Prior to diving head first into natural medicine, holistic health, and functional medicine, I 100% relied on westernized medicine. I think it’s important to share what made me step back and change my whole perspective and action course of how I choose to treat my Autoimmune diseases. But first let’s look at what functional medicine is.
Functional medicine
Functional medicine is a medical approach that focuses on finding the root causes of disease, sickness, or pain. It takes a holistic approach to healing the body. Functional medicine takes a patient-centered approach spending more time with patients. Taking genetics, environmental factors, lifestyle, etc into account. At the end of the article I will link great resources that go in depth about functional medicine.
Why did I choose functional medicine?
To start I grew up 100% immersed in the westernized medicine world. My mom worked in western health care my whole childhood. I only relied on western medicine up until the past years. I did no research myself and lived in constant fear for my health. I did not take an active role in my health whatsoever. I had no idea how to take an active role.
I want to pause and put a disclaimer. In no way do I think westernized medicine is bad. My mom was a nurse for decades. Westernized medicine is needed in certain situations. The definition of westernized medicine from NBCI is
“treat symptoms and diseases using drugs, radiation, or surgery.”
For broken bones, etc western medicine is needed. But when It comes to an Autoimmune disease there is no “Autoimmune Pill” that magically cures autoimmune diseases. Westernized medicines treatment plan manages symptoms via the use of pharmaceutical drugs. Which in my experience creates customers, not patients.
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Westernized medicine diagnoses and treats symptoms and that’s where it stops. It does not look into the root cause of autoimmune diseases like leaky gut, diet, lifestyle, stress, heavy metal toxicity, candida overgrowth, etc. Which have all been found to be potential root causes of autoimmune diseases.
Functional medicine on the other hand looks at your body as a whole. It’s biology-based and the focus of functional medicine is getting to the root cause of the issue. So there’s not a “one-size-fits-all” fix or “Autoimmune Pill” for each Autoimmune disease like in westernized medicine. (hehe leave a comment if you now understand our blog name!)
Once I was exposed to the difference between functional medicine and westernized medicine I never looked back.
The catalyst that pushed me to even look into a different type of medicine was one of the most eye-opening moments for me about westernized medicine. Months after being diagnosed with Lupus I had done every blood test in the book and would soon be diagnosed with another Autoimmune disease. I was only getting sicker and already on so many medications I had to get a bigger pill holder. I was scared to bring up new concerns or symptoms to my doctor because that meant multiple new prescriptions and blood work/ x-rays I couldn’t afford anymore.
But I still had only seen little improvements in my symptoms so my rheumatologist told me if the new prescription I had just been written wasn’t improving my symptoms. The treatment plan she recommended was CHEMO. She didn’t say chemo… It wasn’t until I got out to the car and researched the medicine she had told me about was a chemotherapy medication.
Then and there me and my mom were determined to find another way. Which sent us both down the rabbit hole of functional medicine. We spent hours that night after my doctors appointment researching. We didn’t stop until we found each piece of the puzzle that lead to my healing. This is when I realized there was more to my disease than popping pills, injections, and IV infusions.
We learned symptoms are the body’s language in which it communicates a deeper problem with you. It’s like when your check engine light comes on and instead of fixing the issue you pop a pill to turn the check engine light off. Now the light is turned off but the underlying problem is still festering and continuing to cause damage to your body organs. I knew I had to take an active role In my diseases. Which lead me to changing:
- diet (eating a Whole Foods anti-inflammatory diet). I avoid eating a western diet. Check out “Why I chose a paleo diet to heal my Autoimmune diseases”.
- managing my emotions (Learning emotional intelligence, and how to process my emotions in a healthy way) . Stress has been linked as a potential cause of Autoimmune diseases.1
- Focusing on living a clean lifestyle (non-toxic products. I pruned most of my household products, cleaning products, skin care products, etc)
- regular exercise
- getting on a sleep schedule
- Healing my leaky gut (Post linked at bottom of page that we have on leaky gut healing)
- regulating my nervous system
- taking an active role in my health (Taking responsibility for my personal choices; what I eat, things I give my time too, how I regulate my emotions, taking care of myself, etc)
During my research I came across a case study that claimed, “Environmental factors contribute to 70% of Autoimmune disease development. Of which diet accounts for a large portion”.2 I knew I had to at least give a functional medicine approach a try with all the research backing it.
After the night we spent researching I didn’t know everything I needed but the hope functional medicine and holistic healing gave me opened the door to a whole new lifestyle and view of healing. I began researching daily, reading all the material I could find, learning, becoming more aware, and ultimately taking full responsibility for my health and lifestyle.
I started tracking everything I did in my life on a sheet of paper. I tracked; diet, emotional state, element exposure,sleep schedule, symptoms, pain, etc. Keeping a medical binder was one of the best things I did in learning what my personal triggers are. Managing emotions and mandating a Whole Foods diet have been the biggest two players in my healing. I have now made free medical binder printables you can find in our Resource Library!
All the changes I made had NEVER been mentioned to me once at any western specialist doctor I had went too. After implementing all the lifestyle changes I noticed a 180 on my health. Not too long ago I was to weak to open a water bottle, stand up without getting dizzy, constantly living in pain, and couldn’t do any activity in my day to day life that wasn’t modified around my Autoimmune diseases. To getting back in the gym, picking up old hobbies, being able to hang out with friends, and untimely not live my life around my autoimmune diseases. I was slowly able to do things I hadn’t been able to in years and I had never felt better. Not to mention how clearly I began to think. My brain fog went 100% away simply from the lifestyle changes I had implemented.
I was going to start a CHEMOTHERAPY if I came back to my next visit with no improvement. And now I was back feeling healthier and stronger than ever before. I couldn’t believe the direction my health could have taken if I had no put the time, effort, and energy into digging dipper.
Taking a functional medicine approach to healing my Autoimmune disease is one of the hardest changes I’ve ever made. It opened a door I can never close that makes me question almost everything. From ingredients in the food on the shelf at a grocery store to beauty products in my makeup bag. It wasn’t just eating healthy, managing emotions, leading a healthier lifestyle, etc. It was learning to regulate my nervous system, switching to non-toxic living, understanding and processing uncomfortable emotions, cutting out all processed foods, having a new view on what eating “healthy” is, and ultimately changing my views of the world and myself.
I know that’s a pretty big claim but it’s true. Everything I once thought I knew like how to eat healthily, what to do when you’re sick, coping mechanisms, etc I knew nothing about. For example pre- going down the rabbit hole if I had any pain whatsoever I was popping a Tylenol…. Now I’m making a turmeric tea, applying CBD, and looking over what I’ve done and eaten that day to see if I find any connections. It’s not just popping a pill and waiting 30 minutes anymore. Functional medicine requires more personal responsibility and accountability than I would have ever imagined.
I will say I was more than skeptical about “root cause” healing but anything sounded better than chemo and monoclonal antibody infusions to me. One goal I had in mind when deciding to write this post was to shed light on the scary and uncomfortable part of using root-cause healing methods. Which is losing your safety blanket per se. I could no longer use my “coping” mechanism which for me was food. I had to face big emotions and learn how to process them for the first time in my life.
I want to do a more in-depth blog post about everything I changed within my lifestyle and get down to all the nitty gritty personal aspects but today’s post is *supposed to be* focused on what made me choose a functional medicine approach. So let’s get back to that!
After watching my mom pick up extra hours, miss out on things, and barely scrape enough together for my medical bills that were racking up. All the medications I was taking came with a long list of side effects and I wasn’t getting better. I was only getting sicker. Not to mention the whole CHEMO thing. I was pretty much done with the westernized medicine approach I had been taking. Healing my gut , regulating my emotions, and getting my lifestyle and health together was not the ideal lifestyle I wanted. I was so rooted in living in comfort.
Either way, my decision to turn away from westernized medicine when healing my Autoimmune disease ultimately stemmed from not being able to continue afford constant medical bills, my health continually getting worse, and not wanting to start chemo.
I am so passionate about holistic/ functional medicine because it gave me my life back. I was unable to open a water bottle, stand up at a normal speed without passing out, unable to participate in activities all my peers were, etc. I spent most of my days on the couch because that’s all I could physically do. I missed every holiday and family get together for two and a half years because I was so sick. Now not only do I have my life back but I am physically, mentally, and emotionally healthier than I ever have been.
I will be doing a more in-depth post soon regarding all the little topics of what I have changed to heal my Autoimmune disease. If we got into gut health, emotional regulation, non-toxic living, etc we would be here all week.
In the meantime check out these posts we have on gut health and natural remedies to dip your toes in the water of alternative medicine. Click here to check out my amazon store front where I have all of my favorite books I used to learn how to heal my body.
“Natural Remedies for inflammation”
“4 Natural remedies for joint inflammation”
“Gut health and the link to Autoimmune disease”
citations:
- Stojanovich L, Marisavljevich D. Stress as a trigger of autoimmune disease. Autoimmun Rev. 2008 Jan;7(3):209-13. doi: 10.1016/j.autrev.2007.11.007. Epub 2007 Nov 29. PMID: 18190880.
- Leech, Bradley & McEwen, Bradley & Sekyere, Eric. (2020). Diet, Digestive Health, and Autoimmunity: The Foundations to an Autoimmune Disease Food Pyramid—Part 1. Alternative and Complementary Therapies. 26. 112-118. 10.1089/act.2020.29278.ble.
