With the help of Functional Medicine, you will be able to reach and maintain your optimal health after receiving a personalised lifestyle prescription.
Dr. Shania Seeber specialises in Functional Medicine and uses complementary, alternative modalities in her practice. Her approach is to treat your health holistically, rather than considering individual symptoms in isolation. By finding the root causes of disease, she is able to treat from the inside out, thus allowing the body to heal itself and return to its naturally perfect working order.
Functional medicine is often mistaken as being simply lifestyle-based medicine, but it is a systems-oriented, science-based approach that involves taking a patient’s biochemistry, physiology, genetics, and environmental exposures into account when looking for the cause of a specific medical issue or set of symptoms. Most doctors aren’t trained to think about the underlying causes of disease, such as toxins, allergens, microbes, nutrition, and stress and this where the focus of functional medicine lies.
In essence, functional medicine is a move away from the drug-based model of fighting infectious diseases that worked so well in the 20th century to a systems-oriented, patient-focused model designed to reverse the chronic- disease epidemic. Today’s most prevalent health issues are mostly caused by the interactions between genetics, lifestyle choices, and environmental exposures, and treating them requires both understanding these interactions and designing appropriate treatments that are personalised to each individual.
The method is grounded in science, and when appropriate, practitioners also advise patients about nutrition, exercise, and reduction of toxic exposure.
Functional medicine practitioners such as Dr Shania Seeber, aim to assist people in achieving and maintaining their general wellbeing and in preventing diseases before they present themselves, as opposed to only treating diseases/ailments as they occur.
How is Functional Medicine Different?
Functional medicine involves understanding the origins, prevention, and treatment of complex, chronic disease.
Hallmarks of a functional medicine approach include:
- Patient-centred care. The focus of functional medicine is on patient-centred care, promoting health as a positive vitality, beyond just the absence of disease. By listening to the patient and learning his or her story, the practitioner brings the patient into the discovery process and tailors treatments that address the individual’s unique needs.
- An integrative, science-based healthcare approach. Functional medicine practitioners look “upstream” to consider the complex web of interactions in the patient’s history, physiology, and lifestyle that can lead to illness. The unique genetic makeup of each patient is considered, along with both internal (mind, body, and spirit) and external (physical and social environment) factors that affect total functioning.
Who Can Benefit from this approach?
Many people today have health problems that don’t fit into simple categories. Often people have complex health problems involving inflammatory responses, immune, nervous, digestive, energy, and/or cardiovascular systems. These people are best helped by a functional approach. Typical patients include people with: Chronic fatigue syndrome, auto-immune illness, fibromyalgia, fatigue of unknown origin, and digestive complaints. Often these people have been to many physicians without results.
Functional medicine is also for people who are interested in true preventive health care. They want to take an active role in their own well-being and that of their family. These people seek out Functional medicine practitioners to act as guides for their continued good health.
