What is Functional Medicine?
Functional Medicine is a branch of healthcare that focuses on treating your body as the unique, individual person that you are. Your state of health is a combination of your genetics and all the inputs your body has experienced over your life--from the food you eat, to the medicines you have taken, to the natural environment where you live.
The traditional model of care by most physicians is to run tests, identify when certain metrics are outside of an acceptable range, and then prescribe medications to return those metrics to normal.
Functional medicine, on the other hand, considers alternative treatments before medications or invasive procedures. By understanding the root cause of your ailment, functional medicine practitioners fix the root cause of the problem, rather than mask the symptoms with prescriptions.
Functional medicine is the future of healthcare as we transition to a society focused on getting well and staying well. While traditional medicine is irreplaceable for many acute conditions and sickness, functional medicine provides the foundation of preventative health care.
What to Expect
The Utopia WellCare Method was created to help patients restore their bodies to their natural state and regain control of their lives.
The Program begins with your Initial Assessment Session where your goals and any concerns are discussed with your Dietitian. You can expect your conversation with your Dietitian to be very in-depth, as he or she gathers as much health information concerning your well-being. At the conclusion of your session, your Initial Comprehensive Assessment consultation will be made.
Here we will dive deep into your personal health history and analyze blood chemistry data and other applicable labs from a functional point of view. From there, we will design your personalized health plan to restore your body to its natural state, by including the proper foods, vitamin & mineral supplementation, physical activity regimen, and healthy lifestyle support to achieve a sustainable lifetime of health and wellness.
Depending on your current state, lifestyle goals, impending health concerns, and motivation your program can exceed 6 sessions with no extra cost to you if desired. Remember, this is just the start . . . this program is about setting you up for a lifetime of success!
Utopia WellCare’s Functional Approach to Wellness
Millions of people suffer from autoimmunity conditions, whether they know it or not. The root cause of most weight gain, brain and mood problems, and fatigue can take years – or even decades – for symptoms and a clear diagnosis to arise.
We use a virtual platform that enables you to easily document the unfolding phenomena that lead to ill health – a process that often occurs over many years, perhaps even a lifetime. It gives you and your practitioner the “Big Picture” so you can take the necessary steps to build back your health.
Our symptoms and our current state of health are an accumulation of actions, events, and environmental influences that have taken place over the course of our entire lives. Events in our distant past, even our childhood years, may provide clues to solving the puzzle and identifying the root cause. Even events that occurred at or before birth, influenced by your mother’s health years before you were born, may play a role.
Scientists are discovering that our genes and the way they are expressed are influenced by what our ancestors may have experienced several generations ago. In fact, this discovery has spawned a whole new scientific discipline – epigenetics – to understand how our nutrition, lifestyle, environment, and events in our daily life influence gene expression. Imagine that somehow last winter your small backyard garden had a spill of 10 gallons of gasoline, and you didn’t know about it. In the spring your seedlings do not take root and grow, leaving you wondering “What’s wrong with these seedlings?” That’s why a “Big Picture” history is so important.
Documenting the actions, events, and environmental influences that have occurred in your life allows for the construction of meaning and a “Big Picture” view of how your body got to where it is today. This opens up a conversation between you and your practitioner. LivingMatrix™ helps you and your practitioner work together, evaluate holistically, look for patterns, and find correlations/triggers/mediators.
Each of us has a unique history that accumulates over time and holds the clues that can contribute significantly to creating a personalized plan to get you back to the health you want.