Many of you have no idea what functional medicine is. You are EXACTLY who needs to read this article!

First, allow me to ask you a few questions: Have you started to notice that despite your best efforts to do the right things, eat right, exercise more, etc., you don’t feel like you used to? Do you often feel fatigued? And people just tell you to sleep more? Do you gain weight more easily and people tell you to eat better? Do you think it could be more than just a lack of sleep or some carb heavy foods?

It probably is! And you need to learn more about how to get over it and feel younger!

There is clearly a need for a conventionally trained specialist in an emergency situation or in certain acute scenarios. If you have an acute issue, they usually are your first line of defense. But common symptoms like weight gain, brain fog, fatigue and more complicated chronic diseases like diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, historically haven’t responded well to conventional medicine. The reason is that while conventional model is great for acute conditions, it doesn’t manage chronic conditions nearly as well. And worse still, the U.S. health care model is set up to treat chronic conditions with an acute condition model. Where conventional medicine looks at one condition, one cause, functional medicine realizes that one condition has many causes, and one cause has many conditions. Complicated conditions can’t be treated simply by taking a pill.

Blood pressure is a GREAT example. If you present to a conventional medical doctor with blood pressure issues, they will give you a pill to treat the blood pressure. Functional medicine doctors look at it differently. They realize that blood pressure issues are always the result of several chronic conditions such as chronic inflammation, hormonal imbalances, gut problems and nutritional deficiencies. If you can correct these issues, not only  will you help the blood pressure issues, but also you will correct the other wide range of issues that originate from these chronic problems.

Dr. Denia Tapscott is our new, in-house functional medicine doctor. She completed her medical training at Georgetown University and was a primary care physician for over 15 years. Dr. Tapscott is also a cancer survivor, and if you meet her, you would have no idea about what she had to overcome. She isn’t just a functional medicine provider; she is a living example of how powerful functional medicine can be.

We tend to refer our “tricky patients” to Dr. Tapscott, and when I say tricky, I may be talking about you. I have already mentioned cardiovascular disease — that includes heart disease or a history of strokes; brain fog including Alzheimer’s disease; weight loss; joint pain and chronic muscular pain; chronic fatigue (or just being tired more than usual).

Functional medicine is also extremely effective for healthy people who just want to feel even better.

We are hosting an in office introductory seminar to functional medicine on February 20th at 6:30pm. And here is how strongly I feel about functional medicine — February 20th is my birthday and the best gift for me is to spend some time with people motivated to be healthier! I hope to see you then!

Learn more about functional medicine at Capitol Rehab of Arlington.