted in biology and physiology. It is not about quick fixes or a band-aid approach just to control the numbers or to mitigate the symptoms. It is about true healing and restoration of health. One of my favorite explanations for this is the thumbtack analagy. If you step on a tack, undoubtedly you will experience pain from this. You can take pain meds for this, you can ice the area, and all kinds of things you could do for this pain. But, until you REMOVE the tack, you are still going to be in pain and have problems right? Functional medicine is about removing the tack!

What I truly appreciate about functional medicine is most practitioners in this space started out in the conventional medicine model. Somewhere along the way, they discovered this side of medicine, whether it be their own health struggles or their curiousity for curing disease. They have the clinical expertise from the western medicine model, but felt the urge for something more when they were not getting the answers they had hoped for. We can all recognize the necessity of western medicine when it comes to urgent matters, but what it lacks is the ability to treat the cause of the problem. Western medicine or allopathic medicine is taught to treat with surgeries or medications. They are not taught to investigate and treat the root cause. After years of working with patients in western medicine, it can be so painful to witness the lack of support that patients receive sometimes. For a patient to be told they have high blood pressure, take this medication and follow up in 6 months or a year. Thats not helpful for our patients. That doesnt tell them how they got there and taking a medication with a list of side effects will not make their high blood pressure go away, but will only treat the numbers. As soon as they stop taking their medication, their high blood pressure will return. This is not fixing the problem. This is masking the problem. This is what we call the band-aid approach. Now I know your next question is going to be...then why is healthcare practicing this way? The answer is not simple. Unfortunately, there are many reasons for this that I will not be able to touch on today. This could be a novel. But, the simplest answer is because our system is broken. There is no easy fix to this. But this is why you will see many people leave the western or allopathic model and turn to functional medicine. The downside is it is cash pay and not paid for by insurance. The upside is you will find true healing, learn how to optimize your health, and have the support you need to get you there!

Now that you know more about Functional Medicine, let me explain why I call myself a Functional Nurse. As a Registered Nurse, I cannot diagnose and treat. I do not like to call myself a Functional Medicine Nurse because it can imply that I am practicing medicine by diagnosing and treating, which I am NOT. Functional medicine is about restoring function and optimizing health, and majority of this can be done with food and lifestyle factors. Nurses are a great addition to the functional framework because they educate and advocate for their patients. We can still assess patients and help to fill the gaps in their care with education and connecting the dots on their health problems. I can look at a patients history and their symptoms and have a pretty good idea of whats going on with them and help guide them to health by connecting those dots for them. The challenging part is change. Health problems do not occur overnight and they cannot go away overnight. It takes consistent lifestyle changes to heal and nurses are the perfect advocates to help hold your hand during these changes and hold you accountable to keep going.

I hope this helps to clear the air on some things you may have been curious about in functional medicine and why I am called a functional nurse! If you want to learn more about Functional Medicine, click here. Let me know if you have any questions about any of this or what I can do to help you! I offer free discovery calls if you are still curious about what I do in this space. Just click here!