I’m currently building out the content on this page [and some others] and having trained in functional medicine myself as a patient who was not able to get practitioner or medical help, I will be covering this from a practical standpoint, all the stuff I wanted to know and still want to know for myself, my family, and my friends. But while I’m in the process of building out the content on this website right now, if you’d like something quickly then here are some pointers:

Functional Medicine Testing

1. Hop over to YMD www.yourmedicaldetective.com where you will be offered a free ebook on how to understand the blood tests yourself, it is written by Dr. Ron Grisanti, founder of an online functional medicine training and continuing education center.
2. There are a number of direct to consumer labs, they don’t require you to have a practitioner in order to access some tests…[don’t rush into it yet, clean up your basics or tests can be a waste of money!]
3. And you can also get your own genetic profile done up at www.23andme and then you need another company like Genetic Genie to process the data. The US government created the obstacle that means it now requires, two steps to get at your genetic SNPs. [don’t rush into this either yet as this isn’t really the most necessary step for testing for most people!]

HOWEVER – Work on the Solutions!

1. It is not always necessary to rush out and get a bunch of tests – a newly trained fmed practitioner may order up several thousand dollars worth of tests for you right in the door, but a more experienced one will know better and use the tests a lot more selectively, for specifics, and as markers of progress and treatment direction.
2. If you have the money to spare you may enjoy getting every test in the book and as often as possible, but some people [like myself] who have been ill for a long time cannot afford the tests at all – don’t stress out about that – because the old naturopaths used to heal people without any tests at all – the important thing is understanding the mechanisms of illness and THAT is where functional medicine really excels. If you really understand what is the underlying cause or mechanism behind your illness, then you are often armed with a way to proceed to correct it – and that can have many and varied solutions.

• Understand the mechanisms of illness
• Test where possible and necessary
• Use that data to apply natural healing protocols to your life OR as an addition to your own personal medical team [remember, I was beyond medical help so my condition is very much DIY, but YOU must personalize to your situation and use all the resources available to you]

Resources for Solutions

Some of the resources I’ve personally found helpful especially when I took a blend of them all into what worked for me are :www.herballegacy.com; www.herbshandshealing.com; Gerson Therapy; Ann Wigmore’s book. I have also found some amazing advice in the bonus lectures at Functional Medicine University, I am currently in the process of processing that information and distilling it down to what I can get to work for me – obviously if someone recommends a bunch of expensive supplements well cost alone is an issue, but I’ve also learned that natural when possible is often better than any neutraceutical.

No one of the resources above is ‘the gospel’, all of them have points I’d disagree strongly with, but without doubt all of these are the most powerful sources of healing I’ve discovered on the planet.

One of the best resources is David Christopher, this is an old video but not out of date!

 

Practitioners

If you’d like to train up in functional medicine testing officially, full certification online training with CME etc credits for every profession whether MD, DC, Herbalist, ND, etc, see my review of Functional Medicine University here [though notice enrollment is quarterly, every 3 months. And you can contact me on this site to get a $250 cashback voucher on tuition fees.]

more later!