Functional Medicine

What is Functional Medicine?

As an integrative and functional medicine practitioner, I approach health very differently from the traditional medical model most people are familiar with.

Conventional (or allopathic) medicine excels at diagnosing disease and managing symptoms through medication and procedures. This is invaluable in acute illness, trauma, and emergencies. However, when it comes to chronic, lingering conditions—fatigue, autoimmune disease, inflammation, weight gain, digestive or hormonal problems—patients are often left with recurring symptoms, more pills, and few answers.

Functional Medicine seeks to change that.

Functional Medicine looks at the interconnectedness of your genetics, lifestyle, nutrition, stress exposure, sleep quality, toxins, emotional wellbeing, and medical history—and how these shape the function of every cell, tissue, and organ in your body.

Instead of asking,
“What symptoms do you have?” What name can I assign to these symptoms?
we ask,
“Why is the body not functioning properly—and what can we do to restore it?”

How Functional Medicine Differs from Traditional Medicine

Traditional medicine often focuses on:

Naming the disease
Matching the diagnosis with medication
Suppressing symptoms

Functional Medicine focuses on:

Identifying root causes
Correcting underlying dysfunctions
Restoring optimal physiology so the body can heal itself

It’s the difference between turning off the stove versus placing a lid on a boiling pot.
It’s treating the fire—not clearing the smoke.

Functional Medicine in Practice

We investigate what is driving your symptoms:

nutritional deficiencies
chronic stress
harmful environmental exposures
food intolerances
gut imbalances
hidden infections
hormonal dysregulation

And we correct the imbalance by addressing the system, not just the symptom.

Two key questions guide us:

What do you need more of?
nutrients, sleep, movement, healthy relationships, connection, joy, sunlight, purpose
What do you need less of?
stress, toxins, inflammatory foods, allergens, alcohol, processed chemicals, unnecessary medications

When these are balanced, the body’s biology often begins to correct itself.

The ‘Healthy City’ Approach

I often describe the body like a city:

To rebuild health, we need:

strong infrastructure (healthy tissues and organs)
quality raw materials (nutrients and real food)
a reliable power plant (mitochondria)
healthy communication systems (hormones & nervous system)
waste removal (detox, lymphatic, bowel)
robust defenses (immune function)

Functional medicine addresses every layer that keeps this “city” alive and thriving.

We Treat People, Not Diagnoses

We want to know:

how you sleep
what you eat
your stress load
your childhood health history
your emotional and social support
what brings meaning into your life

Disease names tell us very little.

Your story tells us everything.

Conditions That Commonly Respond Well to a Functional Approach

Autoimmune illness (RA, Hashimoto’s, psoriasis, eczema)
Chronic fatigue, brain fog
Metabolic syndrome & Type 2 diabetes
Generalised muscle & joint pain
Recurrent minor illness
Adrenal dysfunction
Weight struggles & insulin resistance
Childhood allergies, asthma, eczema, learning concerns

We also now have affordable genetic SNP testing to help us understand your inherited susceptibilities—and how to reduce your risk of chronic disease such as Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.

Your genetics are not your destiny—your environment and habits determine how those genes express.

Why Functional Medicine Matters

Optimal health is not the absence of disease.

It is:

high energy
mental clarity
emotional resilience
a strong immune system
healthy weight
restorative sleep
vitality and joy

Building health is more empowering, more effective, and ultimately more economical than repeatedly treating illness after it develops.

Functional Medicine helps create a body that heals, restores, renews—and thrives.

Quick explanation of Functional Medicine