One of the most common questions or concerns I hear from prospective practice members during their initial consultation is, “Will this work for me”?
It may be the first time they’ve explored an alternative to the mainstream medical approach they are used to. Or, maybe they’ve tried more natural approaches to resolving their health challenges, like changing their diet, exercising, or taking vitamins, only to come up short. They may have even spent money working with a natural practitioner, still with limited results.
It’s certainly understandable that they would have trepidation about investing their time and money into another potential failure. It makes it easy to throw in the towel. The problem is that their health challenges are still deteriorating their quality of life.
For some it’s a having barely enough energy to do the things they have to, and none left for the things they’d like to do. Or the nagging weight that makes their cloths fit a little tighter and their confidence a little lighter. Or the pain associated with the multitude of inflammatory conditions that make everything harder. Whatever it is, people don’t really want to live like this. They feel defeated, and the last thing they need in one more failure.
I completely understand. In my early to mid-thirties, my health rapidly deteriorated. Beyond the laundry list of other symptoms, excruciating pain eroded every aspect of my life. So, I spent the next decade trying everything I could to improve my health. I spent tens of thousands of dollars on tried a lot of great things that just didn’t work. As you can imagine, after countless failures I just wanted to give up. In fact, at one point I began to have the conversation in my head – “what could I do from a wheelchair”, because that’s where I was headed.
But I didn’t give up and I found my way. It became my life’s purpose to help others do the same.
Back to the initial consultation…
After going through an individual’s heath history and formulating an understanding of their situation, I share the strategies, or game plan that helped me.
The first step is to get to the root causes. Some is derived through discussion of their health history. After you seen thousands of the same type cases, you start to be able to paint the picture easily. Beyond that, we need to have some kind of functional analysis. This can be achieved with through things like a thorough history, physical exam and/or labs. The important thing is that we’re going beyond the what and finding the underlying why.
This approach is typically called functional medicine. We use the term functional nutrition or functional wellness because it more accurately describes how we apply this methodology.
Next, we reset the digestive system. No matter what the chronic health challenge is, a properly functioning digestive system is key. The digestive system is responsible for breakdown and assimilation of nutrients, detoxification, hormone conversions and immune function to name a few.
Once we’ve put out some fires and reset digestion, we can rebuild the body using food and whole food nutritional supplements. These are literally the genuine building blocks of our body.
After that we can target nutrition to support the endocrine system which helps the body to balance its hormones.
Beyond that we educate and mentor our practice members so that they can become more empowered to protect their health long into the future.
When I ask potential practice members if they have completed all the pieces of this blueprint in the other things they have tried, the answer is always the same. “No”. Because chances are, if they had, they would not be sitting there talking to me. They’d already be better.
Circling back to the original question – will this work?
When someone goes through this process, it works 100% of the time. As I typically state, “If you follow this program, as we lay it out, there is no possibility that your health doesn’t improve.” It doesn’t mean that someone is cured, or that all their symptoms always resolve. Sometimes there are factors beyond what was discussed here, that may affect an individual’s health. However, if we go through this thorough process, it always improves health and a vast majority of the time it means a reduction or resolution of symptoms.
There may be, and typically are other ways which we can continue to build our health but, we must first have a good foundation to build upon.
