Conventional medicine got me a diagnosis. Here is what actually helped.
A few years ago, a rheumatologist looked at my swollen hands, my nail changes, my MRI full of inflamed tendons, and offered me one plan: a drug they originally gave to cancer patients.
For life.....with nasty side effects.
He wasnât wrong to offer it.
He was doing exactly what he was trained to do: match my symptom pattern to a diagnosis, then treat the diagnosis.
Thatâs conventional medicineâs job, and itâs genuinely essential especially for diagnosis itself, and for anything urgent.
But it only asks one question: what condition is this?
It doesnât really ask: why is this happening, and what else in the body is connected to it?
That second question is what sent me looking elsewhere.
What I found on the other side Functional medicine isnât a replacement for conventional care. I have had my fair share of surgeries and bad injefections conventional care is necessary.
Whatâs different is the lens.
A few of the actual differences, not in the abstract but in how it plays out:
Where it starts.
Conventional medicine starts at the diagnosis.....what condition matches this symptom pattern. Functional medicine starts at the person, whatâs happening across the whole system thatâs producing this pattern in the first place.
How it reads bloods.
Conventional medicine flags whatâs outside the reference range. If itâs not red, itâs not actioned.
Functional medicine looks at where a marker sits within the range, and how itâs moved over time. A result can be technically ânormalâ and still be telling you something, trending in a direction worth paying attention to, sitting at the edge of the range instead of the middle, or just not matching how you actually feel.
The goal.
Conventional medicine aims to manage or reduce the symptom. Functional medicine is looking for the root pattern driving it, even when that takes longer to uncover than a prescription would.
The timeline.
Conventional medicine is often faster to a plan itâs built for urgency and acute care.
Functional medicine is slower to start, because itâs mapping the whole picture before it moves. Thatâs a real tradeoff, not a hidden downside. Itâs why I donât think one should replace the other.
What actually changed things for me
Getting diagnosed didnât fix anything on its own. What actually shifted my symptoms was going deeper testing for what wasnât being tested, finding nasty gut bugs, SIBO and intestinal permability, micronutrient deficiencys and a jacked up nervous system ....nobody had gone looking for, and rebuilding from there.
then a 6 month intensive protocol, I stopped training crossfit style workouts the stress on my body had been too much. I was on well over $1000 of supplements a month, strict nutrition, no alcohol. I had horrible die off reactions from the antimicrobials I was on (this is where the "bad" bacteria essentially send a last hoorah before they die off, and systemic inflammation happens.
Anyways, getting to this point It wasnât fast, and it wasnât easy.
I did'nt give up looking for answers.
But it was the first time someone was asking why, instead of just what. Felt familiar because that's the lens we through as an osteopath.
Next time youâre told your bloods are ânormalâ and you still donât feel right: normal range and ânothingâs wrongâ arenât automatically the same thing.
That gap is worth asking about.
Digging into WHY is this happening.
If any of this brings up questions about your own results, or youâre just not sure which lens applies to what youâre going through reply to this email.
I read every one.
Talk soon,
Georgia
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