I received my Doctorate in Chiropractic, which is rooted in a vitalist philosophy that the body can heal itself; you just need to help remove the impediments to healing. Chiropractic provided a solid foundation and dove tailed perfectly with functional medicine where I then spent most of my outside time during and after school studying and mastering it. Functional medicine focuses on the root underlying stressors of why someone maybe sick and focuses to help shift the body into a healing state.
Please don’t confuse functional medicine with allopathic medicine, which is what your typical medical doctor is skilled in. Allopathic medicine is using drugs and surgery to treat and manage a disease. With functional medicine, we are not treating any diseases, we are work on supporting the underlying physical, chemical and emotional stress that creates the environment for dis-ease to occur.
It was my own struggle with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis that led me to want to dig deep into how the body systems (hormones, gut and detoxification) connect to each other. With this knowledge, I could help others before dis-ease ravaged their bodies, before they ended up on life-long medications, before they had to have diseased organs or limbs cut from their bodies.
Yes, disease prevention isn’t glamorous, but despite this, getting to the root cause of what’s driving the disease so we can prevent suffering is my goal and the goal of functional medicine.
As a university student, I worked in the surgical field. Part of my job was to assist during surgeries especially during diabetic limb amputations. The surgeon would come in and tie off all the leg arteries, for example, and remove the leg. I would hold the amputated leg, wrap it up, and take it to the morgue. The leg would still be warm as I did my job. Hundreds of limbs have passed through my hands on the way to the morgue and it disturbed me, as I was confident this outcome could have been prevented.
