For a doctor, it’s safe to say that healing is knowing what you’re looking for and then knowing what to do when you find it. It sounds simple but when medicine is locked into a pathological model of disease the choices are limited. Pharmacological medicine is often little more than ‘sick care’ — where there’s no incentive to improve the overall a patient’s health, but only manage their symptoms. Sometimes it feels like a truck has to hit you and be 10 miles down the road before anything shows up in your blood work. How we got here is a long story. Fortunately, there are good providers out there who will take the time to provide viable Functional and Integrative Medicine options to their patients. However, until the medical establishment broadens their treatment parameters, we’ll be left with a dysfunctional system of care dictated by insurance companies.

By contrast, both Functional and Integrative Medicine offer other options which align with evidence-based results. These approaches have grown out of early models of holistic and complementary medicine which incorporated other modalities such as nutrition, chiropractic and acupuncture. While both are similar, they also have differences. Integrative medicine looks at complementary modalities as well as lifestyle patterns such as diet and nutrition to help patients reach their goals. Functional medicine embraces many of these factors but is also rooted in understanding the primary cause of an illness. Each patient’s care plan is distinct and unique and the doctor-patient relationship becomes more of a partnership. And, similar to integrative medicine, functional medicine attempts to evolve the patient to a higher level of health, rather than just treat the disease. Too often, this is missed in conventional medicine because the traditional provider doesn’t always have the options available in the medical setting they’re working in.

It’s important to note that a patient’s signs and symptoms are not separate from the bodies in other biological systems. Disease arises when the body has run of energy reserves or Qi and can no longer manage the daily stress of the person’s lifestyle. The body’s structure and function are interrelated and it’s often necessary to go past the immediate symptoms, a concept we see frequently in chiropractic and acupuncture. The broader concept about your health is: what’s keeping your body from repairing itself?

Diet, digestion and detoxification are important aspects of health to keep inflammation down and improve the immune and endocrine systems. Through the use of oriental medicine, chiropractic, enzyme nutrition, Chiropractic Health and Acupuncture offers a comprehensive approach to chronic back pain and injuries.

 

For a free consultation with one of our doctors call us today at 585.586.7630 or complete our New Patient Survey to put yourself back on the road to health.