Functional Medicine

Dr. Hartman practices Functional Medicine which is the practice of determining where a particular person’s body is not functioning correctly leading to their symptoms or disease.  This is in contrast to traditional medicine which uses medications to cover up symptoms.  An example of this would be in a case of high cholesterol.  A traditional medicine approach is to give a statin drug to force down the cholesterol.  A functional medicine approach would be to correct the cause of high cholesterol such as a blood sugar control problem.

In functional medicine traditional evaluation methods such as blood, saliva and stool testing are used to determine the cause of the problem which is then corrected using nutritional, herbal, diet and lifestyle treatments.  This type of care works best for chronic disease and chronic health problems such as type II diabetes, thyroid problems, migraines, hormone symptoms including menopause, autoimmune disease, chronic digestive symptoms, chronic pain and difficult weight loss.

The advantage of this type of care is that we are correcting the cause of a problem rather than just covering up a symptom with a drug.  This also makes it a very safe type of health care with virtually no dangerous side-effects.  People who have conditions that respond to this type of care typically not only see relief from their symptoms but also gain energy, sleep better, lose weight and see their mood improve.

If you have a chronic disease or chronic health condition, please give the office a call and set up a free consultation with Dr. Hartman to find out if functional medicine may help you.